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Drivers in McAllen can expect less congestion along the city’s major arteries after a $3 million improvement project.
The city’s traffic department celebrated this week the completion of the 2018 bond project, which studied traffic patterns along the north and south, as well as east and west, corridors.
“The last time the city of McAllen made an investment on a traffic study of this magnitude was in spring of 2007,” said Marlen Garza, director of operations for the traffic department.
The former project, however, centered around 125 locations spread throughout the city.
“No corridors were selected,” Garza said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday. “It was kinda just to get an idea of what the intersection was doing and how we (could) make improvements by adding right turns, left turns — things of that nature.”
This time the study focused on major corridors, which needed improvement, according to responses McAllen residents gave the city in a 2015 survey.
So the city began studying traffic patterns after voters passed a bond to address those issues in 2018, but COVID-19 got in the way.
“It affected our traffic patterns as well, as people were working remotely, students weren’t going to school, churches were not in session, everything was stalled,” McAllen Assistant City Manager Michelle Rivera said. “And we didn’t want to have false traffic information, so it was only just recently that we were able to complete that study and make the necessary improvements to the timing of 155 traffic signals around town…”
And while traffic staff are still tweaking the timing of traffic signals, the improvements can already be seen.
“I live in Mission and I drive Pecan (Street) and it’s awesome,” Garza said.
The project also included the installation of 150 new traffic signal cabinets equipped with fiber or Wi-Fi communication.
