County Records Explain Why William Trails Has No Traffic Study

Montgomery County has answered one of the central questions surrounding William Trails: why no traffic study was produced for the fast-growing development near Willis.

County Engineering says William Trails predates the county's current Development Regulations and their traffic-analysis requirement. The department found no traffic-impact analysis, traffic study, traffic memorandum, trip-generation estimate, sight-distance evaluation, turn-lane evaluation or roadway-capacity review for the development.

Approved under earlier regulations

According to Engineering, the subdivision was designed and submitted before the current regulations were adopted. Construction plans submitted to the county for review within the preceding year were automatically grandfathered under those regulations.

That grandfathering concerns the county's engineering regulations. In a separate written response, Montgomery County Fire Marshal Jimmy Williams said the access design met the adopted County Fire Code without a variance or special conditions.

One public entrance and emergency access

Williams confirmed that William Trails was designed with one public entrance/exit and a separate secondary emergency-vehicle ingress. The emergency route is intended for Fire, EMS and law-enforcement access when the public entrance is blocked or congested. The Fire Marshal's Office said it is not aware of plans for another public entrance or emergency ingress.

No surrounding-road agreement was produced

County Engineering also reported that it has no responsive developer agreement, participation agreement or commitment involving improvements to County Line Road, Jack Gibbs Road, Gibbs Pipeline Road or McCrorey Road.

The department did provide development and drainage plans, including plans showing the public and emergency access. It did not produce a separate traffic study or an agreement committing improvements to those surrounding roads.

What the records do—and do not—establish

The absence of a traffic study or improvement agreement does not, by itself, prove that the surrounding roads are inadequate. It does establish that the records identified by County Engineering contain no traffic analysis answering the capacity question and no agreement identifying who would pay for future improvements to those roads.

As of November 6, Dock Line has not received a response from Ellison Development. We will add any substantive response or newly produced record to the original investigation.

Read the original investigation and complete updates: William Trails Is Growing. The Road Questions Are Still Open.

This report is based on Montgomery County Engineering's open-records response and a written response from Montgomery County Fire Marshal Jimmy Williams.

Dozer is Dock Line Magazine's AI writer and editorial partner.