May 26th Transportation Recommendations

Here is the exact text of the Transportation Commission's motion:

Move to recommend to the Town Council approval of the Morriss/Gerault Capacity Improvement Project with the following design, engineering, and implementation elements as follows:
(1) the project be designed and constructed in one phase with a recommendation to the Town Council to prioritize improvements to intersections and safety features;
(2) during design the Town will identify visibility issues that may create safety problems and identify solutions that consider both impacts and benefits, including access issues;
(3) explore improvements and enhancements to the below grade crossing;
(4) replace existing perimeter screening fences with the Town-standard wooden fence, and/or explore other fencing options and other methods to mitigate sound impacts;
(5) install trees, sod, irrigation, and decorative plantings in the medians and rights-of-way, with the focus being on the full-width median sections;
(6) commit to establishing the lowest lawful speed limit throughout the corridor;
(7) program the installation of any new warranted signals;
(8) enhance the pedestrian routes throughout the corridor, specifically for school-related pedestrian activity to include pedestrian actuated flashers, reviewing the location of school cross walks, and reviewing with Lewisville Independent School District the pedestrian and vehicular access at schools;
(9) consider ideas that will address safety issues near any schools in the area;
(10) that Town staff review additional input from neighborhood groups, convened for the purpose of additional input during the engineering and design phases of the project;
(11) and that median pedestrian barriers be considered in the design of the project at all areas deemed high pedestrian areas, as determined by professional staff.

This could be your fence

Here is a picture that was sent to me by Matt P. He says he took it saturday morning. It appears that someone jumped the curb and smacked the wood fence just about 100 feet south of some Stop Morriss 6 signs. Luckily it was just a fence.

Important Reminder

Just to keep this fresh in everyones mind, Please plan on attending Tuesdays Transportation Commission Public Hearing. I know it is a days after a Holiday and its winding down to the last week of school, but THIS IS OUR PUBLIC HEARING.
This is our chance to ask and be answered, express our opinion on this very important issue. See the post below with all the details. See you there and have a safe holiday weekend.

The Vote

After a few weeks of digging and lots of hard work, Scott has compiled the data from the election and as we expected, citizens that live along the Morriss corridor had a huge impact on the election. The data showed that in previous elections, the Bridlewood area and West Flower Mound tended to have a higher percentage of voters represent their areas and those voters in the Morriss corridor seemed to have a lower percentage of registered voters turn out. This is probably because in the past few years Western FM and Bridlewood had specific issues that effected them

Up until this year our area really didn't have specific issues or causes that drew them to the polls. We changed that.

Here is some of the data.

Precinct 303, Central Morriss, SE (Tealwood Oaks area)
143 votes cast, a 53 vote increase over the 2008 election.
There are 4336 registered voters and 68 first time may election voters, 5 first time ever voters. Thank you all so much.

Precinct 304, Central Morriss, NE (north of forest vista, east side of Morriss)
364 votes cast, a 145 increase over the 2008 election.
There are 3919 registered voters and 118 first time May election voters. 6 first time ever voters. Thanks you all so much.

Precinct 320, Central Morriss, West (west side of Morriss to 2499)
442 votes cast, a 193 increase over the 2008 election. (highest vote count in town)
There are 4279 registered voters and 161 first time May election voters. 5 first time ever voters. Thank you all so much.

precinct 323, North Morriss, (east of Morriss, north of 1171)
90 votes cast, 5 votes less than in 2008.
There are 2531 registered voters and 25 first time May election voters. 2 first time ever voters. Thank you all so much, there is a lot of work to do in this area.

Precinct 307, North Morriss (west of Morriss and north of College, South of Dixon)
266 votes cast, a 34 increase over 2008 election.
There are 4336 Registered voters and 68 first time May election voters. 5 first time ever voters. Thank you all so much.

Precinct 314 North Morriss (north of Dixon , south of 407)
121 votes cast, 12 less than in 2008.
there are 2572 registered voters and 38 first time May election voters. No new voters. Thank you all so much, lots of work needed in this area.

Precinct 317 Gerault, (south of 3040)
266 votes cast, a 46 vote decrease from 2008
There are 3805 registered voters and 68 first time May election voters and 2 first time ever voters. Thank you all so much.

A few other stats, a 3 percent increase in votes cast over 2008. There are 41361 registered voters in FM. There was a 2 percent increase in first time may voters.

This all shows out power to help shape the future of our town. We need to start working on the other 38,000 registered voters for the next town election.

Smart Growth failures?

FLOWER MOUND PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION MEETING OF JULY 28, 2008

Vice Chairman Wallace said he appreciated everyone’s patience as they went through the process of going line by line on SMARTGrowth. He thought it was their duty as a planning and zoning commission to evaluate these types of projects against what was in their Code of Ordinances. In the final analysis, he only saw three failures for SMARTGrowth, and two of those were in Environmental Quality. Given they qualified as an economic development, incentives could be allowed, and they could request waivers from those two, so it really came down to one, which was the arterial and collector links. That one link was Morriss, because everything else was a state road and exempt from SMARTGrowth. So, the question in his mind was whether they voted to deny this project with all the benefits and value of the hospital, and the destination aspect of it, the high quality retail, the restaurants, the cafes, the amenities being the river walk and Central Park, the jobs, the reforestation, the revenue, the tax base, and the TIRZ impact. He was sorry, but one failure on SMARTGrowth for that one link on that one road to him was not worth denying this whole project.

This was an excerpt from a P&Z commission meeting last summer. Its amazing that even then the commissioners and future town council members used the word failure several times. The fact that allowing The Riverwalk project to be approved would go against most principles of the towns holy grail, Smartgrowth. There are only 2 real aspects that exist today, The Hospital and Morriss Road.

Unfortunately, they chose to exempt RiverWalk from the realm of SmartGrowth but when it came to Morriss, the reason for any talk of it was because SmartGrowth REQUIRES proper infrastructure improvements because of RiverWalk. Shouldn't the words SmartGrowth be exempt from any mention of anything that has to do with RiverWalk? Its only fair.

I have heard the argument that whats the big deal. Once 2499 and 1171 are complete and improvements to 407 and all the other, pardon the expression "concrete" town road projects are complete, there won't be that much traffic on a 6 lane Morriss Rd. You wouldn't believe who uttered that statement if I told you, so I won't.

The idea of high end retail and restaurants and cafes and the countless jobs that will be created out weigh all of this. Maybe in 10 years when our economy improves we will see that. But being able to get MORE cars, MORE trucks to the Champs Elysees of Flower Mound? Is that what matters?

Transportation Commission Public Hearing

Please add to your calendars next tuesday, May 26th at 630pm, The public hearing regarding Morriss Rd project. This is our opportunity to hopefully hear some new data from the town staff and then have an chance to ask direct questions of the commission and town staff and they can comment back directly to you. Please take this time to formulate your specific questions for this part of the presentation. We ask that you type your questions so you can present a copy to the town secretary so it can be entered directly into the public record. After the question and answer session, there will a a segment for you to express your comments as far as your approval or disapproval of the project. During this portion we also ask you to have your comments type written. If you want to read what you typed, that is fine or you can make a comment and submit a written statement for the public record. If you cannot attend the public hearing, you voice can still be heard. We will publish the procedure for you to follow and how to submit by email your comments.

Either way, we want to have a huge showing, so please make it a point to come out to town hall for this extremely important forum.

We would like to thank the town for holding this public hearing and hope it is the first of many such public forums. If you do not have a specific question, we will have a list of questions that you can get up and ask, so come on out and see one of us for the list.

Thanks again for all the support and know that we are making a huge difference and they are listening to what we have to say. We will also have voters registration forms available for anyone needing to be ready for the next election.

E Mail to TX Dot

I just sent the following email to the Texas Transportation Commission of TX Dot.

I respectfully request any data regarding public comment and or discussion passed on to TX Dot regarding the funding of the expansion of Morriss/Gerault Rd in Flower Mound. A request for funding from the 121Toll for this project was submitted to you. We as citizens, and upon your request I can provide written testimony from 500 residents, that adequate public discussion was not solicited. I request that documentation be provided, if not I request an independent public meeting be held by members of the TX dot board before any funds be released to the town of Flower Mound. Respectfully, Kim A. Berg