Around the Island By Dale Rankin The first La Posada Land Parade set off from Briscoe King Pavilion Monday night right on schedule and toured Island streets to great fanfare advanced by the clarion call of accompanying fire engines which led the posada. This is the first year for the parade and it was a good one. We include many photographs in this issue and are getting ready for the Big Event Friday and Saturday night. There is a lot going on Around The Island this week, here is some of it. Traffic light Preparations continue to place a traffic light at the SPID/Aquarius intersection. As of this writing the city’s Transportation Committee is expected to take up the issue at its December 22 meeting. Meanwhile, the number of traffic accidents along the SPID JFK Causeway has taken a shocking turn for the worse in the past few weeks. When a driver tried to pass on the shoulder on the causeway two weeks ago he hit a stalled car which resulted in a fiery crash which destroyed two cars; last weekend a high speed crash into a utility pole near the north end of the causeway killed the driver; a pedestrian crossing SPID just north of Commodores last weekend was hit by a van and when an on-duty officer with a prisoner onboard stopped to help his car was hit by another driver; there have also been three wrong-way drivers on SPID reported to us in recent weeks. Keep in mind this is a slow time of year for Island traffic. What is clear is that our Island is getting busy and traffic is increasing. What is becoming increasingly clear is that some type of traffic plan which covers the roadways from the Port Aransas ferries, down The Island, and the JFK Causeway is way overdue. Lack of attention won’t stop the traffic increase. Packery Channel monitoring adds Lake Padre and Island canals Area included in the study (Source: Corpus Christi Capital Programs) The Corpus Christi City Council this week approved a $510,000 contract to monitor Packery Channel for the next year. Study of the area around the channel began two years before it was actually opened in order to establish a baseline for beach conditions to be compared to the beach after the channel open. Since 2008 a total of $2.1 million has been spent to conduct three seasonal surveys of the channel. Money for the studies comes from Reinvestment Zone #2 which captures property tax on new construction inside the zone, which covers the area around the channel and the Schlitterbahn development, since the forming of the zone in 2003. What is different about this year is that it will be the first time the Island canal system and Lake Padre will be included in the study to establish a similar baseline for conditions in the channels and the lake prior to the anticipated opening of the Park Road 22/SPID Water Exchange Bridge which will connect Lake Padre to the existing canals via the waterway under the waterway under the bridge. (As a side note Lake Padre is no longer technically a lake but is in fact a sound because since the dredging of Packery Channel it is connected to the open Gulf of Mexico.) Water flow from that channel will, accompanied by a widening of the water gate leading from Packery Channel into the canals, is expected to increase water circulation in the canal system where percolators now are used to enhance the oxygen supply. Tis the season The La Posada season is in full swing everybody, the weekend weather looks to be great. Get your toys ready and get out there and have some fun! We’ll see you there and say hello if you see us Around The Island.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 13:52:25 +0000
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