SAN ANTONIO – Residents said a dramatic video of a motorcycle crashing and exploding into a ball of fire in front of children is just one of many crashes along Wooden Fox in west Bexar County.
All neighbors highlighted the need to add more safety assets to slow motorists, and they want the Bexar County Public Works Department to make it happen.
The motorcycle crash explosion happened Thursday afternoon at the intersection of Oakwood Crest and Wooden Fox.
The area is an unincorporated part of Bexar County and is not within the City of San Antonio’s limits.
That means any street or sidewalk concerns must be reported to the Bexar County Public Works Department.
Monica Ramos, the public information officer for Bexar County, said that to get things moving, residents need to make the first move.
“All folks need to do is just to pick up the phone and call us,” Ramos said. “There are no forms to fill out, no surveys, no fuss, no must.”
Ramos emphasized that when residents contact the department, they should be as specific as possible about their concerns, and if they have a video of the issue, they can share it.
Regarding concerns about speeding and other issues on Wooden Fox, Ramos said that public works records indicate the department has not been notified about them.
“They checked with all their service departments ... the ones that go out there and check and maintain these roadways,” Ramos said. “They have no calls or complaints of any kind for anything going in these areas.”
She explained that contacting the department can initiate a study.
“They’ll go ahead and gather all kinds of different information, accident reports,” Ramos said. ”They’ll go into all of those details, put all of their information together, then their engineers will take a look at all of that and then put forward their recommendations.”
Ramos reminded residents to keep in mind that the process does take time.
“We ask residents to just bear with us and have some patience because at the end of the day, if there’s something that we can do to make things safer, we will do everything we can,” she said.
Ramos said residents should not assume someone else has already filed a complaint.
“Please don’t assume that your fellow neighbors and other residents in the area have already made that phone call because they might not have already made that call,” Ramos said. “So, it’s OK if we get multiple calls.”
Ramos shared that, in light of KSAT’s report on issues along Wooden Fox, the Bexar County Public Works Department has already started looking into the concerns along that street to determine what needs to be done.
Residents living in unincorporated areas of Bexar County who happen to have a homeowner’s association or a community organization should tell their officers that they have contacted public works, according to Ramos.
Ramos said some HOAs and COAs actually have the authority under their guidelines and regulations to implement safety features, such as speed bumps or other traffic-calming devices, on their own.
For those county neighborhoods that do not have HOA’s or COA’s, she said that is taken into account when public works conducts its studies.
“It could be that there is some funding already available, maybe left over from a previous project, or if not, they can build it into the funding going into the next fiscal year,” Ramos said. “Just for the record, the next fiscal year starts Oct. 1 of this year.”
To file a complaint, residents are asked to call 210-335-6700, or visit the county website, bexar.org.
Read also: