Oak Ridge North City Council held a special city workshop June 1 to go over alternate Robinson Road engineering options.

Representatives from engineering firm RPS Klotz Associates presented their findings on five alternate options for decreasing traffic on Robinson Road and increasing mobility for Oak Ridge North residents. The five options include adding a traffic signal at Robinson Road and Hanna Road; realigning Robinson Road and adding at traffic signal at Hanna Road; realigning Robinson Road and widening it to four undivided lanes; adding an east-to-west connector; and adding a north-to-south connector.

“To conduct each project study we visited the site, collected data, developed alternatives and then analyzed and compared alternatives,” RPS Klotz Associates representative Sriram Natarajan said. “Forty percent of traffic to Robinson Road is coming from The Woodlands, 10 percent is coming from I-45 and 10 percent is coming from Hanna Road.”

Natarajan also said people are using Lane Lane and Alana Lane as alternate routes instead of Robinson Road. About 14,000 vehicles use Robinson Road every day and by the year 2025, traffic is expected to become three times as worse if nothing is done, Natarajan said.

Each project showed different amounts of delay at peak morning and night times on Robinson Road. The projects range in cost from $1 million to $5.4 million. Oak Ridge City Council members concluded that they needed more time to go over each option before coming to a decision regarding further action.