The Brownwood City Council on Tuesday approved an ordinance on first reading establishing no truck routes prohibiting large commercial motor vehicles from traveling on 14th Street from Stephen F. Austin to Coggin Avenue and 15th Street from Coggin Avenue to U.S. Highway 377.

The narrow roadway, S-curve and 20 mile per hour speed limit at the S-curve were among concerns expressed to the City Council by community members.

“The City Council had received complaints in the 14th Street area regarding the amount of heavy truck traffic that travels that area from the industrial park to Coggin and then further on to Highway 377,” said Brownwood City Manager Emily Crawford. “The action taken today was to approve a restriction on truck traffic from Stephen F. Austin to Coggin Avenue on 14th Street and then 15th Street from Coggin to 377. This will come before council again for second and third reading, and in the meantime, we will work toward communicating with some of the industries in the industrial park regarding how this restriction would impact their businesses and if we can help them find alternate routes.”

Also Tuesday, the City Council approved on ordinance on first reading to change Center Avenue to a one-way street heading southbound from Austin Avenue to Whaley Street and changing Whaley Street to a one-way street heading westbound to Clark Street to help traffic flow more efficiently for the new Welcome Center at Howard Payne.

HPU contacted City staff requesting the City of Brownwood to consider converting Center Avenue to a one-way street in front of the new Welcome Center to help traffic flow more efficiently. After reviewing, the Engineering staff concluded that converting Whaley to one-way would be beneficial so that motorists would not have to back up or make a U-turn at the intersection once they realized that Center Avenue was one-way.

Both items are expected to appear again on the next City Council agenda.