New Braunfels City Council approved a $1,376,656 construction contract with Rucoba & Maya Construction on Monday, setting in motion Phase 1 of the AAMPO Citywide Pedestrian Improvement Project. The work targets sidewalk gaps and Americans with Disabilities Act compliance issues near the Christus Santa Rosa area, Oak Run Parkway, Hinman Island Drive, County Line Road and FM 725, and the intersection of Alves Lane and Brooke Avenue.
The contract, valued at $1.37 million, is designed to increase pedestrian connectivity by filling in missing sidewalk segments and bringing crossings up to ADA standards, according to agenda documents cited by Community Impact. The Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization will cover $1,101,325 of the project's total represented cost of $1,683,045, with the New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation supplying a 20% local match of $275,331. The EDC will also pay $168,724 for construction administration services and $137,665 for construction contingency, per the same agenda documents. The funding relationship runs through an advanced funding agreement between the Texas Department of Transportation and the city.
Construction is anticipated to begin in late 2026, though a precise start date and details on traffic or lane impacts at busy sites like Oak Run Parkway and FM 725 have not been specified in city records reviewed for this report.
A Corridor With Recent Tragedy
Oak Run Parkway is not an abstract line item on a spreadsheet. Earlier this month, a fatal three-vehicle crash at Loop 337 and Oak Run Parkway left one driver dead and a child critically injured, as Hoodline reported at the time. That collision occurred at one of the very corridors Phase 1 is meant to make safer for people on foot, and Texas Department of Public Safety investigators examined the wreck while intersection improvement planning was already underway.
The stakes extend beyond this single crash. TxDOT data reported in April showed Texas intersections recorded more than 164,000 motor vehicle crashes in 2025, an average of 1.8 crashes per named intersection statewide, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Regional crash mapping shows pedestrian-involved collisions clustering along fast-growing suburban corridors like I-35 and FM 725, the same kind of roadway environment Phase 1 targets in New Braunfels. In December, a pedestrian died after a nighttime crash along an I-35 frontage road in the city, a case Hoodline covered as part of a broader pattern of severe pedestrian hazards on major arterials.
Part Of A Larger, Years-Long Push
Phase 1 is not a standalone fix. City of New Braunfels planning records show the NBEDC has funded a multi-year pipeline for citywide pedestrian upgrades, including $260,007 for Phase 1 final design in 2023, $700,000 for Common Street sidewalks in 2024, $90,000 for Phase 2 design in 2025, and now $700,000 in local construction matching funds for AAMPO Phase 1 this year. Phase 2 is expected to eventually target Lincoln and Garden streets, though a construction timeline for that phase has not been established.
The regional funding mechanism behind all of this traces back to February 2024, when AAMPO's Transportation Policy Board approved $34.5 million in funding for six projects in New Braunfels and TxDOT under its FY 2025–2028 Transportation Improvement Program, according to Government Market News. That allocation included $12.3 million earmarked specifically for city-managed pedestrian and multimodal projects, giving New Braunfels the 80% federal grant match it relies on to stretch local sales-tax dollars further.
As of October 2025, New Braunfels maintained roughly 452 miles of sidewalks and 50 miles of bicycle facilities against 955 total lane miles of roadway, according to KSAT, a gap the city has been mapping with help from Texas State University GIS students as it builds out a formal Bicycle and Pedestrian Network Plan. The city also joined the National Association of City Transportation Officials in March 2025, adopting NACTO's urban design guidelines for sidewalk width, intersection visibility and curb ramps, and in July 2025 the council unanimously passed Ordinance 25-145 tightening municipal sidewalk requirements to ensure ADA-compliant connectivity citywide.
Contractor And Comparable Projects
Rucoba & Maya Construction, the firm awarded the Phase 1 contract, is a Kyle-based certified Minority Business Enterprise that specializes in municipal concrete work, storm-water structures, sidewalk construction and ADA compliance ramps, according to public procurement records from the City of Austin. The company regularly bids on public civil infrastructure work across Central Texas.
Phase 1 follows a separate but related pedestrian push in the city. Earlier this month, council approved a $1.35 million design contract with Pape-Dawson Engineers for a $7.09 million multimodal pedestrian upgrade in the Gruene Historic District, an earlier Hoodline report found, backed by $5.57 million in pledged AAMPO grant funding and the same 20% local match structure from the NBEDC. In May, the city also launched five transportation projects on New Braunfels' West Side aimed at adding sidewalk connections and bulb-outs, after local business owners told Community Impact that poor lighting and missing sidewalks were keeping evening foot traffic away. Together, the projects paint a picture of a city racing to retrofit pedestrian infrastructure onto a road network that grew up around cars.
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