The Prosper Town Council voted Monday night to adopt a resolution against a possible U.S. Highway 380 option, going as far as to direct city staff not to cooperate with the Texas Department of Transportation as long as the option is on the table.
TxDOT has studied how to ease traffic on U.S. 380, but adding more lanes would affect businesses along the highway. So, bypass options are also on the table -- one of which could direct traffic through a section of Prosper.
"I have no intent to deal with TxDOT if they're going to have this Option B in," town councilmember Michael Korbuly said.
TxDOT said it was still in the early stages of considering its options and that maps of potential bypass routes are conceptual -- not precise.
Even so, the latest option came as a surprise to many homeowners.
Jonah Hughes said he attended a public meeting with TxDOT just a few months ago and there was no discussion of a Prosper option for a bypass.
"This option wasn't even on the table," Hughes said.
He's lived in his home in the Whitley Place subdivision in Prosper since 2012 and is against TxDOT building a high-speed freeway near the neighborhood.
"You talk about putting a road, a six to eight lane road, less than a half mile from where we are. There are going to have to be exits and on ramps and the quietness we are experiencing now, we're certainly not going to be able to see that anymore," Hughes said.
The concern is shared by Janet Anders, who lives near the proposed route in McKinney's extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ.
"We have trees and there are homes a little bit further to the north, but if it transforms into a commercial corridor, then it totally changes the whole reason we bought this house," Anders said.
She and her husband bought their home in 2005, long before serious discussions about expanding U.S. 380.
"I don't know if we would stay," if a bypass were to be built along the alignment in Prosper, Anders said. "It really changes what I thought would be our forever home into an island. It becomes an island in between the highways."
Anders said she hoped TxDOT would expand the highway where it currently is located to help relieve traffic congestion on U.S. 380 through fast-growing Collin and Denton County communities.
But there are no current options that don't disturb someone's land. Businesses would be displaced if TxDOT expanded the highway at U.S. 380.
TxDOT is currently gathering feedback from the public on the proposed alignment options. It is currently scheduled to approve a plan in the spring. It's too soon to say when construction would begin once a plan is approved.
