Seawall Boulevard gets a median
Safety updates for pedestrians coming to portion of the Galveston thoroughfare
GALVESTON — Each day, Galveston visitors and residents dart across five lanes of traffic on Seawall Boulevard, evading a stream of fast-driving cars to get to businesses or hotels on the other side.
The city plans to make that dash a bit easier for pedestrians with a new median and crosswalk at 27th Street, near McGuire-Dent Recreation Center and Menard Park, according to island engineers.
The median, now under construction, is part of a 2015 initiative and partnership with Galveston Independent School District to revamp 27th Street, which runs perpendicular to Seawall. The entire construction project — of which the median is just one phase — costs almost $5.2 million, city spokeswoman Marissa Barnett said.
Devices will be built into the crosswalk to encourage slower speeds and make drivers aware of pedestrians.
Protected crosswalks also line Seawall Boulevard at 25th Street, by Pleasure Pier, and 29th Street, but many visitors don’t walk the extra steps to use those crossings, Barnett said.
While the line of traffic cones set up for the construction on the beachfront street has caught
the attention of motorists, seawall business owners located near the median mostly were unaware of the project or its necessity.
William Cram, the owner of Ohana Surf & Skate, located a half-block from the median construction, said he called City Hall to inquire about the purpose of a median that only extended two blocks. He was told it would be a deterrent from “rampant U-turns” on the boulevard and to aid pedestrian traffic during the summer season.
“I still don’t really know exactly what it is they’re building,” Cram said.
Cram added that a similar pedestrian crossing installed in front of the San Luis Resort and Hotel further west on Seawall Boulevard has been a headache for local businesses and pedestrians because the lights on the crossing are frequently out of service.
Other residents have worried about the potential impact on emergency vehicles’ manueverability, but Barnett said those vehicles typically enter Seawall from the perpendicular streets and don’t often travel east to west on Seawall. Since 2017, at least 137 crashes occurred on Seawall, with 12 of them between 25th and 29th Streets, according to Texas Department of Public Transportation crash data. None of those 12 crashes were fatal.
Out of the 137 total crashes, eight involved pedestrians and four involved bicyclists. None of those appeared to be between 25th and 29th streets.