Plans could be on hold to alter the lane assignments at the Woodlands Parkway/Robinson Road and I-45 overpass after the Oak Ridge North city council voted to ask the Texas Department of Transportation to suspend the project at its May 14 meeting.

Oak Ridge is hoping the proposal will be scrapped after potential businesses looking to possibly operate in the southeast corner of the intersection expressed concern to the city that they could not access the I-45 southbound lanes under the planned design, said City Engineer Ed Shackelford.

Mobility planners in Oak Ridge, The Woodlands and TxDOT recently joined to create a lane design to ease congestion for traffic traveling west over the overpass and onto the I-45 northbound feeder lanes. The plan included assigning a designated lane to traffic traveling west along the overpass and onto I-45, a lane that currently is assigned to northbound traffic along the feeder road. Vehicles currently must yield to oncoming traffic, which creates long backups that extend onto the overpass.

Oak Ridge City Manager Vick Rudy said all of the plans that have been discussed could impact economic development in the city.

"Every solution that has come up has had an impact that is harmful to the city," she said. "But we're trying to be cooperative."

Rudy said as the plan is currently designed, drivers traveling north on the feeder roads would only have the opportunity to get onto the southbound lanes at Research Forest. She said that drivers traveling that route could potentially bypass Oak Ridge's retail businesses in favor of alternate routes.

"Solving one problem has created two or three more," she said. "[The current design] is not a viable solution for us."

Shackelford said the city is hoping TxDOT will delay the project until Oak Ridge completes its comprehensive plan, which he said should be completed by January.