Notes From The South Padre Island 2nd Access Project public meeting on November 7th.

In the last meeting they asked for suggestions for proposed preliminary alternatives for the causeway access. Based on their decisions and the suggestions of the public, they came up with these alternatives below.

The general consensus was that it made the most sense to take the mainland access in at Center Line Rd. or Holly Beach. However, on the South Padre side there was not a good place to bring that access in my opinion.

Many of the suggestions were being proposed for residential areas which don't work well. When asked about the vacant land just adjacent & north of the convention center, they said that was a county park area. Makes much more sense to use that land than one that comes in any of the 3 residential areas they proposed. Even those to the north that are undeveloped now are subdivided and many of those lots are sold.

Their projected timeframe to study this, collect data, etc. etc. etc. was 3 more years. I met Richard Ridings who is a Vice Pres. of HNTB, an engineering & architectural firm that is involved in this project.

I asked him how long this is going to take and he said it depended on what we demand.

If there are enough people demanding that we need this bridge now for the safety & mobility of the people in South Padre, it could be built in 3 years and they could speed this process up considerably. And, you may not know that the causeway we have now is only supposed to last 15 more years. They have to study that too.


The reason I am telling you all of this is that we can all comment now until November 16th. You can email your comments to SPI2ndAccess@HNTB.com

For questions, you can call Mr. Pete Sepulveda, Jr., CCRMA coordinator, at 956-982-5414 or you can call Richard Ridings with HNTB at 512-691-2209.

We need more of a sense of urgency or this will go on forever. Also, we need to let them know that they can't bring that bridge in right next to the million dollar plus homes on South Padre.

What is wrong with using county park land which will not affect the residential communities of South Padre?

Gayle Hood, Alice Donahue Real Estate