Wonder how many KW residents are aware of this?There is a meeting of the Kingwood Drive Mobility Committee
tonight at 6pm at the Kingwood Community Center (next to the Kingwood Park
& Ride off Lake Houston Parkway.) The study team will be
meeting about the different KW Drive options.
You may have heard that the city is considering a widening of
Kingwood Drive. In fact, the funds ($18M) have been budgeted and the
project is on the Department of Public Works plan. Following some vocal
citizen reaction, our city councilman, Dave Martin, appointed a committee
(Kingwood Mobility Study) and brought on an engineering consultant who have
been meeting for several months to study various alternatives. What they
have come up with is listed on the consultant’s website:
gundacorp.com/kingwo od-mobility/maps/
(Note: You have to scroll down. Alternatives are
the third section after Latest Presentations and Project Maps.)
They are now seeking citizen input in the form of a ranking card
– which is due today.
Unfortunately, most of the proposed alternatives involve a
widening of Kingwood Drive and/or Northpark Drive and the resultant removal of
the forested medians. My personal preference is to pursue other means to
relieve traffic pressure on Kingwood Drive without destroying the look and feel
of our community – and I believe that a six lane highway through the middle of
our community will attract more not less traffic.
There are three alternatives which I recommend you rank highest:
·
Alternative A – Intersection Improvements (extension of left and
right turn lanes, signaling). Minimal impact on trees.
·
Alternative J – Connection of Woodlands Hills with Hamblen Rd
and widening of Hamblen Road. Innovative solution. I added a
comment that Woodland Hills should be completed to 4 lanes (with a forest
median).
·
Alternative B – Left Turn prohibitions for off-peak direction
traffic. Not sure how exactly it will help – but worth a try.
Provide feedback using this link:
1.
Kingwood Drive
Feedback - Submit Ranking Card
Complete ranking of alternatives (minimum of 5) with
comments. (Note: You don’t have to rank them all.)
Press “submit” at the top of the form. The system
will generate a pdf file and an email to the consultant (Gunda
Corp). Alternatively, you can save the pdf and send it manually as
an email attachment to kingwoodmobility@gundacorp.com. Note
that you may get an error message. If so, check that there are not
any stray symbols in the e-mail address and resend. It should be kingwoodmobility@gundacorp.com.
Unfortunately,
this initiative has not been well publicized. Please feel free to pass
this e-mail on. You may also want to express your opinions directly to
Council Member Dave Martin's office at (832) 393-3008 or districte@houstontx.gov. 4951