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56 <br />Existing Roadway Capacity and Safety <br />Roadway capacity and roadway safety are two key indicators of how well the roadway system is <br />meeting the city's transportation needs. The sections below provide information to better <br />understand capacity and safety issues within Ramsey. <br />Existing Roadway Capacity <br />A roadway's capacity indicates how many vehicles may use a roadway before it experiences <br />congestion. Capacity is largely dependent upon the number of lanes. Table 1 below lists planning - <br />level thresholds that indicate a roadway's capacity. Additional variation (more or less capacity) on <br />an individual segment is influenced by a number of factors including: amount of access, type of <br />access, peak hour percent of traffic, directional split of traffic, truck percent, opportunities to pass, <br />and amount of turning traffic, the availability of dedicated turn lanes, parking availability, <br />intersection spacing, signal timing and a variety of other factors. <br />Table 1: Planning -level Urban Roadway Capacities <br />Arterials <br />Freeways <br />Facility Type <br />Two-lane Undivided <br />Two-lane Divided or Three -lane Undivided <br />Four -lane Undivided <br />Four -lane Divided or Five -lane Undivided <br />Four -lane Freeway <br />Six -lane Freeway <br />Eight -lane Freeway or Higher <br />Daily Two-way Volume <br />Lower <br />Threshold <br />10,000 <br />15,000 <br />18,000 <br />28,000 <br />60,000 <br />90,000 <br />Higher <br />Threshold <br />12,000 <br />17,000 <br />22,000 <br />32,000 <br />80,000 <br />120,000 <br />Calculated on a <br />segment -by -segment basis <br />1.1.1. Existing Capacity Problems on Arterial Roads <br />At the planning level, capacity problems are identified by comparing the existing number of lanes <br />with current traffic volumes. Table 2 and Figure 3 illustrate the existing number of lanes on <br />collector and arterial roadways within the city. Figure 4 illustrates existing traffic volumes on <br />Principal Arterial, A -Minor Arterials and other significant roadways within the city. <br />As shown in the table, US 10 has four lanes throughout the city, as do portions of CSAH 56 (Ramsey <br />Boulevard), CSAH 57 (Sunfish Lake Boulevard), CSAH 83 (Armstrong Boulevard), and CSAH 116 <br />(Bunker Lake Boulevard). All other arterial roadways have two lanes. Most of the arterials in <br />Ramsey currently exhibit traffic volumes below or within the range of the planning level capacity <br />thresholds shown in Table 1; however, existing volumes on TH 47 (St. Francis Boulevard) exceed <br />these thresholds in the southeastern area of the city. This indicates that this roadway may be <br />experiencing some levels of congestion during peak travel periods. <br />city of RAMSEY <br />August 2018 Draft <br />Comprehensive Plan 2040 <br />