featured in San Antonio Business Journal | Alamo Heights targets pedestrian improvements on Broadway

TBG San Antonio Principal and Co-Director of Urban Design + Planning, Samantha Whitney had the opportunity to sit down with Alamo Heights City Manager, Buddy Kuhn and the San Antonio Business Journal to discuss upcoming pedestrian improvements slated for this year.

From the San Antonio Business Journal…

City Manager Buddy Kuhn told the Business Journal the city is focusing on improving safety, defining intersections more clearly and beautifying both areas. He said the Ogden Lane intersection could be made more friendly to foot traffic, especially to those that patronize the two shopping centers on each side of Broadway to get to Merit Coffee, Bird Bakery and several retailers.

“It’s kind of a funky-shaped intersection there with a right turn and some stuff that creates a lot of confusion,” he said. “And there’s really not a crosswalk in that area that’s safe.”

Leading the project’s design is Samantha Whitney, TBG principal and co-director of Urban Design and Planning. She said the focus on Broadway is to create more walkability around the intersection and add some green space to match the level of foot traffic that the corridor gets.

“There’s no downtown square for Alamo Heights but there are specifically, along the Broadway corridor, several nodes and this is a big one,” she said in an interview. “It’s really about creating that sense of place and making it for the pedestrian. I would say it’s that planting palette, it’s the additional trees, it’s the safer crossings.”

The layout of Ogden Street itself could change at the Broadway connection point.

“So the goal is to have that meet at a 90-degree angle as much as possible, which could mean that there are areas that are given back to the sidewalk zone and landscape zone,” she said. “That’s not fully fleshed out in design. We’re just beginning.”

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