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The president of the Boerne Independent School District board of trustees is speaking out after their unanimous vote to urge TxDOT to put Texas state Highway 46 improvements on a faster track.
Rapid growth has overtaken Texas 46, as it no longer appears to be a country highway in some spots and is instead handling urban traffic.
Courtney Darter-Bruce, president of the Boerne ISD Board of Trustees, said board members were pleased to see rumble strips installed along the roadway. However, they also want the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to move forward with other major Highway 46 projects in January, noting that funding is already available.
"We certainly appreciate TxDOT's commitment to safety improvements. And at the end of the day, it's all about people," said Darter Bruce. "It's about students riding our buses, families driving to school events, employees commuting to work, and community members traveling the roads. This serves as a critical connection in our region."
The Boerne school board now joins Bandera and Kendall County commissioners to tell TxDOT to get started. A safety campaign started in Kendall County and spread east.
The largely two-lane road with narrow shoulders, sharp curves, and blind spots is under attack by residents who drive it, especially from Boerne to Bandera.
Darter-Bruce also stressed the narrowness of the road.
"Eighteen feet on each side, I mean that's dangerous, and there's a 60 mile per hour speed limit that's being enforced," she said. "But let's be honest. Speeding is a concern in that area."
Darter-Bruce said the school district relies a lot on an 11-mile stretch of Texas 46 for transportation, including its school buses. Around 4,000 students ride a bus to classes, and on average, around 350 children are picked up and dropped off each day along the road.
During a 10-year period, ending in March 2026, safety campaigners said there have been 13 deaths from more than 550 crashes on 46. That includes 10 in Kendall and three in Bandera. There were 44 others injured during that period.
TxDOT said it has invested $2 million in planned near-term safety improvements, with an additional $7 million allocated for future projects. The agency is also studying a potential expansion of the highway to four lanes.
The agency said crash data indicate that the most common contributing factors in roadway collisions are unsafe driving speeds, failure to control speed, and driver inattention.
