DRAFT

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Town Council Work Session

Adequate Public Facilities for Roads

October 20, 2009

Conference Room 10035

316 N. Academy Street, Cary, N.C.

 

Present: Mayor Harold Weinbrecht, Mayor Pro Tem Julie Robison, Council Members Don Frantz, Erv Portman, Jack Smith

 

Council Members Gale Adcock and Jennifer Robinson arrived late and their arrivals are noted in the minutes.

 

Mayor Weinbrecht called the meeting to order at 5:35 p.m.

 

Mrs. Robinson arrived at 5:36 p.m.

 

Mrs. Cove reviewed the agenda items and presented staff’s PowerPoint presentation, which is attached to and incorporated herein as Exhibit A.

 

A. OBJECTIVE

Discuss the council’s direction to investigate whether there is a more equitable way of requiring all development along a corridor to pay its fair share.

 

B. TOPICS TO BE COVERED

 

1. Background

 

      a. Useful Terms

ADT: Average Daily Traffic – the total volume of vehicles passing a certain segment of road in both directions.

 

VMT: Vehicle Miles Traveled - the sum of distances traveled for all motor vehicles in a specified system of highways for a given period of time; it is typically used on a national level comparing states. The Town doesn’t usually use this.

 

LOS: Level of Service - Uses grade levels A through F and is focused on a way of judging an intersection’s operation.  They are national standards based on average delay.

 

ITE: Institute of Transportation Engineers – Group charged with creating some of the national standards and produced the primary tool the Town uses to estimate trips.

 

HCM: Highway Capacity Manual – Another tool used to look at levels of service.

 

TIA /TIS/TAR – Traffic Impact Analysis/Traffic Impact Study/Traffic Analysis Reports – They are traffic studies.

 

Peak hour – The hour with the highest traffic volumes; it is the busiest hour of four consecutive 15 minutes and is usually in the morning and afternoons on weekdays.

 

Trips – This is what the Town’s APF ordinance is based on.  It’s a one direction movement with one car making two trips on and off of the system.

 

Trip Generation – It is a national study of various sites and is based on the number of trips that an original land use generates.

 

TDF (Transportation Development Fees) and APF (Adequate Public Facilities) are used interchangeably.

 

Mrs. Adcock arrived at 5:45 p.m.

 

      b. Transportation Development Fess and Adequate Public Facilities for Roads

Cary received authorization in 1987 to levy the TDF’s.  TDF’s funding is capacity related and the fees are established through the budget process.  The recovery fee calculation is the cost to provide the service less the credits.

 

APF’s and TDFs are related but are different ordinances.  The focus of APF’s is specifically on the timing of a development, not the overall capacity as are TDF’s.

 

Traffic studies (TIA /TIS/TAR) are done prior to submittal of applications for site plans, subdivision plans, rezonings, and/or PDDS, and usually take about five weeks to complete. 

 

Central zone and base zone areas are used to analyze the traffic impact of a particular site of a development.  Cary’s current standard is LOS D in the base zone area and LOS F in the central zone area.  This means that more delays in the more built-up area of town are acceptable as opposed to widening of the intersections.

 

To obtain mitigations, the intersections of study are evaluated for their LOS with and without the proposed site.  Mitigation is required if the standard is made worse so that a development’s impact will not make a traffic delay longer.  A new signal could be constructed or another type of traffic synchronization could be utilized instead of widening the road.

 

The average cost of a traffic study is about $23,000.  Cary has allowed developers to phase traffic studies in conjunction with the phases of a development, which is more expensive, and the developer has to pay the full cost of those studies.  Per the ordinance, developers can hire their own company, but based on legal advice, the Town needed to pay a portion and the Town decided on 10 percent.  The Town has three on-call providers of traffic studies, which are located through a bid process.

 

The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) is the primary tool used to determine capacity; it converts the number of cars to the level of service and produces the level of service.  The traffic signal timing is optimized to get the best LOS.

 

This issue was brought to the council’s attention because the LOS gets worse as an area grows with development and the last developer ends up with the most mitigation.  Also, there is a concern with the cash pool system that has been used since 1989.  At this time there is $20 million in cash agreements waiting to be fulfilled.  Cary has reimbursed about $700,000 so far this year.

 

2. Discussion of Potential Ordinance Options

Staff presented the following six options of change for the council’s consideration and the pros and cons:

1. Change LOS Standards;

2. Road Clubs;

3. Pay and Go;

4. Capacity Replacements;

5. Full Cost TDF; and

6. Developer Reimbursement.

 

3. Survey

Staff presented the following survey to the the council:.

	Question	Rating
1	Traffic studies are a critical element in our rezoning/PDD process.	1	2	3	4	5
2	Traffic studies are a critical element in our site/subdivision plan process.	1	2	3	4	5
3	The 50 peak hour trip threshold is appropriate.	1	2	3	4	5
4	The LOS “standard” of D for the majority of the Town is appropriate (base zone).	1	2	3	4	5
5	The LOS “standard” of F for the central area of Town is appropriate (central zone).	1	2	3	4	5
6	The study area boundaries (i.e. intersections to be studied based on the number of trips and zones) is appropriate.	1	2	3	4	5
7	The timeframes for the validity of traffic studies is appropriate (for PDDs, rezonings and site/subdivision plans).	1	2	3	4	5
8	The implementation of the identified mitigations currently occurs at the appropriate time (i.e. at first certificate of occupancy).	1	2	3	4	5
9	The current Transportation Development Fees are an appropriate level of cost.	1	2	3	4	5
10	Developers should be required to make improvements along their frontages.	1	2	3	4	5
11	Developers should be required to construct roadways through their property (i.e. Yates Store Road through Amberly).	1	2	3	4	5
12	The physical improvements should be designed and constructed by the developer and not the Town.	1	2	3	4	5
13	The current mechanisms to meet the requirements of APF are appropriate (i.e. the developer can make the improvement, scale back the development to reduce the traffic, or ask the Town to undertake the improvement).	1	2	3	4	5