Land bridge for people, wildlife nears opening
When covered with soil and vegetation, the structure will link two halves of a San Antonio park that’s divided by a six-lane road
SAN ANTONIO — After a decade of study, $23 million in funding and two years of construction, the once-debated land bridge that connects the two halves of Phil Hardberger Park is about to open.
“There is mounting excitement about the bridge,” the former San Antonio mayor said. “Like many big projects, controversy swirled at the beginning, but nowwe have come full circle, and we will be opening the bridge in about twoand-a-half weeks.”
When it is covered with soil and vegetation, the 150-foot-wide bridge will allow human sand wildlife including deer, coyotes and raccoon to cross from one part of the park to the other.
The massive overpass looms over the six-lane Wurzbach Parkway, which bisects the 330-acre wilderness park.
“I was the first civilian to walk across it outside of the contractors,” said Hardberger, 86, who was mayor from 2005 to 2009.
Before it became a city park, the wooded tract was part of a dairy farm and later a cattle ranch owned by Max and Minnie Voelcker. One of their surviving structures at the park now houses its conservancy.
In 2006 and 2007, the city acquired 311 acres in separate deals for a future park.
The park, with entrances on Northwest Military Highway and Blanco Road, opened in two stages in 2010 and 2011.
It offers an array of woodland trails, an Urban Ecology Center with 18,000 square feet of education and meeting space, and oak trees dating back two centuries.
The east side of the park, off Blanco Road, connects to the Salado Creek Greenway.
Financing for the bridge came from several sources, including $13 million from a city bond program. That sparked pushback. Critics derided the so-called “critter bridge.”
An additional $10 million came from private funds and contributions from Bexar County and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Hardberger said debate about the bridge ended in May 2017 when voters approved funding for it.
“I don’t think I have to defend it. I think the people who use it will defend it,” he said.
In September 2018, a City Council majority signed off on an $18.3 million construction contract for the bridge.
Raising the private money turned out to be a bigger lift than Hardberger had anticipated.
“I didn’t realize howhard it is to raise $10 million if you are not the mayor,” he said.
All that remains to be finished is a skywalk connecting a trail to the bridge. The elevated walkway rises into the foliage before meeting the bridge.
But for a while, Hardberger said, he wasn’t sure any real progress was being made.
“It seemed for a long time, all they were doing was moving dirt around. But I came to understand that when you build a bridge, you have tomove a lot of dirt, because half of it is underground,” he said.
“It’s being built for the ages. It’s not going to fall down. I was worried about that. What happens when it rains. We’ll all have to leave town, but I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” he added.
Finally, he said, the entire project is accessible to the disabled.
“It’s all being done to official standards. You can run two baby carriages across this bridge without difficulty, one going one way, the other coming back,” he said.
Hardberger said he expects immediate heavy use of the bridge after it opens, noting that during the pandemic, park attendance has risen.
“We are now averaging about a thousand people a day at the park, if the weather is at all good. At some point, we may actually have too many people, but we’re not there yet,” he added.
The official opening of the Tobin Land Bridge will be at 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 11at a site just south of the bridge.