West Haven residents press Coppell council for right‑turn mitigation at 121/Wingate after past crashes

Several West Haven residents told the Coppell City Council on June 10 that motorists and pedestrians face a safety hazard where State Highway 121 meets Wingate Road and East Lake Drive and asked the city and Texas Department of Transportation to study or add a right‑turn lane and other mitigations.

The comments came during the council’s citizen appearance period, where Deepak Jayavant, president of the West Haven Homeowners Association, said the neighborhood has experienced multiple crashes including a “major accident back in 2021 involving 2 residents and multiple children.” He asked the city and TxDOT to “consider options to mitigate this risk,” saying traffic exiting from the Denton Tap/121 interchange must cross lanes and that adding a right‑turn lane at East Lake Drive could shift risk to Wingate Road.

The nut of the residents’ request is that the proposed East Lake right‑turn lane — a separate agency project discussed on the agenda — could reduce safety for Wingate residents if no parallel mitigation is made there. “We have the similar risk that East Lake has,” Jayavant said, asking the city to study Wingate as well.

Three other speakers from West Haven fleshed out the safety concerns. Chandramouli Basur said pedestrian and turning movements are already complex where residents must choose tight lanes to access frontage roads or 121. “We don’t know exactly what the analysis of traffic flow was performed by the city of Coppell or Texas Department of Transportation,” he said, and asked for details to be shared. Amri Jain described limited sight lines on the curved Wingate approach and said she sometimes avoids the intersection by taking alternative exits. Vinay Bhatia, who said he represents families with young children on Wingate, said vehicles make a “sharp right turn” into the neighborhood and that blind spots at the merge create collision risk.

Council members did not take formal action during the public‑comment period. Mayor and staff acknowledged the comments; no staff report or TxDOT representative answered at that moment. The comments were made prior to the council’s consent vote and before separate agenda items that reference traffic improvements were discussed in the meeting.

Clarifying details from the speakers: the 2021 crash at the location involved two residents and children; residents say multiple near‑misses and collisions have occurred over several years; the neighborhood leaders say they have asked TxDOT and city staff in the past without resolution. The speakers requested either a right‑turn lane at Wingate and/or East Lake, or other signage/engineering measures to reduce the hazard.

What happened next: The council proceeded with the rest of the agenda. The record shows no vote, referral, or staff commitment recorded on the transcript to perform a new traffic study for Wingate or to request TxDOT make parallel changes; the transcript records only the citizens’ appeals and staff acknowledgment.

Why it matters: Residents framed the problem as an immediate public‑safety concern affecting children and elders in a neighborhood that directly abuts a controlled‑access highway interchange. If the city or TxDOT undertakes engineering changes, they could affect travel patterns and liability exposure; if no study is done, residents say collision risk will continue.

What to watch for next: Look for an item on a future agenda requesting a traffic study, a staff memo summarizing prior correspondence with TxDOT about the intersection, or any formal referral to the city’s traffic engineering team to evaluate geometric or signage changes. As of the June 10 transcript, no such referral was recorded.