The Lake Oswego City Council on Tuesday tentatively approved code and plan changes needed to redesign Boones Ferry Road.

The plan, aiming to eventually make the busy Lake Grove road safer and easier to navigate for anyone who uses it, identifies future changes such as new turn lane and median locations, intersection configurations and right of way acquisition to allow for pedestrian and bicyclist improvements.

Denny Egner, the city’s long-range planning director, said officials recently adjusted the proposed code and plan language at the Lake Oswego School District’s request. District administrators want to ensure school property won’t have to meet shared access requirements because of safety concerns.

The plan also calls for moving a traffic signal from the Lake Grove Shopping Center to Madrona Street, provides some relief for property owners giving up some land for right of way and deals with “constrained sidewalks,” where some property owners can’t meet new sidewalk width requirements without affecting business operations.

Council members made one more change after hearing from Waluga Drive residents worried about a new traffic signal planned for Boones Ferry Road’s intersection with Madrona Street, which leads to Waluga Drive. They voted to require that the new signal be paired with traffic calming or other mitigation to discourage cut-through traffic and possibly new sidewalks to improve safety.

Already, neighbors said, their street is dangerous. Even without a traffic signal making turns onto Madrona — and possibly Waluga — easier and more common, neighbors today have little space to fetch their mail or walk along the road.

“What’s happening at Waluga Drive currently is disastrous,” resident Laura Forrest said. “Having this signal brought in would make bad things worse. ... The biggest offender is our police department coming through at 50 miles an hour with no lights on, no sirens, when they’re cutting through to Carman (Drive) and they’re in a hurry.

“I didn’t move here to live on a freeway on-ramp, but that’s what this street has turned into.”

The plans to implement changes on Boones Ferry Road will come back to the city council for final approval at a future meeting.