A Diversion? How Much? What else? Whats Important? Before--Quote from the 38th Avenue Corridor Study: Road Diet Traffic Analysis, 2011: Three types of analysis were conducted on the 38th Avenue study corridor: Level of Service (LOS), Travel Time, and Diversion. The results of the LOS analysis show relatively minor decreases in traffic operations in Alternatives 1 (3‐Lane Section: No On‐Street Parking, No Right‐Turn Lanes) and 3 (3‐lane section: On‐Street Parking Included, Right‐Turn Lanes at Pierce and Harlan), with LOS C or better at the intersections directly affected by the road diet. Alternative 2 (3‐lane section: On‐Street Parking Included, No Right‐Turn Lanes) shows a greater impact at the Pierce Street and Harlan Street intersections with LOS D during the PM peak hour. The City of Wheat Ridge has adopted LOS D as the minimum acceptable operation level for City streets. The travel time analysis shows an increase in travel time along 38th Avenue between approximately 15 seconds and 100 seconds. However, in Alternative 1 and 3 the increase is less than 40 seconds in any one direction during the peak periods. An increase in travel time of less than 1 minute along the 1.5 mile corridor would not likely be noticeable to the average driver, as this falls within the range of typical daily fluctuation in travel times. The diversion analysis compared travel times along 38th Avenue for Alternative 3 to that of parallel routes that might be selected along 32nd Avenue, 35th Avenue, 41st Avenue or 44th Avenue. The results showed that diverting from 38th Avenue to any of these alternative routes in lieu of continuing eastbound or westbound through the road diet section of 38th Avenue would result in an average increase in travel time of 60% to 70% in the westbound and eastbound directions, respectively. Therefore, traffic is not expected to divert away from 38th Avenue as a result of the road diet. : After-Quote from 38th Avenue Corridor Plan Implementation memo, 2013: Traffic Summary--The Traffic Volume and Speed Data Map is provided as an attachment summarizing the data that has been collected pre and post project. When reviewing the data, please note that the road diet was implemented in June/July 2012. In general the volumes east of Pierce are similar for the major routes of 38th and 32nd with the exception of 44th Avenue with an increase of 17%. The volumes for 35th and 41st show slight reductions. The volumes west of Pierce show a steady volume and an increase of around 700 trips or 12% on 32nd. Overall, the assessment of the 18 months post-project comparison shows that traffic volumes on 38th Avenue in the project area appear to fluctuate with no apparent indication of a trend for increasing or decreasing. As noted earlier, a similar change was not noticed east of Pierce. From a speed perspective, the road diet has been very successful in reducing the speed of most of the vehicles to nearly the posted speed limit. A table is provided as an attachment summarizing the data that has been collected pre and post project for 38th Avenue for the travel time study for the 18-month span. The morning and afternoon rush hour travel times have been impacted in line with what was predicted by the study - less than 65 seconds of delay. Because of the slower school zone speeds west of Pierce, travel time for the corridor is somewhat more impacted - up to 32 seconds of delay. Delay times were observed to fluctuate widely based on traffic conditions. Traffic accident numbers seems to hold steady for both pre and post-project, hovering around historic averages for the duration.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 15:01:15 +0000
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