Plans continue to move forward for a western extension of Rolling Hills Drive, which will provide easier access to Appleby Road and a new connection to the north.

Members of the City Council’s Transportation Committee reviewed plans for the project at their regular meeting in December.

The project, which was first presented in June 2020, will extend Rolling Hills into the Fiesta Square shopping center where a roundabout will be constructed that allows traffic to exit either west into the shopping center, south toward Appleby Road, or north toward Plainview Avenue next to the Harps Foods store.

Aside from providing access to Appleby which runs west to Gregg Avenue, drivers could also use Plainview Avenue to head north to Millsap Road. A future extension of Longview Street would provide more access to Wimberly Drive at the North Hills Medical Park.

Plainview currently dead ends just past Longview. The new road, which will head south towards Fiesta Square, will include two 9-foot driving lanes with a 10-foot striped-out section in the middle that can be converted into turning lanes as the area develops. Both lanes will be bordered by an 8-foot green space and 8-foot sidewalks.

The roundabout in Fiesta Square is close enough to College Avenue that planners are looking at modifications to the Rolling Hills intersection that will help get traffic out of the intersection before it backs up at the roundabout. The current plan is to realign the street and add right-turn lanes from College onto Rolling Hills and from Rolling Hills onto College.

A planned 10-foot trail on the south side of Rolling Hills would continue across College into Fiesta Square and head south to Appleby Road.

The $3.5 million project is part of the transportation bond issue that voters approved in 2019.

Design work is expected to begin soon and could take about a year to finalize. Construction could also take about a year.

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