Ever notice how the drive out of Hennersby Hollow never quite settles into a routine? You leave for Jungman Road on a Tuesday and it's smooth. You try the same route on a Saturday three weeks later and there's a new detour sign, a flagger, a lane that wasn't cordoned off last time. That's not bad luck. It's the byproduct of living next to one specific stretch of pavement that the state has decided needs more work than almost anywhere else in West Bexar County.
Over the last weekend of August, the Texas Department of Transportation closed Loop 1604 completely, both the northbound and southbound main lanes, right where it crosses US 90. Drivers coming through that intersection got rerouted to frontage roads from Friday morning through Monday evening. If you drive Loop 410 to US-90 West to reach Jungman Road, the way Hennersby Hollow's own directions tell you to, you were funneled around that closure whether you knew it was coming or not.
Why This Exact Corner Keeps Getting Rebuilt
Here's the part that's easy to miss if you only experience this as scattered orange cones: the US 90 and Loop 1604 interchange isn't an incidental casualty of a bigger highway project happening somewhere else. It's one of the most heavily engineered points in the entire undertaking. TxDOT is building a two-lane flyover ramp that will carry westbound US 90 traffic directly onto northbound Loop 1604, plus a new roundabout just south of the highway at Ray Ellison Boulevard, Hunt Lane, and Crooked Trail. Those aren't small add-ons. They're structural centerpieces of the whole US 90 Expansion project, and they happen to sit almost exactly on the route Hennersby Hollow residents use to reach the rest of the city.
That's the piece worth holding onto: this isn't generic road work that happens to be nearby. It's the busiest construction zone on the corridor, and it's the zone you pass through most.
The reason TxDOT picked this stretch to overhaul first traces back to a number that's easy to say and hard to picture: US 90 carried somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000 vehicles a day back in 2019, and the agency projects that volume will more than double to roughly 150,000 vehicles a day by 2045. A four-lane highway built for a much smaller West Side isn't going to hold that. The expansion is TxDOT's answer, and Hennersby Hollow sits close enough to the interchange that the busiest phase of construction is effectively next door.
The Project, Broken Into Plain Numbers
It helps to see the two phases side by side instead of as one undifferentiated blur of orange barrels.
| Phase | Segment | What's Being Built | Cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phase I | I-410 to Loop 1604 | Widening to three lanes each direction, the US 90-to-Loop 1604 flyover ramp, Ray Ellison Blvd roundabout, auxiliary lanes | $146 million | Late 2025 to 2030 |
| Phase II | Loop 1604 to SH 211 | Widening to three lanes each direction, added frontage lanes, turnaround bridges at Loop 1604 and Montgomery Road, a turnaround at SH 211 | Roughly $339 million (pending final design) | Tentatively 2027 to 2031 |
Phase I is the one that touches Hennersby Hollow's daily commute most directly, since Jungman Road sits just past the Loop 1604 interchange on US 90. A third phase, focused on reconstruction between Loop 410 and Old Highway 90, is anticipated but doesn't have a firm start date beyond a rough 2032 target. Realistically, this corridor is a construction zone for most of the rest of this decade, not a project that wraps up next spring.
Why the Calendar Runs Longer Than You'd Guess
It's tempting to treat any highway project as something you tolerate for a year and then forget. This one doesn't work that way. Phase I alone runs from late 2025 through an expected 2030 completion, and Phase II doesn't even begin until Phase I is well underway, likely starting in 2027 or 2028 and continuing into 2031. If you're picturing a single bad summer, adjust that picture. You're looking at roughly five more years of active construction somewhere along this stretch, with the heaviest disruption concentrated at the Loop 1604 crossing precisely because that's where the flyover ramp and roundabout are going in.
TxDOT's own framing is that this is meant to cut future commute times dramatically, by as much as 90 percent compared to a do-nothing scenario, once everything is finished. That's a real payoff. It just arrives on the other side of years of the exact kind of weekend closures Hennersby Hollow saw at the end of August.
How to Stop Getting Blindsided
The closures aren't random, and they aren't unannounced. They're just easy to miss if you're not looking in the right place.
- TxDOT's US 90 Expansion project page posts current phasing and construction updates directly, without needing to dig through a press release.
- DriveTexas.org shows live traffic conditions statewide, including active lane closures on this stretch of US 90 and Loop 1604, which is the fastest way to check before a weekend drive rather than finding out at the on-ramp.
- The TxDOT San Antonio District's public information office takes direct questions from residents about construction timing, which is worth using if a closure affects something time sensitive, like an early flight or an appointment across town.
None of this eliminates the inconvenience. It just moves you from finding out about a closure when you're already stuck in it to knowing about it a few days ahead, which is most of what you can realistically ask for from a five-year highway project.
What It Actually Changes About Your Weekend
For a lot of Hennersby Hollow households, this stretch of US 90 is the road to everything: Alamo Ranch for groceries and dinner, SeaWorld for an afternoon with the kids, downtown for a Saturday out. None of those trips disappear because of construction. They just get less predictable for a while, and building in a buffer, or checking DriveTexas.org before you leave, beats finding out about a closed main lane after you're already merging onto the frontage road with everyone else who didn't check either.
The construction isn't a sign that something's wrong with the neighborhood. It's a sign that the state looked at where growth in West Bexar County was headed and decided this particular interchange couldn't wait. That's a reasonable trade to make. It just means the next several years of driving out of Hennersby Hollow will occasionally look different than the week before, and knowing why makes it a lot less annoying to plan around.
If you're weighing a move within Hennersby Hollow, thinking about what a home near this corridor is worth once the flyover ramp opens, or just want a second set of eyes on how road projects like this tend to affect property values over time, Alyssa Oliver knows this stretch of San Antonio well enough to talk through it plainly. Let's Connect.
