Davenport Ranch
Volume 10, Number 8 Davenport Ranch Neighborhood Association
August 2014 www.DavenportRanch.org
NEIGHBORHOOD NEWSLETTER
Traffic Calming Meeting Summary In May, there was a special meeting held to discuss traffic issues in our neighborhood and ways to improve the situation for homeowners. The meeting was organized and led by John Soyring of the Davenport Ranch HOA Board and was advertised through our social media sites as well as email. After taking questions and comments from the many homeowners who turned out for this meeting, a representative from the City of Austin enlightened the group as to the history of traffic study in Davenport as well as what options we might have given our statistics. The traffic issues raised by homeowners include, but were not limited to, the following: • An abundance of outside vehicles passing through the Waymaker Way/Riva Ridge corridor to bypass 360 rush-hour traffic. Neighbors feel that there is a great deal of speeding and cars not stopping at stop signs as well. • Difficulty turning onto 360 from Waymaker Way due to heavy traffic as well as U-turners on 360, who cause further confusion at that intersection. • Long cues at the Westlake Dr./360 traffic light at rush hour, exacerbated by the cut-through traffic attempting to re-enter Hwy 360. The city engineer also shared with us some findings from the traffic study that was conducted two years ago by the city. Below are some of the main points: • The average speed of cars traveling down Riva Ridge was found by traffic sensors to be 31 mph (speed limit is 30mph), a speed not considered dangerous by the city. • The city considers a traffic light at the intersection of Waymaker Way and 360 to be something of a hazard because of the limited visibility of northbound 360 traffic coming over the hill. • Gating our community, a topic that comes up regularly: This idea is next to impossible due to the fact that we have been annexed by the City of Austin already, we would require half a dozen gates to fully gate the community (very costly to accomplish and maintain), and the city uses some of our roads as an emergency
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fire escape for Westlake Hills in the event of a large wildfire. The Rob Roy neighborhood, the community that many Davenport residents turn to as an example, had not been annexed by the City of Austin when they decided to gate their community, and they have only two gates to their neighborhood. Despite these findings, there are things that we can do to reinvigorate the cause to do something to mitigate the traffic problems in and around Davenport. At the meeting, task force committees were formed by members of the neighborhood to help tackle the various aspects of this effort. The traffic task force committees are 1) Riva Ridge traffic calming led by Shiela Walker 2) Waymaker Way/360 intersection safety led by Hal Frost 3) Westlake Dr/360 intersection traffic flow led by Mike Ayer 4) Signage solutions led by Chuck Munson 5) Street privatization possibilities led by Tony Fonk. If you are interested in joining your neighbors to find a solution to these problems, please let the committee leaders know by expressing your interest on the traffic conversation thread of our Facebook site, where we hope to focus our communications with one another. To join the traffic conversation thread, first “like” the DRNA Facebook site, then click on the “Forum” tab at the top of the site (if you don’t see it, click on the “More” tab and the Forum tab should be an option). Let’s work together to make our neighborhood safer! Davenport Ranch Neighborhood Association - August 2014
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