Agenda - Council Work Session - 11/13/2007

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. About 94% of business owners reported that their regular customers were at least as likely or more likely to continue pa,tronizing their business after the median installation. . Along corridors where property values were studied, the vast majority of land values stayed the same or increased, with very few e.xceptions. Iowa A statewide study of the effects of access management on business vitality was conducted in Iowa in 1996.3 Before and after data were collected on a series of corridor case studies. Data were collected from a variety of secondary sources, as well as opinion surveys and field investigations. Seven projects were selected for _ more in-depth research, to illustrate the variety of project types, access management issues, and geographic situations across the state. Results indicated that: . Corridors with completed access management projects performed better in terms of retail sales than the surrounding communities. Business failure rates along access managed corridors were at or below the statewide average for Iowa. Although this suggests that access management projects generally did not have an adverse effect on the majority of businesses, some businesses may have been negatively impacted. . Eighty percent of businesses surveyed in Iowa along access managed corridors reported sales at least as high after the project was in place. Relatively few businesses reported sales declines associated with the access management project, although these business own.ers clearly felt that they were hurt by the project. The firms perceiving negative impacts were a mixture of business types. .. Similarly, about 80 percent of businesses reported no customer complaints about access to their businesses after project completion. Those businesses that tended to report most complaints were highly oriented toward automobile traffic. . In 0,11' cases, 90-100 percent of motorists surveyed had a favorable opinion of improvements made to roadways that involve access management. The vast majority of motorists thought that the improved roadways were safer and that traffic flow had improved. Florida Two studies for the Florida Department of Transportation have addressed economic effects of median reconstruction projects. Both studies used a combination of before and after data and opinion surveys to gauge effects of the median reconstruction. The results were as follows: 3 Iowa State University, Iowa Access Management Research and Awareness Project: Executive Summary, 1997. Prepared by Kristine M. Williams, AICP, Center for Urban Transportation Research, University of South Florida, Tampa, January 28, 2000.