Happenings at the MPO Meeting Monday…
Commissioner Tommy Adkisson came to the rescue right out the gate at Monday’s meeting. He asked the Board to ponder the fact that its so heavily weighted toward appointed staffers versus elected officials (7 elected out of 19). Step by step, we’re going to change the composition of that Board! He also got Citizens to be Heard to be moved from the end of the meeting to the beginning as it used to be under Commissioner Lyle Larson. Thank you Commissioner Adkisson!
THEN…
Commissioner Lyle Larson to the rescue! Many of us have noticed a marked increase in the stop light times at Stone Oak, Evans, and Encino Rio lights on US 281 literally overnight (starting last week, notably after the lawsuit stopped the 281 project). TxDOT’s on the offensive and seemed to be causing even greater traffic jams at those lights with perhaps the eventual goal to get residents to scream FOR a toll road, anything to get out of their misery! Well, we’re on to them…the same commute at the same time of day was now taking 15-20 minutes longer EVERY DAY. A resident in Big Springs had already requested stats on the timing of the lights through a public information request to TxDOT and they said they don’t control the lights at Stone Oak, Evans, or Encino Rio. The City of San Antonio does.
At the MPO meeting, Larson demanded the City cough up the rationale for changing the timing and wanted an investigation done. They tried to put it off until next month’s MPO meeting, but then he said, “No, now!” and insisted on a report on his desk right away. They grabbed Christina De La Cruz in the Public Works Dept. out of the audience to explain this. She admitted they’ve been “tweaking” it recently! The response from Larson and all of us in the audience was clear, stop messing around with our lives and get this fixed. She later grabbed us in the hall and was on the phone to her staff and told us TxDOT turned in new traffic counts and they set the lights according to those counts. Yep, we knew TxDOT was in this mix! So, thanks to our hero Lyle Larson, we should be seeing some changes ASAP! Thank him here: Commissioner Larson’s email.