Katy Trail Extension

Here is a copy of the presentation from the community meeting for anyone who missed it or just wants to review:

• PhaseIV Presentation 12-09-2008
• Town North Entry - Additional

I understand the concerns about the Walling/NW Hwy intersection and share them as regard pedestrial safety. One poster suggested closing the Walling/NW Hwy intersection; however, as a Kingsbury homeowner who uses the DART station, I can tell you that it's virtually impossible to make a left turn onto NW Hwy from Town North during rush hours. Closing the Walling/NW Hwy intersection would almost certainly create the requirement for a traffic signal at Town North to accomodate left turns for those of us who need to head east to the DART station.

Thanks for the link to University Terrace's newsletter! I had missed that issue.

There have been efforts in the past to close off some of the streets feeding into our neighborhood and thus far the residents have not been open to the ideas. I'm thinking this trail issue is going to bring this up again because even with no pedestrians you have to be very careful turning off of northwest heading west into our neighborhood - easy to get rear ended by someone not paying attention that you are making a turn. We need to look critically at what this trial will look like in its final design. If a pedestrian will cause a car to have its rear end sticking out into NW Highway while waiting for the pedestrian to pass, that will not be good. There is not a lot of room so I do not know how they are planning to resolve this issue. I would think this would be a pretty common issue though and they may have some solutions. We all need to keep our eye on the design. Let us know if you learn anything. You can either post it here or write directly to info@mpum.com or to president@mpum.com for immediate review.

There has been a great deal of focus on the intersection at Walling and Northwest Highway due to the number of accidents, damage to property and with an eye on the planned Katy Trail Extension. At this time the City of Dallas, together with TxDot who has responsibility for NW Highway since it is a state highway, plan to add a sign as you come up the hill headed west in front of the White Rock Dart Station that indicates there is a light ahead. The are also adding what they call a "backlight" on the traffic signal at Trammel and Northwest. This is being added to allow drivers coming up the hill to see the traffic light sooner. They have also recalibrated and moved the sensors in the street both on Walling and Trammell to more accurately change the signal when you approach Northwest Highway. And they have increased sensitivity of the sensors to detect motorcycles as well.

I talked to them about placing a barrier along our side of NW but the city and TxDot are studying the situation carefully, plan to enlist more monitoring by DPD for speeding with the idea of slowing things down and making it safer. If that does not work then they will consider other options.

When it is time for the trail to be built, we will be contacted when we will be able to have input and see the drawings. When that day comes we need to all show up and make sure some kind of attractive barriers will protect the pedestrians.

So we have zeroed in on this situation but having to take it one step at a time. Hope that helps answer your question. By the way, I do not have timing yet as to when the trail will be built. I thought it would be next year but as you have probably read, TxDot has run into budget problems and not sure if that will push this construction back like it has the raising of Northwest Highway. By the way, when they do raise Northwest Highway, that may also help with the dangerous intersection by eliminating most of that blind curve in front of DART.