CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Last week, the Corpus Christi City Council agreed to begin construction on city streets funded by the 2018 Bond Project's Proposition A.
A total of $52 million will be spent on the 23 improvements listed in the project, including Laguna Shores, from SPID to Graham Road. Those fixes alone will cost just over $2 million.
Meanwhile, roads on North Beach have yet to be looked at for construction.
So what's the reason?
According to City of Corpus Christi's Engineering Services Director Jeff Edmonds, there are several factors.
"There’s not a lot of definition in terms of the overall plan of how North Beach is going to be," he said.
He said the first factor, before rebuilding the roads, is answering questions about the navigation canal.
"Location for the proposed canal that has been shown -- it occupies some of the real estate that is currently occupied by the existing Harbor Bridge," Edmonds said.
So factor two, essentially, is a domino effect of factor one.
"That’s going to impact the surface-transportation infrastructure, so there’s projects over there that have been identified, that, until we really nail down this canal issue, we can’t really begin on," Edmonds said.
Meanwhile, residents in North Beach are fed up with the roadways' disrepair.
"It would be nice if they were fixed," said Terry Bates, who has lived in his home in the Schooners Harbors subdivision for two years. "I think with this area being more developed, they need to fix the roads because no one can get down here to the beach and access it. I mean, we live here and we have a hard time getting to our own house."
Residents were forced to go all the way across the causeway to Portland just to turn around to get to their homes on Monday, or drive the wrong way along the access road, all because roads are blocked off because of storm-surge flooding brought by Tropical Storm Beta.
Although construction on North Beach is in neutral right now, Laguna Shores resident Len Torres is ready for the new roadway on his end of Corpus Christi.
"Let’s hope that it turns out well," he said. "They’re supposed to widen it a little bit, and raise it up, which is the best thing that could happen to Laguna Shores."
