13-10 Traffic

RESPONSE 13-10

The construction truck trips are expected to occur between 8:00 AM and 3:00 PM and the employee shift change is expected to occur between 5:00 PM and 6:00 PM. Realistically, these two trip types will never occur together, and the majority of these trips will never occur during the weekday afternoon peak hour. For purposes of providing a conservative traffic study, however, we assumed that 25% of the daily truck trips and all of the employee shift change traffic will occur during the weekday afternoon peak hour.

If we were to analyze the weekday afternoon peak hour from 3:15 PM to 4:15 PM with what is projected to occur, we would have no additional trips during the above ground construction phase. However, during the underground construction phase when concrete deliveries are allowed until 4:00 PM, there would be a minimal number of concrete trucks delivering between 3:15 PM and 4:00 PM and a negligible impact on peak hour traffic.

Since the construction employee trips are the highest volume of traffic added to the network and shifts are expected to change between 5:00 and 6:00 PM, it is expected that this time period will be affected. If the intersection of Pascoag Main Street at Church Street were analyzed with the employee site trips added between 5:00 PM and 6:00 PM, the southbound approach is expected to operate at LOS E and under capacity. All other movements are expected to operate at LOS B or better. LOS is a grading scale that measures the average amount of delay expected at an intersection approach. LOS E or better describes delays of less than 50 seconds at an unsignalized intersection.

DATE:

June 20, 2016