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TxDOT says no need for light at SH 321 and Peach
By ALEX WUKMAN
The Senior Citizens Center wants it, the City of Cleveland wants it, the Cleveland Police Department wants it, but TxDOT says it’s not needed. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) determined that the intersection of SH 321 and Peach Street does not warrant a traffic signal.
The determination was made based on a 12-hour manual traffic count conducted on Wednesday, Dec. 10. A letter from Janet Manley, TxDOT’s Director of Transportation Operations, to City Manager Philip Cook stated that “of the eight traffic signal warrants evaluated in the analysis, none were met.”
The letter goes on to state that “to be able consider the installation of a traffic signal, at least one warrant must be met.”
The criteria used are: Eight-Hour Vehicular Volume, Four-Hour Vehicular Volume, Peak Hour Volume, Pedestrian Volume, School Crossing, Coordinated Signal System, Crash Experience and Roadway Network.
The “Eight-Hour Vehicular Volume” criteria has a condition requiring both major streets and minor streets to have a certain amount of vehicles pass over them per hour. It also states that for TxDOT to consider a traffic light, the speed on the major street has to exceed 40 mph.
Since both SH 321 and Peach Street are two-lane roads, TxDOT’s “Eight-Hour Vehicular Volume” criteria required that SH 321 had to have a minimum of 420 cars pass by per hour and Peach Street needed 140 per hour. The total volume of cars on SH 321 was 1,074 per hour; however the volume on Peach was only 33 per hour.
Additionally the speed on SH 321 when it intersects with Peach does not exceed 40 mph. In the “Four-Hour Vehicular Volume” category, the traffic flow on Peach also posed a problem.
TxDOT’s report states that “80 [vehicles per hour] applies as the lower threshold volume for a minor street approach with two or more lanes.” According to TxDOT, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the afternoon of Dec. 10 there were never more than 80 vehicles per hour on Peach Street.
The “Peak Hour” criteria requires that traffic conditions be consistent “during any four consecutive 15-minute periods.” To determine that, TxDOT has three specific criteria that must be met; the criteria cover the time that vehicles spend idling and traffic flow.
The first criteria requires that for the delay caused by traffic, one of the approaches from the minor street controlled by a stop sign “equals or exceeds four vehicle-hours for a one-lane approach or five vehicle-hours for a two-lane approach.”
Since Peach Street is a two-lane road, TxDOT requires that the total number of cars that would approach the intersection with SH 321 had to exceed 150 vehicles per hour during peak hour, which they defined as 4-5 p.m. TxDOT’s report states that between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Dec. 10, 22 cars approached the intersection with SH 321 from Peach Street.
In the same time, 1,367 vehicles approached the intersection on SH 321. The “Pedestrian Volume” criteria looked at the amount of pedestrians “crossing the major street or mid-block locations.”
No pedestrians crossed SH 321 during TxDOT’s study. Additionally the school crossing issue was deemed not applicable since there is not a school near the intersection.
The “Coordinated Signal System” criteria looked at the impact of adding another light to the system.
“On a two-way street, are the adjacent signals far enough apart that the necessary degree of vehicle platooning does not occur and would the proposed and adjacent traffic control signal provide a progressive operation?” asked the report. TxDOT replied “No.”
The “Crash Experience” criteria uses records of automobile collisions for the previous 12 months to determine if there have been more than five accidents that could have been corrected had there been a traffic signal at the intersection. TxDOT determined that there had been only one — a collision that occurred on Oct. 10, 2008.
The “Roadway Network” criteria is based on TxDOT’s projections of community growth and use for the next five years. TxDOT projects traffic at the SH 321 and Peach Street intersection to grow by 2 percent over the next five years.
However, the agency doesn’t feel that an increase of traffic on SH 321 from 1,367 vehicles per hour to 1,509 cars in an hour by 2013 merits a traffic light because the projected traffic increase on Peach Street will only be 25 vehicles per hour.
Many in Cleveland’s city government believe that TxDOT’s assessment is mistaken because the date that the observers came out was not representative of the true state of Cleveland’s traffic.
“[City Finance Director] Kellen [Shaw] saw them out there and said that it was a real light day,” said Cook. Cook stated that city will be contacting TxDOT to attempt to convince their observers to do another study “once the traffic has built back up.”
The determination was made based on a 12-hour manual traffic count conducted on Wednesday, Dec. 10. A letter from Janet Manley, TxDOT’s Director of Transportation Operations, to City Manager Philip Cook stated that “of the eight traffic signal warrants evaluated in the analysis, none were met.”
The letter goes on to state that “to be able consider the installation of a traffic signal, at least one warrant must be met.”
The criteria used are: Eight-Hour Vehicular Volume, Four-Hour Vehicular Volume, Peak Hour Volume, Pedestrian Volume, School Crossing, Coordinated Signal System, Crash Experience and Roadway Network.
The “Eight-Hour Vehicular Volume” criteria has a condition requiring both major streets and minor streets to have a certain amount of vehicles pass over them per hour. It also states that for TxDOT to consider a traffic light, the speed on the major street has to exceed 40 mph.
Since both SH 321 and Peach Street are two-lane roads, TxDOT’s “Eight-Hour Vehicular Volume” criteria required that SH 321 had to have a minimum of 420 cars pass by per hour and Peach Street needed 140 per hour. The total volume of cars on SH 321 was 1,074 per hour; however the volume on Peach was only 33 per hour.
Additionally the speed on SH 321 when it intersects with Peach does not exceed 40 mph. In the “Four-Hour Vehicular Volume” category, the traffic flow on Peach also posed a problem.
TxDOT’s report states that “80 [vehicles per hour] applies as the lower threshold volume for a minor street approach with two or more lanes.” According to TxDOT, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the afternoon of Dec. 10 there were never more than 80 vehicles per hour on Peach Street.
The “Peak Hour” criteria requires that traffic conditions be consistent “during any four consecutive 15-minute periods.” To determine that, TxDOT has three specific criteria that must be met; the criteria cover the time that vehicles spend idling and traffic flow.
The first criteria requires that for the delay caused by traffic, one of the approaches from the minor street controlled by a stop sign “equals or exceeds four vehicle-hours for a one-lane approach or five vehicle-hours for a two-lane approach.”
Since Peach Street is a two-lane road, TxDOT requires that the total number of cars that would approach the intersection with SH 321 had to exceed 150 vehicles per hour during peak hour, which they defined as 4-5 p.m. TxDOT’s report states that between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Dec. 10, 22 cars approached the intersection with SH 321 from Peach Street.
In the same time, 1,367 vehicles approached the intersection on SH 321. The “Pedestrian Volume” criteria looked at the amount of pedestrians “crossing the major street or mid-block locations.”
No pedestrians crossed SH 321 during TxDOT’s study. Additionally the school crossing issue was deemed not applicable since there is not a school near the intersection.
The “Coordinated Signal System” criteria looked at the impact of adding another light to the system.
“On a two-way street, are the adjacent signals far enough apart that the necessary degree of vehicle platooning does not occur and would the proposed and adjacent traffic control signal provide a progressive operation?” asked the report. TxDOT replied “No.”
The “Crash Experience” criteria uses records of automobile collisions for the previous 12 months to determine if there have been more than five accidents that could have been corrected had there been a traffic signal at the intersection. TxDOT determined that there had been only one — a collision that occurred on Oct. 10, 2008.
The “Roadway Network” criteria is based on TxDOT’s projections of community growth and use for the next five years. TxDOT projects traffic at the SH 321 and Peach Street intersection to grow by 2 percent over the next five years.
However, the agency doesn’t feel that an increase of traffic on SH 321 from 1,367 vehicles per hour to 1,509 cars in an hour by 2013 merits a traffic light because the projected traffic increase on Peach Street will only be 25 vehicles per hour.
Many in Cleveland’s city government believe that TxDOT’s assessment is mistaken because the date that the observers came out was not representative of the true state of Cleveland’s traffic.
“[City Finance Director] Kellen [Shaw] saw them out there and said that it was a real light day,” said Cook. Cook stated that city will be contacting TxDOT to attempt to convince their observers to do another study “once the traffic has built back up.”
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Highballin wrote on Jan 1, 2009 9:54 PM: