Progress on Sandy Lake Road!

I talked with Coppell City Manager Clay Phillips late last week and he informed me that it appears that some of the real estate right-of-way acquisition related to Sandy Lake Road westward from Denton Tap Road has come to a successful conclusion. It will take a few weeks to get the legal formalities handled, but this is exciting progress indeed. While Clay was expectedly circumspect with regard to when the project may actually be underway or completed, he assured me that this is a high priority for the City and that progress should be apparent within a relatively short timeframe.

The disappointing part (not surprising to me) is that the project scope will only run westward to the three-way intersection with Coppell Road, and will not, at this time, include the remainder (west from there to North Coppell Road) as that section was "federalized" some time back and the bridge and wetlands related to the creek crossing will cause ongoing delays and an undetermined timeline as of now.

Hopeful progress nonetheless...

Sandy Lake Road...

I remain mystified over the fact that the community outcry over the failure of the City's leadership (both elected and employed) to act on the Sandy Lake Road has been so sedate.

It was great to see the article two issues ago in the Coppell Citizen's Advocate that went into some detail about the accident about two weeks ago between a Coppell High School student who was struck by a car as the student was attempting to cross Sandy Lake Road en route to classes.

In response, the City leaned on its longtime defense by citing limitations within the Americans With Disabilities Act that precludes their intervention without adequate pedestrian accessibility on both sides of the street after a safe crossing has been facilitated. While no-doubt accurate in the strict reading of the law, I find it incredible that a more practical approach hasn't been developed. While there are several thousand feet of Sandy Lake that require improvement (and the remaining asphalt pavement is failing at a very rapid rate), an interim solution could easily be implemented by breaking the project into smaller pieces, with the initial focus being around that intersection with Whispering Hills where the students cross every day.

Another surprising point in the article was that the Coppell Independent School District does not view the crossing as dangerous, and therefore those students who choose not to pay for school bus services (and who have no other way to get to and from the High School), must instead risk their safety every day.

I challenge the City's and CISD's leaders to quit making excuses and to implement creative and productive ways to solve the immediate need to act in the best interests of our children (and other pedestrians) while finally committing to a comprehensive solution for the remaining section of the roadway that was mandated by voters in 1999.

Accident on Sandy Lake This Morning...

One of our neighbors reported having seen a pedestrian struck by an automobile on the still-unimproved section of Sandy Lake Road west of Denton Tap Road this morning. My prayers go out to all those involved, most especially the youngster that was struck.

My frustration is again extended to the Leaders of our City - the City Manager, City Council and Staff that have, for more than ten years, failed to execute and complete the voter mandate to improve that stretch of road.

I'm anxious to hear from those same Leaders what their plans are to honor their Commitment to the Voters.

Does Anyone Else Care?

School starts again next week. Just a couple of days ago I saw two boys on bicycles waiting for automobile traffic on Sandy Lake (west of Denton Tap, just east of Whispering Hills) to clear in both directions so that they could safely cross that very busy street. Thankfully they were successful and no harm came of their need to cross from the north side of Sandy Lake to the south side.

With school beginning next week that challenge will be repeated numerous times every day, as Coppell high schoolers who either by choice or economic circumstances find that they must get to and from school either by walking or aboard a bicycle. Bus service, despite the danger of crossing the roadway, is not a free option for most of those who live south of Sandy Lake Road.

Voters in our fair city approved the mandate to upgrade Sandy Lake from its crumbling two-lane asphalt, ditch-bordered status to a modern four-lane curbed concrete roadway. That election took place more than TEN YEARS AGO!

In the meantime we've seen the city build a lightly used amphitheater park, upgrade numerous lesser-used roads, begin construction on new tennis facilities, do repair work on already upgraded portions of Sandy Lake Road, spend millions of dollars on unusable (for now) land OUTSIDE the city and take almost NO action on the subject section of Sandy Lake.

When will the City Manager and City Council make this the priority project our students and citizens deserve?

Sandy Lake Road - No progress...

I had the occasion to speak to a city council member a few weeks ago and I was assured that the long-delayed (10 years is long to me...) Sandy Lake Road widening/rebuilding project from Denton Tap westward was almost ready to go forward. I hope that proves to be true.

I pray that the City get the necessary momentum behind this critical project before someone is seriously injured (or worse). While we (as a City) have long hidden behind the idea that getting the plans done, right of way acquired and cooperation with the Federal Government arranged due to the impact on creeks and lowlands have all created the delays, the fact is that HAD we truly made this project a priority it would have been completed long ago. I know, I know - there will have to be trees removed to make this project a reality. My intuition tells me that the tree issue is one of the main reasons this has all taken so long.

It is time to get this project moving forward and off of the planning board. Our children need a safe way to get to and from the High School, we all need the reduction in traffic congestion that will ultimately result, and we need the City Council to take action on what the voters very clearly noted to be a priority some 10 years ago.

Mayor's Concerns Over Traffic Management, Safety Elements...

In an online article (12:00 am June 18, 2009) about the Manara Academy charter school, Katherine Leal Unmuth of the Dallas Morning News (www.dallasnews.com) reports that Coppell Mayor Jane Peters expressed "concerns about the traffic management plan, angst about the traffic situation" and "serious concerns about the safety elements" associated with the opening of the school.

While I certainly respect and appreciate the Mayor's opinion on this, my question to her, to the City Council and City staff is why do they continue to allow our citizens (predominantly school aged kids) to risk their lives crossing Sandy Lake Road west of Denton Tap Road? Voters approved the bond proposal to rebuild and significantly improve that stretch of road TEN YEARS AGO, but we still see no visible progress towards that end.

The City has been aware for years of the safety issue faced by those trying to cross the road (often students going to or from the high school), but no solution has been put in place. City staff tells of the challenges of gathering right of way access related to the roadway, and to issues of eminent domain related to a possible temporary safe crossing solution, but seemingly nothing has been done.

Please review my earlier blog entries on this important topic for further information and photos. I sincerely pray that the City immediately develops a temporary solution (interim sidewalks, crossing guards, traffic cops, whatever) and moves expediently towards execution on the voter-mandated plan to improve the roadway and upgrade this thoroughfare to the same standards this road already exhibits throughout our community.

We must not tolerate this situation any longer, as an injury or death as a result of the City's delays would be unconscionable.

Great News! Your City Has Spent $25 Million on Land That is not even IN the City!

Now that the details of the "settlement" of the conflict around North Lake are coming out, I have a few observations:

• The City of Coppell is now obligated to the tune of more than $25 million to purchase undeveloped real estate within the North Lake tract.
  
  
• The acreage is NOT within the city limits of Coppell, but is actually within the City of Dallas.
  
  
• Countless additional $ will no doubt be spent to hold and/or develop (whatever that means to our City leaders) this extraterritorial acreage.
  
  
• NO reduction in density was negotiated with the buyer of the first tract of land that caused all of the consternation in the first place. It was the thought that 10,000 housing units could soon be part of CISD that caused the initial uproar . The "compromise" that was achieved is that the number of units remains unchanged.
  
  
• The "win" in all of this is that the City will buy $25 million worth of undeveloped real estate as a "buffer" to forestall even greater development density to our south.
  

For all we "accomplished" in this protracted battle, I am convinced that we would have been better served if our City leaders had instead spent the $25 million on a vacation getaway - a timeshare of sorts for every citizen's benefit - (a ski lodge, a lake house, a ranch, a beach compound) instead of wasting your tax dollars and mine to "defend" our southern flanks.

We may have won the battle but we lost the war.

Sandy Lake Road vs. Safety of Our Kids and Timely Execution on Voter Mandates

While Coppell is, in many ways, a great city, we still have opportunities for improvement on several important fronts, the most significant of which is safety. On that topic, I have for several years been interested in seeing the remainder of Sandy Lake Road upgraded and completed to equal the rest of its length which was completed in years past.

Several generations of Coppell City Council have, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, chosen to defer, rather than act on, the mandate that the voters gave the City in the Bond election dated November 1999 which will someday see the remainder of Sandy Lake Road completed from Denton Tap westward to Coppell Road North.

As a result of the continuing delays in following-up on the voters’ mandate in a timely fashion, as school began on August 25, we once again saw (and continue to see) those high school students who, because they live too close to Coppell High School to qualify for free bus service, put their personal safety at risk as they walk to and from the High School. For those students who live directly south of Sandy Lake Road, the daily trek to school involves a dangerous crossing over Sandy Lake, coupled with, on one side or the other, a perilous walk alongside 35 mph traffic on the sloping embankment of the adjacent drainage ditch. There is no shoulder on that section of Sandy Lake Road, nor any sidewalks.

While the installation of a traffic signal at the Whispering Hills and Sandy Lake intersection affords a modicum of improvement, it is certainly not THE solution. I would never willingly choose to walk along or cross Sandy Lake Road in that area, and I strongly suspect that no one on the City Council would do so themselves, or allow their children to put themselves at such risk.

I passionately ask that the Council and the City work to immediately develop a short-term solution to this safety issue (crosswalk, pedestrian activated all-direction red light, on-site police during school transit times, SOMETHING), AND establish and honor a reasonable time line to begin and complete the voter mandated reconstruction and improvement of this important artery.

It has been nearly NINE YEARS since voters approved the project. I do recognize that there are many challenging issues that must be resolved in such a project – to include planning and design work, right of way acquisition, wetlands mitigation and countless others, but I am of the very strong opinion that we’ve all waited long enough.

In the years since voter approval of the aforementioned roadway, the Council and City have taken action (as approved by the voters) to rebuild dozens of miles of other area roads, many of which were authorized through bond elections more recent than the one that is the subject of these thoughts. Perhaps language should be inserted in future bond packages mandating that the authorized projects be sequential relative to their approval dates so that future Councils cannot choose to unreasonably defer the voter’s mandates while moving forward on later approvals.

The Council and City decided, in addition to the many miles of streets and other meaningful improvements to our fair city, to add new amenities to include the “sundial park” adjacent to City Hall along with a now-under-construction city cemetery. I just hope that we don’t one day need to use both of those amenities as a result of a lack of urgency in executing the Sandy Lake project - first as a gathering area to express our community grief and secondly as a final resting place for a student tragically lost because we’ve chosen to defer for so long the completion of this important piece of roadway.

In closing, let me cite a quote from Coppell Mayor Doug Stover’s May 2008 State of The City as extracted from the City’s website. While Mayor Stover was writing on the topic of the City’s longstanding dispute regarding extraterritorial development proposed at North Lake, I believe the following portions of his quote are equally well-placed when considered in the context of the topic of this writing: “The City's eminent domain case is still progressing through the court system, but we will not rest until the public interest is protected and public services are provided for.“