TEMPLE, TX — Whether it’s at the local HEB or just a community park, if you live in Temple, there's a pretty good chance you’ve noticed the amount of folks moving into the city over the years.
With more people brings more vehicles, oftentimes leading to more traffic around town.
In an effort to unclog roadways, provide better transportation options and routes for residents, the city, for the first time ever, created a Master Mobility Plan.
“We have a number of plans that have addressed some facet of transportation, whether that's freight or safety or safe routes to school, But we've never combined those into one plan,” Jason Deckman, the city’s senior transportation planner explained. “That's much more of a strategic document.”
Deckman said the MMP is a branch of the comprehensive plan the city released in 2020.
That plan holds plans for the city’s future down the road.
The MMP, however, is roughly an 18 month plan to address citizen’s concerns.
“A lot of that really does come down to money,” he went on to say. “What's tough as a planner is to recognize that there is rarely enough money to fix all the things that we want to fix. One of the things that this plan will do is help us prioritize what's going to get fixed first, and what might, you know, come a little bit further down the road.”
The planning committee introduced the plan to the public Wednesday.
In doing so, other concern’s flooded the city’s Facebook comment section.
One concern, speeding in residential areas.
“Let's discuss speed control devices,” Gerald L. Richmond wrote. “Many heavily traveled residential streets are speedways!”
25 News reached out to Richmond who said the city got in contact with him about his area and together they are working on a solution.
However, Ryan Cabral, a traffic officer for the Temple Police Department said speeding across the state is a problem.
He expressed that the state has went a long time without a death on the roadways.
Here at home though, his unit does their best to be everywhere at once.
“We are a small unit, we try to get out and hit these areas, the guys in the motorcycle unit specifically focus on our neighborhoods in town and our school zones,” He explained. “Unfortunately,Temple is a large city, and with this, the few of us try to keep up and hit up our problem areas.”
He encouraged citizens who have concerns to report them to the department, but be as specific as possible so they can best respond.
Temple’s website has the Master Mobility Plan laid out on its website and also links to provide your comments or concerns.
