Los Fresnos youngsters push for safer road

Updated: August 6, 2020

***Youngsters King and Price Vela pose with the poster they presented to the Cameron County Commissioner’s Court as Administrative assistant Raul Gomez and Office Specialist Celia Gonzalez look on.*** Photo: Tony Vindell/LFN

By TONY VINDELL
LFN

LOS FRESNOS – What started out as a project to make a narrow road safer on the north side of Los Fresnos ended as a mission accomplished for a local family and some of their neighbors.

Those involved in the project included several youngsters ages 8 to 13.
The children are King Vela, Prince Vela, Jeremiah Alba, Jeanette Alba, Jimena Salazar and Brenda Delgado.

Dee Sanchez said she and her children started earlier this year to pay attention to both the foot and vehicular traffic on Whipple Road, a narrow stretch on the north side of Los Fresnos.

She said they presented a class project and even circulated a petition on how to try to make the road safer.

At one time they thought about presenting the project to the Los Fresnos City Council, but instead took it up a notch and went before the Cameron County Commissioners’ Court since Los Fresnos is within Commissioner David Garza’s Precinct 3 jurisdiction.

To their surprise, Sanchez said they found out recently that a project to upgrade Whipple Road is in the works.

Although it’s coming along rather slowly, the commission recently approved building a sidewalk on the east end of the road at North Arroyo Boulevard, or FM 1847 to FM 1575 on the west end.

In addition to that, the Texas Department of Transportation plans to upgrade the road in the near future.

Whether their project contributed to that or not, Sanchez said the family and friends are thrilled that Whipple Road has been getting the attention it needed.

“We used to live at Paseo Pointe Apartments and our children go to Los Fresnos schools,” she said. “We hope Whipple Road becomes a safer road for everybody. They all worked on this project for the benefit of the community.”

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