Magnolia residents sound off on growth
Some Magnolia residents want crosswalks and bike trails to connect neighborhoods, while others would like wider roads and sidewalks so that children can safely walk home after school.
The city’s current network of roadways, sidewalks and bicycle lanes needs help, residents told city officials.
“It’s dangerous,” said Marcy Parker, 80, who’s lived in the city since 1978.
Parker was among the more than 400 residents who’ve made suggestions to officials in hopes to improve the city’s transportation network.
Officials met with residents in February to hold their first public meeting on Magnolia’s master thoroughfare plan. This comes after they project that the city of more than 2,800 could increase to by 600 percent in 2039, with a population of 53,000.
The city’s engineering firm, AEI Engineering, a Baxter and Woodman Co. met in August 2022 to gather data on the current conditions of the roadways in the city limits. Cristin Emshoff, urban planner for the engineering firm, said that one of the biggest reasons officials wanted to create a master thoroughfare plan was due to the hypergrowth the city is currently experiencing.
“It came to a point that we really need to be having this conversation with the residents to figure out what their challenges are,” said Emshoff, noting challenges vary from limited traffic signals and narrow roadways.
More than 60 people attended the public meeting on Feb. 1, consisting of residents, developers and city staff. Three maps of the city’s current transportation network were on display at city hall, where those in attendance could mark-up any concerns over traffic, sidewalks, trails and bicycle lanes.
Shawn Schultz, lead driver for the Magnolia Independent School District Transportation department, was among those who attended the public meeting. Schultz said bus drivers have consistently had to maneuver through the current narrow roads while traveling with a bus full of children.
“We have to be even more cautious knowing we’ve got all these kids with us,” Schultz said. “We have some areas that we have to avoid because they just don’t accommodate our turning radius to get onto it. We’d love to go there because it’s a shortcut to avoid even higher traffic areas.”
The biggest issue in the district is at the pick up and drop off locations at elementary schools, she said. The traffic causes parents to be on the shoulder of major streets such as FM 1488.
“We want to be able to provide extra lanes so that parents aren’t just sitting next to a high traveled area and having to U-turn on a major street to get into that line,” Schultz said.
New campuses were included in the district's 2022 $232 million bond package, which includes an elementary school, an intermediate school and junior high school. Emshoff said that could potentially cause more traffic issues in the future.
Other residents like Robert Anzick said it would be dangerous for a child to ride their bicycle to another friend’s house, because neighborhoods aren’t connected. This would leave a child to travel along one of the major thoroughfares in the city by bike.
“A pathway from a neighborhood to another neighborhood should be instinctive,” said Anzick, 59, who lives just outside the city limits near Indigo Lake. “I shouldn’t have to ride out on (FM 1774) to go to my friend’s house, in another neighborhood. I should be able to ride along the bike path that’s between the neighborhoods ... that would be a way to improve the community without a whole lot of cost.”
There is currently no bike lanes within the city limits.
The Texas Department of Transportation, which maintains four roadways in the city such as FM 1774 and FM 1488, was not present during the public meeting. Emshoff said the engineering firm has scheduled future meetings with the agency, but that getting feedback from the public was the first priority to see what their concerns were.
The next public meeting will not be until March, with an exact date yet to be determined, Emshoff said. Community members are encouraged to take a survey on the city’s website to provide feedback on what they want to see in the plan.