Do Traffic Studies Matter?

Why bother if no one follows them

Traffic studies are done by the engineer of the developers’ choosing. They are submitted to the planning director and handed out to the planning commission. Each new subdivision completes one and turns it in to the city to be reviewed.

The subdivision that seemed to have started the issues between the citizens and the city is The Parks. The following article outlines what happened and what was not reported about this particular subdivision.

Here is what the record shows about citizens showing up to meetings. In May of 2017, citizens of White House showed up to a planning meeting. There is no record of how many people were there. Here is a link to a story about The Parks that was printed in The Tennessean. The article was written in April, this meeting was in May. Here are screen shots of how that went.

This is who was in attendance at the planning meeting

The public spoke out against this subdivision. It was approved any way. They had already been in discussions with this builder. The technical review study was held before this meeting.

The traffic study was done for this development. It was prepared in May of 2017 and revised in June of 2017. There will be a lot of photos about to dump here. I am not a traffic engineer, but I can read. These documents are what appear to be important information from that study. (the study is 106 pages)

Notice the last item, “Whether the proposed project is constructed or not, the City of White House should consider reconstructing and/or signalizing the intersection of Highway 76 and Cross Plains Road/New Hall Road.” This area was a problem when the traffic study was done BEFORE 738 homes were approved back there. It was a problem before 45 town homes were approved on Pinson. Given the traffic study, how did the votes go on this?

The Parks was approved at the planning level despite the public speaking. It was then approved in June of 2017 at the BOMA. It was passed even though the meeting with TDOT and the county was scheduled for the next week. There is no record of any discussion on this item. Did the board have a discussion about this? Did they even talk about what it would do to the area? We have no idea.

The second reading is when the public is allowed to speak at BOMA. At this point, The Parks had already made it through planning, an article from The Tennessean, and the first reading at BOMA. Only three people spoke, but again, there is no record as to how many people were at this meeting.

The following is from the June 2017 BOMA meeting.

In 2019 when the comprehensive plan was adopted, they knew it would be 10 years before anything was done on Hwy 76 at New Hall and Cross Plains Road.

Yet in 2020, they approved Legacy Farms on Pinson Road and in 2021 approved Pinson Town Homes.

Why do they even do these traffic studies? Burrus Ridge has now used this against the city. Burrus Ridge has a By Right zoning right now for about 650 homes. Their traffic study showed exactly this plus some. They stood in front of the planning board and said, yep, your traffic is terrible, and you knew that in 2017 when you let The Parks build. Now, you have to let us build too. (paraphrasing here)

Please look carefully at who voted yes on all of these items. Arnold, Decker, Bibb, and Hutson didn’t seem to care that Heritage High School students and parents were going to be sitting in more traffic. Wilkinson, Hutson, Berry, Eller, and Wiggins didn’t seem to mind traffic delays and back ups on 76 when they decided 748 homes on Pinson was a good idea.

Why bother with traffic studies if the city and the planning board is just going to do what they want any way?