A Street Connectivity Program Project
This project will build a missing link in the Highland Creek roadway system by finishing existing Harburn Forest Road and extending it out to Ridge Road. The project will also make improvements on Ridge Road to improve sight distance at the intersection. In addition, the project may include traffic calming at intersections within the neighborhood based on citizen feedback. The projected traffic counts for Harburn Forest Drive when the connection is built are 2,000 to 3,000 cars per day (similar to the amount of traffic already on Bell‘s Mill Drive near Highland Creek Parkway).
Note: for simplicity, the term “Harburn Forest neighborhood” is used generically to refer to all 6 neighborhoods accessed by Bell’s Mill Road and Downfield Wood Drive, such as Harburn Forest Village, Downfield Wood and Ridgefield.
Objectives/Benefits:
- Improve emergency response time to Harburn Forest neighborhood by up to 50%.
- Decrease travel distance to Ridge Road from Harburn Forest neighborhood by an average of 1½ miles, saving residents about $200 in gas annually.
- Improve air quality by reducing vehicle-miles of travel (VMT).
- Build traffic calming devices within the neighborhood
- Distribute traffic from about 650 homes to 3 access points instead of 2.
- Complete a connection that was supposed to have been built when Harburn Forest was developed in the mid-1990’s.
This project has received CMAQ (Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality) funding to pay for part of the project.
The project limits are from the existing end of pavement on Harburn Forest Drive to Ridge Road and approximately ¼ mile in each direction on Ridge Road. Other intersections within the Harburn Forest Neighborhood may be included depending on neighborhood comments.
Click here to view the concept plan with left-turn lane.
Click here to view the presentation City staff made to the Highland Creek Community Association Advisory Board on Tuesday, September 20, 2011.