Last night we had a public meeting of the Lewisville Planning Board to show the public an early draft of the access management ordinance we're working on for the Lewisville business district. In a nutshell we're trying to plan for what we think will be some pretty significant growth through the 2035-ish timeframe and trying to make sure our Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) is up to the task of managing that growth. A big part of the future plans are to build a parallel road to Shallowford Road (the main drag through town), turn make both roads one way with two lanes, to build some connector roads between the two and to put in a couple of new traffic circles at entry points on either end of town. That's the big picture, but as with most things in life the real work is in the details.
Until we started this process I didn't understand the impact of driveways on traffic design. Simply put you have to make sure that driveways, or road cuts, are spaced far enough apart and far enough from intersections so that they don't create a hazard by having people exiting and entering the roadway in close proximity to each other. It sounds mundane, but if you've ever tried to enter a busy roadway from a parking lot that happens to be too near an intersection with cars turning into your path then you'll know why we're spending so much time on this.
As you might expect we ended up with quite a few comments from the 20+ members of the public who attended the meeting. There was some understandable concern about the increased traffic through town, about motorists speeding even more than they do if we go to two lanes in each direction and about the impact on commercial property. All were valid concerns and I think Marty Myers, our town planner, did a good job answering them. Since we're only at the draft stage of the process we'll be able to incorporate any changes that might need to be made based on the feedback we get, but based on last night's meeting I think we've made some really good progress.
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Befuddled 
Every so often I watch a family try to exit their driveway on the corner of Robinhood and Shattalon in the mornings in “school traffic” — it must be no more than 10 feet from the intersection. Sadly, they are often forced to back out. It’s not their fault and there’s not much they can do — what happens when development meets inadequate roads and planning.