Council authorizes corridor study discussion for Industrial Boulevard as developers draw attention to safety and access issues

Town planners asked council to consider a corridor study of Industrial Boulevard (Sam Ridley Parkway to the Team Boulevard connection) to analyze accidents, access management and commercial driveway impacts as development increases along the corridor.

Staff said the corridor appears increasingly congested: their Safe Streets for All plan flagged this area and staff recorded roughly 36 crashes in the corridor. The firm proposed for the study, Barge (Barge Solutions), has prior experience and was selected for a fresh, independent perspective because staff wanted a firm not closely tied to local commercial developers. The proposal discussed a study cost of about $58,000.

Council members debated how project prioritization should react to new development. Several councilmembers said the priority list should be responsive when a development or property sale changes conditions; others urged preserving higher-priority items already in the budget. Staff said the corridor study is a study activity only (not construction) intended to produce a comprehensive picture of the area and recommended improvements the town could use to guide future construction, developer-required improvements, and grant applications.

The discussion grew from an In-N-Out proposal that had submitted a traffic study the town found incomplete; staff said the town has used third-party traffic consultants on other projects and, in several cases, received differing developer analyses. Staff told council that having an independent corridor study will provide the town an authoritative baseline before acting on individual development proposals. No formal budget vote occurred in the workshop; staff said the item would move forward as a study authorization and return to council for appropriation if required.