Agenda - Planning Commission - 11/05/1992

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The most si~gnificant accomplishment of this alignment is the creation of 153rd Avenue as an east/west crpsstown arterial. The alignment will require the construction of 0.65 miles of roadway. I~tiagy, this roadway will service a minimum of 550 vehicles per day. This projection is based on.an at!. alysis of the traffic using the east/west streets immediately noah of the proposed roadway. Tl~.e fact that convenient crosstown access would be available will generate additional trips. With0!Jt tlie benefit of a relatively costly origin/destination engineering study, however, it is not possibleito ~luantify this amount of additional traffic. The alignment will reduce the travel between the tWo;~points it connects by 0.4 miles and will eliminate four turns currently being made by traffic veishi~g to traverse these two points. Within a 20 year design period, traffic counts on this segment i~f roadway are anticipated to triple. The constm¢~onof this roadway will reduce traffic on 156th Avenue from 468 vehicles per day to approximately 74 vehicles per day. Likewise, the traffic on 158th Avenue can be expected to decrease by ~_pproximately 150 vehicles per day. The total project cost is anticipated to be $600,000 with about $400,000 being anticipated in construction icos. t. Major construction costs associated with this alignment include grading, paving, curb 0ndgutter, wetland construction and impact mitigation. Alternative: 2: Connect 155th Avenue with 154th Lane. This altemafi.ve was proposed by a resident at the September 24 meeting. The proposed alignment is illustrated ~on the attachment entitled Alternate 2 and entails the construction of 0.5 miles of roadway. This alignment would provide direct connection of the eastern segment of 153rd Avenue with Armstrdx~g ~oulevard. Truck traffic wishing to continue westward would need to turn left onto southbrmnd Armstrong Boulevard for 1100 feet, turn right and then continue on 153rd Avenue westWard. Acceleration and deceleration charts will verify that even passenger vehicles making this maneuver will not reach the posted speed of Armstrong Boulevard. In fact, a passenger v¢lticl~ will only reach top speed of approximately 35 miles per hour which means that these vehicles will be traveling this 1100 foot distance at speeds between 20 to 40 miles per hour slower that Ai'mStrong Boulevard traffic. Truck traffic making this maneuver will accelerate and decelerate ev6n slower and present even more of a safety hazard. To avoid this hazard, it is likely that passengor vehicles wishing to continue westward beyond Armstrong Boulevard will very likely confimie along 154th Lane. This would also eliminate one turn over the aforementioned MSA route wltich tracks must follow. Essentially, 154th Lane and Okapi Street would function as a portion of ~e crosstown arterial. This is objectionable from the standpoint that 39 single family residential lots and one neighborhood park front on this street which was never anticipated to function as an;art0rial street. As a sub-alternative, it may be possible to offset 155th Avenue from 154th Lane a distance of 150 feet by allowiilg 155th Avenue to follow the section line. Although such an offset intersection may serve to deter~the use of 154th Lane as a continuation of the arterial street by passenger vehicles, those vehicles which will continue making the cross street maneuver will do so at a greatly increased hazard; Such intersection offsets are considered poor from a traffic engineering standpoint and are strongly discouraged. As with Alternate .1, it is expected that this link would initially service a minimum of 550 vehicles per day and that additional traffic could likely be expected due to the convenience of this link being available for t~avol. If this link were constructed, it would service the northwestern section of the City better thag~ Alternate 1 as it would eliminate two turns for travelers having destinations in the eastern portions of the City. In addition, Whispering Pines and adjacent subdivisions would have more direct acCess,to the crosstown arterial.