Denton Road congestion

southsideguy · January 28, 2018

As I have sat in traffic on 288 and other places in Denton I wondered how it became to be like this. I was fortunate enough to learn how it was done. I recently attended a planning approval meeting held by the Denton County approval board. The discussion was a new subdivision on Ryan Road. The developer and land owner both from outside of Denton. To them it will be take the money and run type so they dont care what happens in Denton after they are long gone.

Little history for the area. Ryan Road is a two lane road that leads to elementary school on both ends and hits Teasley on one side and Country Club road on the other. The City of Denton has already approved three new large subdivisions that lead into Ryan Road. At times during rush hour and school getting in or out the traffic gets bad. The traffic can almost backup to the CVS on Teasley and back towards Guyer high school. It is a mess in the area and Ryan Road is supose to be built into a four lane road in the future. In the mean time we are adding more cars to a already bad area.

Anyway back to the meeting. A spokes person for the city or county was present at the meeting. One person on the board seem to get it, Mr Sullivan. Anyway the leader of the advisory board asked the City/County person from Denton about the road expansion. She gave the hee haw answer and said Ryan Road was set for expansion in the future (date unknown). The board agreed it would bring additional traffic but approved the subdivision anyway. The reason given from what I heard this how it has been done in the past. The reason we have real traffic issues is because on how things were done in the past. It is time we hold the people in City government accountable for our roads and traffic. I understand the county and city see more property tax revenue to spend on I dont know what. Maybe it goes to the cost of legal bills of being a sanctuary city.

One other example I like to throw out is Loop 288 from Colorado Blvd to I-35. Ever notice that all times of the day the traffic is bad. Part of the problem on 288 is they have too many traffic lights bunch up together and of course it narrows down to a funnel at i-35. I was involved in a road built in another state and attended all the meetings. One fact was brought up no traffic light should be located within 1/2 mile of each other because it cause traffic issues. This is from a national study by the highway traffic safety. I think we three in the area less then a mile a part

We have out grown our roads and we continue to build new subdivisions and businesses reasons on the roads that cant handle them. We need to get proactive and not reactive in our thinking in Denton. The city needs to serve the people of Denton and not give the Buckees of the world tax breaks. I understand that Buckees will be a great employer for the city of Denton, maybe up to 200 part time jobs. I do understand giving breaks to real companies that can bring full time decent paying jobs to the area with the potential for growth. Lets face it Buckees will put up there 86 gas pumps and they are done growing. A gas station is a gas station. Taxes for these type of businesses might help the homeowners tax bills. The city/county needs to stand up and say no developments or business that add to the traffic issues until the roads are able to handle the traffic.

UNTFan23 · January 28, 2018

Buckees is helping finance the bridge that is going in at that intersection, BTW. If they didn't, it's tough to say how long it would have taken for the City to come up with the funds to make that improvement given their troubles expanding roads.

It's likely Buckees was going to build there regardless of whether they got the tax break or not. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have helped pay for the bridge without the tax abatement though.

Up in the Frisco area along 380 right next to the DNT, Cinemark wants to build a large theater and threatened to walk away from the development unless the City upgraded 380. I can't speak to whether Cinemark offered any funds to help with the improvement but guess what, the City found the money to upgrade the roads because City leaders know they'd miss out on a lot of sales tax revenue.

southsideguy · January 29, 2018

I can see your point on buckees putting money up for a bridge that will benefit them. They were going to build in Corinth without any tax breaks. I think in reality it is a loan because with the tax breaks they get they will come out ahead or break even at the end of the deal.

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UNTLifer · January 30, 2018

What you are missing is that Denton has always thought by this time, 2018, that we would be living like The Jetson's and flying to and from work, school, errands, etc... They saw no need to fix the roads because their focus has always been on the airways.