Texas Department of Transportation held a come-and-go open house for residents and visitors to share their ideas on how to make Highway 361 safer, following three deaths on the road in a single week in August.
Boards around the room laid out potential options, including a center median, an extra lane, and more streetlights. Attendees also had the opportunity to write down their own suggestions.
TxDOT said it has received more than 150 comments since opening a public input line last month. One idea has emerged as the most common.
"More than 70 of the comments said, at a center median or a barrier," Rickey Dailey, TxDOT public information officer, said.
Pat Pinkston, who has been visiting the island for 56 years, agreed with that approach.
"I think the concrete barriers, center barrier median, should be installed, two lanes on each side, with shoulders, and warning lights, for signals to be put up by your beach entrance and access roads," Pinkston said.
Not everyone agreed on the same solution. Port Aransas resident Michelle Calman, who has lived there for 15 years, said she supports a fifth center turn lane with rumble strips on each side, but does not back a speed limit reduction.
"I do not believe the speed limit should be reduced to 50. I'm okay with it being 60, 65, as long as all those other things are in place," Calman said.
Corpus Christi resident Susan Horak, who previously worked in Port Aransas and drove Highway 361 daily, wrote down her own concerns at the event.
"When I'd be coming home at night, and the big pickup trucks, or the cars with the really bright headlights, coming in the opposite direction. Could be really rough on your eyes," Horak said.
Dailey said there is no timeline yet on any fix. TxDOT's plan to widen the 15-mile stretch is not expected to break ground before 2030. The current speed limit remains at 50 mph, and the Department of Public Safety has given no indication its increased patrols on the road are ending anytime soon.
For Calman, the open house was about more than what ultimately gets built.
"It makes you feel like you're at home, 'cause these people care about the community. Everybody here, that's here, wants something done because they care about the people who come here," Calman said.
TxDOT said it is weighing all of the suggestions submitted.
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