The roadway where Lisa Abell died has already been identified by San Antonio for potential safety changes and further study.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — The death of a 52-year-old woman struck while crossing Marbach Road with her dog is renewing attention on pedestrian safety along a West Side corridor that San Antonio has already identified for possible street-design improvements.
Lisa Abell died after a Chrysler struck her at about 11:30 a.m. Friday near West Military Drive, according to police and local reports. Her dog was badly injured and later killed by an officer to end its suffering. Police said Abell was not using a marked crosswalk. The driver remained at the scene, and the crash remained under investigation Sunday.
The collision occurred as the city continues work tied to its Vision Zero program, which seeks to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries. San Antonio’s 2024 Vision Zero implementation plan placed a 2.7-mile section of Marbach Road on both its pedestrian and all-modes High Injury Networks, classifications based on concentrations of serious and fatal crashes.
City data reviewed for the plan showed six serious-injury crashes and three fatal crashes along the identified Marbach corridor from 2019 through 2023. Four of those nine crashes involved pedestrians. The plan listed speeding, unsafe lane changes and failures to yield the right of way among prevalent factors recorded along that section.
The city’s plan describes Marbach as a five-lane road with lanes about 12 feet wide and a posted speed limit of 40 mph along the studied corridor. It also notes gaps in pedestrian infrastructure, including sidewalks that do not meet accessibility standards in some places. Those conditions led planners to recommend examining several changes aimed at reducing vehicle speeds and giving pedestrians safer opportunities to cross.
Among the options identified in the plan are pedestrian hybrid beacon crossings at strategic locations between signalized intersections and narrower vehicle lanes. The city also recommended studying whether the number of travel lanes could be reduced, adding shared-use paths where sidewalks are disconnected and making other changes designed to limit conflicts between vehicles and people on foot.
The plan also calls for better control of some left turns and recommends considering median islands. At major Marbach intersections including Hunt Lane and Horal Drive, planners said roundabouts could be considered because of the history of severe and fatal crashes. The recommendations are planning measures and do not mean every proposed change has been approved or scheduled for construction.
Abell’s death follows another fatal pedestrian crash on Marbach Road. In 2025, John Jay High School student Jose Flores III died while crossing the roadway. Local reporting says the city later improved the pedestrian crossing where Flores died and adjusted school-zone flashing schedules to cover lunch hours. The city is also conducting two corridor studies to determine what additional safety improvements could be made.
Abell’s relatives have called for more pedestrian protections and have raised concerns about vehicle speeds along the road. Family members believe the driver who struck her was speeding, but police have not announced speeding as a confirmed cause of Friday’s crash. Investigators were seeking surveillance video and had interviewed witnesses as they continued reviewing what happened.
The investigation into Abell’s death remained open Sunday. At the same time, the crash has added urgency to an existing question for city transportation officials: which of the safety changes already identified for Marbach Road will move forward, and when those improvements could reach the corridor.
Author note: Last updated August 16, 2026.