Should Longview Trade Some Left Turns for a Safer Fourth Street?

By the Real Ryan Nichols Editorial Team
Facts last checked: August 10, 2026, 5:00 a.m. Central

Fourth Street carries an argument almost every busy road eventually faces.

Drivers want traffic to move. People turning into a store want a safe opening. Businesses want customers to reach them without a detour. People walking or biking want to cross without feeling like they are entering a contest they cannot win.

Longview is now studying the corridor between East Loop 281 and Hawkins Parkway, including its connections with Judson Road and Eastman Road. The city has posted notice of a Fourth Street Corridor Study open house on August 13.

The public record does not say Longview has already chosen a raised median, banned a specific left turn, or approved a final design.

That distinction matters.

The city is studying alternatives. Residents should debate the tradeoffs before lines harden on a map.

What Longview has actually authorized

In January, the Longview Metropolitan Planning Organization requested a consultant for a formal Fourth Street Area corridor study. The solicitation closed February 4.

The city's detailed request sets a budget of up to $200,000 and calls for the work to be completed before September 30, 2027.

The scope is broader than widening pavement. It calls for collecting traffic volumes, crash reports, land-use information, and existing plans. It requires analysis of traffic operations and intersections, public outreach to residents and businesses, traffic modeling, testing alternative roadway configurations, and consideration of pedestrian, bicycle, transit, and disability access.

The study is supposed to evaluate alternatives by safety, mobility, connectivity, cost, and public input. It also calls for phased recommendations rather than one immediate all-or-nothing project.

Fourth Street is a highly developed commercial area. The city's request identifies major retailers, food establishments, Longview High School, and connections to other heavily traveled roads. It describes the area as one of the most traveled in the region.

That is precisely why a design change can help thousands of people and still create a serious burden for a particular driveway.

Why left turns and driveways become a safety question

Every driveway is also an intersection.

A vehicle may slow suddenly to enter. Another may cross oncoming lanes to turn left. A driver leaving a business may look for gaps in two directions while also watching for people on a sidewalk.

The Federal Highway Administration calls the coordinated treatment of those movements corridor access management. The tools can include consolidating driveways, spacing access points, limiting some driveways to right-in and right-out, adding turn lanes, using raised medians, or redesigning intersections.

FHWA says thoughtful access management can reduce conflict points, improve safety for different modes of travel, and reduce delay. It also says a successful plan must balance safety and mobility with the needs of adjacent land uses.

That last sentence is the whole argument.

The strongest case for limiting some movements

The case for selective restrictions begins with predictability.

When drivers can turn left across several lanes almost anywhere, every driveway creates a possible crossing conflict. A raised median or right-in, right-out driveway can remove some of those conflicts. A dedicated turn lane can keep a waiting vehicle from blocking through traffic.

Supporters can reasonably argue that a corridor with fewer unpredictable movements may deliver:

• fewer places where vehicle paths cross;
• less sudden braking in through lanes;
• safer gaps for people walking or biking;
• more consistent travel times; and
• clearer places to make U-turns or change direction.

The city is already trying to understand how growth, jobs, and infrastructure fit together. The same Longview that is planning for new housing choices and major industrial investment also has to move more people between homes, schools, stores, and work.

A road cannot serve that growth safely if every individual movement is treated as untouchable.

The strongest case for protecting direct access

The strongest objection is not a demand for reckless left turns.

It is that a line on an engineer's map can become a daily cost for a business owner, delivery driver, employee, or customer.

If a median blocks a direct entrance, a customer may need to pass the business, find a legal U-turn, and approach from the other direction. That may be a minor inconvenience for a national retailer. It may be meaningful for a small shop whose customers are already deciding whether to stop.

Restricted access can also move turning traffic into another intersection, parking lot, or neighborhood street. A driveway consolidation can create disputes over shared access and maintenance. Delivery trucks and emergency vehicles do not move like compact cars.

Residents should be skeptical of a design justified by broad safety language without corridor-specific evidence. They deserve to see where crashes and near-conflicts occur, which movements cause delay, how alternatives affect each parcel, and where safe U-turns would be placed.

The public should also be able to distinguish a recommendation from a decision. An open house should gather information, not merely display a conclusion after the important choices were made.

Ryan's Take

Editorial analysis prepared by the Real Ryan Nichols Editorial Team. This is not presented as a firsthand quotation from Ryan.

Longview should be willing to trade some individual turning convenience for a measurable safety gain, but it should not install a blanket solution just because the engineering term sounds modern.

Start with the receipts.

Publish the corridor's crash history in a form ordinary residents can understand. Show turning counts during school, lunch, and evening peaks. Map every driveway that an alternative would change. Identify where a driver would reverse direction and how much travel that adds. Put affected businesses at the table before selecting a preferred design.

Then use the smallest intervention that solves the documented problem.

Some locations may need a raised median. Some may need a dedicated turn lane, a better signal, a shared driveway, a safer crossing, or no change at all. A corridor plan can be consistent without making every block identical.

Longview's recent recycling debate showed why ordinary city services become trust questions when costs, rules, and accountability are unclear. Fourth Street deserves an open record early enough for public input to change the answer.

Should Longview restrict some left turns and driveways on Fourth Street to improve safety and traffic flow, or should direct business access remain the priority?

Primary and authoritative sources

• City of Longview, August 13 Fourth Street Corridor Study open-house notice
• City of Longview and Longview MPO, Fourth Street Area corridor-study solicitation and scope
• Federal Highway Administration, Corridor Access Management
• Federal Highway Administration, Safety Evaluation of Access Management Policies and Techniques

OG artwork disclosure: The social image is an original synthetic editorial illustration. It is not a photograph of Fourth Street, a proposed design, an actual business, or a documented traffic event.