SAN ANTONIO – If you drive down Roosevelt Avenue on San Antonio’s South Side, it’s hard to keep count of how many crosses mark traffic fatalities.
However, Cecilia Perez said she knows the number by heart between Loop 410 and Sava Street.
“Thirty-eight, just right here,” Perez said. “How many more until we get help?”
Perez is a lifelong neighbor, and she makes crosses for every person who has died in a crash along this road.
Neighbors tell KSAT speeding and missing safety features have turned their street into a deadly danger zone. That’s why they’re calling on the city and state for help.
“One is too many,” Olga Martinez, the president of the Villa Coronado Neighborhood Association, said. “This should not be happening.”
The most recent death came last week. On Dec. 3, San Antonio police said Josefina Villarreal, 63, was killed after she was hit and dragged by a vehicle about one block on Roosevelt Avenue.
Perez said Villarreal was a “lovely” person and called her a friend.
“All we want is a safe way to get out of our community, get into our community, and cross over Roosevelt,” Martinez said.
The Texas Department of Transportation is working on a Roosevelt Avenue project. Here’s what we know about the project:
- This project is from Loop 410 to Sava Street
- It will add medians, sidewalks, crosswalks and “pedestrian upgrades.”
- It will add a traffic signal at Sava Street
- The project is currently 64% complete
- The project is set to be finished in 2026
Martinez said she’s not sure how much longer her neighborhood can wait.
“We need them to finish the job that they started,” she said.
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