Traffic Impact Assessment
Conduct a Traffic Impact Assessment for a proposed development as shown in the following figures, located on North Creek Road with frontage to Henderson Lane and Hutley Drive, Lennox Head. The development comprises of 149 lots plus an integrated housing facility which has 30 lots, resulting in total of 179 residential lots.
The site is currently predominantly cleared land. It is proposed to realign North Creek Road through the subject site, with Hutley Drive extended to intersect with North Creek Road via a four leg roundabout. Henderson Lane will also be realigned to intersect with North Creek Road via a new T junction, to the west of Stoneyhurst Drive. The proposed site layout, shown below, is also provided
It is assumed that the development will be completed in 2020. A future planning horizon of 10 years from the date of completion should be considered. The impact of the development at the development completion year and at the planning horizon should be assessed.
For each scenario, analyse the operation of the two intersections, Hutley Drive/New North Creek Rd and The Coast Rd/Ballina St/New North Creek Rd, in the AM and PM peak hour. Note that the Hutley Drive/New North Creek Rd is only required to be analysed for the scenarios with the development, as this roundabout will only be constructed as part of the development. If the operation of any existing or proposed intersection is unacceptable, recommendations to achieve acceptable operation (which have been tested in SIDRA) should be included. Thus the report should include details of the form and lane configurations of the intersections at Hutley Drive/New North Creek Rd and The Coast Rd/Ballina St/New North Creek Rd intersections that should be constructed.
The following assumptions apply to the proposed development traffic:
- A directional distribution of development traffic to/from north or south of 50% and 50% respectively. The directional distributions described apply to AM and PM peak volumes, both entering and exiting the development.
- For the development traffic to/from the north, 60% are assumed to use The Coast Rd (i.e. left turn on The Coast Rd for exiting traffic), and 40% assumed to use Ballina Rd (i.e. through movement onto Ballina Rd for exiting traffic).
- For the development traffic to/from the south, 25% are assumed exit the development to the south (i.e. not use the to use The Coast Rd/Ballina St/New North Creek Rd intersection) and utilise Skennars Head Rd, while the remaining 75% are assumed to use The Coast Rd/Ballina St/New North Creek Rd intersection (i.e. left turn onto The Coast Rd for exiting traffic).
- Assume a split for the trip ends for the development of 20% in and 80% out in the AM peak and a 70% in and 30% out in the PM peak.
The following assumptions apply to the background traffic:
- An annual growth of 2% for the existing (background) traffic.
- When distributing the background (existing) volumes at the new Hutley Drive/New North Creek Rd intersection, assume 1/3 from the east (i.e. via the new Hutley Rd connection) and 2/3 from the south (i.e. via the New North Creek Rd).
The following are provided to enable the assessment:
- RTA Guide to Traffic Generating Developments
- AM and PM peak hour turning movements counts for the current The Coast Road/North Creek Road/Ballina Street intersection conducted in March 2013
- The proposed site plan for the development
Traffic Impact Assessment. The report must be more than 10 pages in length (excluding appendices) with an appropriate report structure, including SIDRA results, title pages, tables of contents, references, conclusions and recommendations etc. All assumptions should be well documented in the report, and the traffic volumes for each scenario must be included. Appropriate inclusions and structures of Traffic Impact Assessments were discussed in lectures, with a sample Traffic Impact Assessment provided for information. Use this as a guide only not as a definitive template.
The SIDRA INTERSECTION files containing the clearly identified scenarios used in the report must also be submitted