Last night’s GDOT meeting that allowed resident’s to view future road construction plans for Horse Pen Creek Road had a great turnout. The purpose of the meeting was to show residents two different sets of plans, now known as Alternative 1 and Alternative 2, and then let them fill out surveys and give their opinion on the plan they prefer. Both Alternatives would change Horse Pen to a four lane road, but they do differ significantly in one major way.
Alternative 1 has a center turn lane and requires the City to take control of less land – around 30 feet on each side of the road.
Alternative 2 has a center median that would be filled with grass and trees very much like what currently exists on Friendly or Market. The down side to this option is that it will require an even larger amount of land on each side of the road, and that wasn’t very popular with folks that I spoke with.
In my eyes, Alternative 2 is the more attractive option, but I don’t know that it’s the most practical. Given the continued growth on this road I think the center turn lane will prove to be helpful down the road.
Either plan will be a significant improvement to the current state of Horse Pen Creed Road, but there is a definite kicker. The construction wouldn’t start for at least another five years, and once it’s started it would take 2 – 3 years for it to be completed. I double checked with City staff and both Alternatives were designed with future growth in mind. Unfortunately for the folks living on Horse Pen Creek Road the problem will get worse before it gets better.
This is a prime example of how important it is to be proactive when dealing with development, annexing and things of that nature. And to be clear, growth is not necessarily a bad thing at all, but it’s crucial that we properly plan so that we don’t end up with Horse Pen Creek Road scenarios all across Greensboro.
Update: I forgot one thing that was mentioned last night. A thru-road is planned that will provide access from Horse Pen to Flemming – likely cutting down some of the traffic that bottlenecks at the New Garden / Horse Pen intersection.
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