Flower Mound residents marched, road bicycles and rolled along on scooters down Morriss Road on Thursday, holding signs that read “Stop Morriss 6.”

More than 100 people protested the Morriss/Gerault expansion project April 30. The crowd started the demonstration on Cross Timbers Road and Morriss Road and headed toward Forestwood Middle School for a forum to give candidates for town council the opportunity to address community issues.

The four-lane road is expected to expand to six lanes beginning in 2010 to allow for the increased traffic flow predicted from the River Walk at Central Park, a future commercial and residential development.

The protest was organized by Flower Mound residents in an effort to voice their opinions and hear town council candidates’ platforms on the expansion issue, as well as other issues including the town’s SMARTGrowth Program and oil and gas drilling.

“This forum was 100 percent citizen based,” said Kim Berg, a resident who created the blog stopmorriss6.blogspot.com. “There was no sponsoring or backing. This was a grassroots effort to hear the candidates.”

Most of the candidates seemed to oppose expanding Morriss/Gerault at this time and/or without performing further traffic studies and projections. The candidates discussed alternatives such as expanding parts of the road, adding left turn lanes or expanding on a progressive basis.

“This is the first time I’ve be able to hear the candidates,” resident Kara Gorham said. “Now, I’m clear on who I want to vote for.”

Even Flower Mound residents who don’t live on Morriss Road came to show their support.

Diane Consolino helped plan the event because she said it’s important to have a forum where people in the community can hear what their candidates have to say.

“Flower Mound has that community feel and to put a highway through the middle of our community would be a tragedy,” she said. “It destroys a community to be divided like that. So even though I don’t live on Morriss, this is still my community.”

The Flower Mound Transportation Commission is having a public forum at 6:30 p.m. on May 26 at Town Hall, 2121 Cross Timbers Road.

Lindsey Bever is a reporter with neighborsgo and can be reached at 972-436-5551 ext. 3004 or via e-mail at lbever@neighborsgo.com. If you have a story, photo or video you'd like to share, please post it directly on neighborsgo.com.