281-1604 link opens

Just before 5 p.m. Thursday, after construction workers rushed to remove orange barrels, two ramps connecting U.S. 281 north to Loop 1604 east and west finally opened — some would say decades late.

Within seconds, a cream-colored SUV zoomed onto the left-side ramp. Then a sedan. Then another vehicle, then another.

At last, a crossroads that draws 245,000 vehicles a day entered a more modern era, one in which vehicles no longer will have to wait at red lights to turn from one highway to the other while traffic stacks up behind them.

“What you're doing here today is the beginning of a transformation for both 281 and 1604,” Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said while addressing a crowd at a ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier in the day.

He noted that in a few hours, an estimated 50,000 vehicles would use the ramps.

Motorists use the new northbound U.S. 281 to west and eastbound Loop 1604 interchange above traffic Thursday Nov. 8, 2012. Motorists use the new northbound U.S. 281 to west and eastbound Loop 1604 interchange above traffic Thursday Nov. 8, 2012. Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, San Antonio Express-News Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close 281-1604 link opens 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

“It's going to get better for everybody,” he said.

Traffic delays have been a problem for years. In the 1980s, about 9,000 vehicles a day traveled on 281 north of 1604. But as the far North Side boomed with houses, shopping centers and businesses — replete with everything a consumer or resident could want — something huge was missing: an interchange.

“This is going to relieve a lot,” said Jacob Theesfeld, general manager of Bill Miller's BBQ at 281 and 1604. Now that construction is partly done, he hopes customers no longer will avoid the area. He'll personally benefit, too: He lives around Stone Oak.

Two more connectors, joining 1604 east and west to U.S. 281 south, should open by February, according to the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, which is building the interchange.

There's money available to build the other half of the interchange, on the north side 1604, but that work awaits the completion of two federal environmental studies.

Since construction started in March 2011, business at the Alamo Toyota dealership on the U.S. 281 southbound access road, south of 1604, dropped about 30 percent, General Manager Don Haynes said. That was especially apparent during construction-related road closures that made maneuvering through the area a nightmare for customers.

“On weekends,” Haynes said, “when people come to buy cars, that's our game day.” Customers would call and complain it was too hard to get to there.

He believes that will change.

Plus, Haynes said, “All of my employees will be on time for work.”

Across U.S. 281, there was much excitement about the interchange among the 50 businesses at Northwoods Shopping Center.

“I think that it's definitely going to be good for the center,” said Kristina Bagge, a spokeswoman for Northwoods property manager Barshop & Oles. The interchange will take a load off the access road, making it easier for drivers whose destination is the shopping center, she said.

Northwoods, which includes an H-E-B supermarket, has been open since the 1990s, before congestion got to bumper-to-bumper levels.

Jim Pearce, a retail representative for a food brokerage company, visits that H-E-B and two others in the area every month. During construction, traffic was so bad that he adjusted his work schedule.

“I quit coming in the morning,” he said. “I go in the afternoon, before the traffic.” So he was long gone from the store before the interchange opened Thursday.

But he planned to make his monthly trip to the H-E-B off Blanco and Loop 1604 today, right where one of the connectors spills traffic onto the access road.

Now, he'd have a much faster route.

vdavila@express-news.net

Correction: Barshop & Oles is the property manager of the Northwoods Shopping Center. A story on Friday's page A1 and on mySA.com incorrectly said Barshop & Oles owns the center.