Some island neighbors are concerned about excessive traffic backups at the intersection of South Padre Island Drive (SPID) and Aquarius Street. This is the intersection with Starbucks just past the JFK Causeway. Drivers say this intersection sometimes has congestion stretching all the way to the H-E-B in Flour Bluff during peak times, such as summer weekends. Rita Corpus, who works at Padre Isles Hair Salon, has experienced the traffic problems firsthand.
"We are right off the Causeway, or the bridge, and it's the first business you see. In the summer months, there's tons of traffic. The traffic is horrible," Corpus said.
Corpus said that last weekend, traffic was backed up from the JFK Causeway all the way to the H-E-B in Flour Bluff.
"In the summer is more, people are going to Port Aransas, and you know, we need another route," Corpus said.
Neighborhood News Reporter Erin Holly took these traffic concerns to Corpus Christi City Hall to find out what solutions might be in the works. Corpus Christi City Council District 4 representative Kaylynn Paxson acknowledged the growing pains the area is experiencing.
"Right now, what we're experiencing is I believe the island, and specifically this issue that we're seeing right now with the traffic, is demonstrative of where we are in our phase of growth," Paxson said.
While Paxson says the second causeway to the island would be a long-term solution for this issue, the city is implementing immediate measures to address the congestion, such as setting the green light timer at that intersection to the maximum length.
"Right now, keeping that light at again, that's about four times the amount of allowable green light passage anywhere in the city, so they recognize that. They have maxed that out, because they see that it's congested. They see that this is a problem," Paxson said.
In addition to lengthening the green light duration at the intersection, the city is working on constructing two "paper streets" — streets that exist on blueprints but haven't been built yet.
"And we're going from Park Road 22 and Aquarius over to Park Road 22 and Commodores. So where it starts to go into 361, if you're to turn in that direction, there's a paper street there. I think that's going to alleviate some of that traffic as well," Paxson said.
The two paper streets, which are in the 30% design phase, are Sand Dollar Avenue and Crowsnest Avenue, which would provide more direct routes to the beach to potentially help disperse traffic congestion in the area right when drivers get onto Padre Island. The city's economic development department is currently working on securing funding to begin construction on these alternative "paper streets," or routes.
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