HOUSTON -- A 10-horsepower riding mower is about the most traffic you'll see near Salford Street in the Timbergrove Manor community these days. Still, Z.E. Kominczak worries about something much more powerful.

"It'll be 18 wheelers. Cement trucks. Lumber trucks,” said Kominczak.

Trucks aren't allowed now and Salford Street isn't much use anyway for travel, because of a giant barricade at the other end.

A barricade that keeps trucks exiting Loop 610 from using the street to reach the site of an apartment complex going up nearby.

But what used to be a dead end, the city has tried opening it before.

"We didn't know anything about it,” said Kominczak. “All of a sudden a contractor shows up with contractors and backhoes."

That was about two years ago when the city decided to pave what had been a grassy field, with no street here at all. Residents say immediately the truck traffic got so bad they were able to convince the city to reverse itself, and put up the barricade.

And it would appear someone wants it open to traffic once again.

"They told us it's going to be permanently closed,” said Kominczak. “Don't trust the city.” (Laughs).

The Houston public works department says reopening Salford was always the plan.

"They're our public roads and we'd like to use public roads for public access, but we want to do it in a way that's safe for everybody and that's what we are trying to design right now,” said public works spokesman Andy Icken.

He says a small traffic circle might go where the barricade is now to keep trucks from turning.

That’s not good enough for the neighbors.

"We feel like we've got squatter's rights we've been here 40 years and don't mess with us," said Kominczak.

Either way, the city says the barricade will come down in a matter of weeks.