BEXAR COUNTY, Texas – Drivers said a sinking southwest Bexar County road is being caused by exposed manhole covers, and they said it is damaging their vehicles.
“It’s been a major issue in this neighborhood,” Kristen Parsons said. “Somebody just needs to take accountability and fix what’s obviously broken.”
The infrastructure issues are happening in the Canyon Crossing neighborhood, outside Loop 1604 and south of U.S. Highway 90.
The property owners’ association told KSAT it has been trying to get this fixed for two years, but is looking to the San Antonio Water System and Bexar County Public Works for help.
When he first moved to the development more than a decade ago, association president Jason Levi said it was basically new.
“I can remember moving in here in 2013, and you couldn’t get Domino’s Pizza delivered,” Levi said. “There’s always been structural issues, but they really started to present about two years ago.”
Exposed manhole covers and pipe problems are the neighborhood’s biggest concerns. There are nearly 900 homes in the Canyon Crossing community.
“We’ve been hearing more stories about other people whose cars have been damaged,” Parsons, the POA vice president, said. “My issue is that, if it looks this bad on the surface, what does it look like underneath?”
Neighbor Karen Almaraz said her family broke their transmission trying to get past one of the manholes.
“We couldn’t go around it,” she said. “Immediately, as soon as (my husband) hit it, when we got to the stop sign, I told him, ‘Wait, stop. I hear a noise.’”
Almaraz said the repairs cost her roughly $2,500.
She said she filed a claim with Bexar County, but has yet to hear back about how and if they’ll help pay the bill. She’s not the only one dealing with extra costs.
“My shocks are going out on my car,” Kevin Jones, another neighborhood resident, said. “It’s an extra bill. We are all out here working for a living. I ain’t trying to put extra money somewhere.”
Who’s responsible?
A SAWS spokesperson stated that the public utility first became aware of the issue in November 2023 and sent out an inspector.
The spokesperson said the inspector reviewed the manhole and found “the SAWS infrastructure was at level. The issue was a street failure and not a SAWS-caused issue.”
A county public works spokesperson said it is aware of concerns about “street settlement and sidewalk displacement.”
The county’s public works department has made “numerous requests over the years and made interim repairs to the street and sidewalks,” the spokesperson said.
Public works said it has been coordinating with SAWS when needed for certain kinds of maintenance related to the sewer manholes and other infrastructure.
The spokesperson also said public works has been communicating with neighbors about this problem regularly and has more sidewalk repairs scheduled for Fiscal Year 2026.
“We will continue to address spot pavement failures until a large-scale capital project is funded to completely reconstruct the streets in the subdivision,” that spokesperson said.
Neighbors, like Levi, worry that if something isn’t done soon, the problem is only going to get worse.
“I think a threat to property and to human life is a very real possibility,” Levi said. “We need solutions.”
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