20- That Other Intersection: Violates County Guidelines

The Planning Board will reopen its hearing on the site plan and special use permit on January 14, at 5 PM, and close it at 7 PM, according to its latest plan. Since the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane is not considered part of the site plan, I thought we could look at something that IS strictly in the site plan, and that also violates the county's access management guidelines. (For a definition of access management, see the end of this post.)

The engineering firm of Creighton Manning prepared access management guidelines for Ulster County, more specifically "for use by municipalities in enhancing the safety and quality of their access management and roadway environments" That's you, Woodstock Planning Board! Hey, isn't that the same Creighton Manning that is responsible for the traffic study for the RUPCO project? Yes, one and the same. I am shocked and dismayed to report that the traffic study Creighton Manning did for RUPCO ignores the recommendations they made in the access management study for the county. Let's look:

Creighton Manning wrote, in the access management study, several safety principles and recommendations concerning the spacing and location of driveways with regard to intersections. In the case of the RUPCO project, it is not a driveway being proposed, but a road. It is not a driveway infringing unsafely on an intersection, but a new intersection infringing on two existing driveways.

I think this diagram will make it clear:

The solid pink street on the left is Playhouse Lane. Playhouse Lane stops and Whites Lane begins at the corner. While this is a meeting of two streets, it is not an intersection. It is simply a name change and a continuation of a single street. There is one driveway for a single house that goes off the page on the bottom. There is another driveway for three houses that goes off the page on the right side. In the case of both these driveways, the town does not clear snow from them, and mailboxes are on the main road. The longer one for the three houses is not paved. They are driveways, not streets. The current configuration of this area is one street that turns about 90 degrees, and two driveways emptying onto it either at or within about 10 feet of the corner.

RUPCO is proposing to build a project of 53 residences, with over 120 parking spaces, along a road that will be a town road, which the town will maintain, and along which delivery and mail trucks will drive. This new road will be a street, and will create an intersection where now there is only a corner with two driveways.

Would you like to know what Creighton Manning has to say about driveways IN intersections?

"Adequate separation from intersections and other driveways are key safety considerations."

What is "adequate"? That information is supplied in the document as well, in an example of Canandaigua and Farmington. Adequate, there, is defined as 220 feet between driveways. In any case, the key here is "separation from intersections," and if we test the RUPCO project against this standard, it simply fails.

"Driveways near intersections create increased conflicts between vehicles waiting at traffic signals or stop signs and vehicles turning into and out of the driveways."

Here again we see an argument against putting a driveway NEAR an intersection. Of course the hazard is greater if the driveway is AT the intersection.

"There are a number of typical standards that have been proposed for distances from the edge of an intersection to the first driveway. One principle is that there should be no driveways entering within an intersection's functional area." [bold type is in original document.]

Now, you might be asking why I bring this up, since the RUPCO project is going to add a street, not a driveway. Well, whether you add a street and create an intersection where there are existing driveways, or add a driveway where there is an existing intersection, the result is the same: driveways AT an intersection. Creighton Manning is very clear that this is not a safe practice.

The intersection of Playhouse Lane and the proposed road was, previously, about 300 feet closer to Route 212, but I hear that the problem with that site was environmental in nature. Whatever the reason, it was rejected and the one sketched in my little diagram is currently the one on the table. Perhaps the safety aspect of this new location was overlooked because the intersection site is a new one? In any case, now I am highlighting it for all to see. It is simply an unsafe design and should be rejected. Thanks, Creighton Manning, for these excellent access management guidelines!!!

The Federal Highway Administration defines access management as: the process that provides access to land development while simultaneously preserving the flow of traffic on the surrounding road system in terms of safety, capacity, and speed. It attempts to balance the need to provide good mobility for through traffic with the requirements for reasonable access to adjacent land uses.