Over on Preston Hollow People, a fellow named Wick Allison, who used to write occasionally on FrontBurner, weighs in on how to fix the stretch of Northwest Highway that runs past Preston Center:
There is a solution that can be implemented now to transform Northwest Highway into the neighborhood Main Street it should be. That solution is to redesign the roadway to reduce the out-of-neighborhood traffic that now uses it.
That solution is easy because it is already happening. In 2014, Northwest Highway carried 48,303 vehicles through Preston Hollow. The historical average has been 56,535. In 2002, TxDOT measured 62,353 vehicles, which may have been its peak.
Contrary to perception, traffic on Northwest Highway is down more than 14 percent in the last 12 years. From its peak, traffic is down 22 percent. To quote Yogi Berra, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
