Agenda - 03-07-2013 - 6b - Laserfiche WebLink

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51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 9]CL1aI Matthew Day, TARPO explained that essentially the RPO submits a list of projects to NCDOT that it would like to see funded. Those projects are pulled from the CTP. Then there is a very elaborate scoring process and the RPO gets to assign some points, DOT gets to assign some points, and then how a project scores goes into the decision on what gets funded. Scott Walston, NCDOT explained the difference between the RPO and MPO transportation project planning steps, illustrating with a drawing on the white board for the group. Paul Guthrie noted that it is important to know what is coming into the area from other surrounding RPO and MPO jurisdictions and not knowing what is happening in other places is a limitation. He noted that everyone is at a different stage and /or uses a different format so coordination is difficult, but the planning itself is simpler than what many other more urban jurisdictions are dealing with. He noted that several of the Commissioners sit on boards of other planning jurisdictions and that becomes significant as they need some background from the OUTBoard. Paul Guthrie commented that he thinks the projections for the rural numbers for the Durham — Chapel Hill population is under estimated. He thinks NC 54 will need more improvements all the way to Orange Grove Road than what the CTP calls for. Scott Walston, NCDOT noted that this plan gets adjusted along the way to account for changes in information. Alex Castro noted that there are very few commuter corridors into Chapel Hill and UNC like NC 54. When you assess the population using NC 54 to commute, it does not all originate within Orange County, but a large percentage is from people coming through from outside the County and using it a link to get to their jobs. He is concerned with how few commuter links there are. He observed that Chapel Hill is difficult to get to and asked how to factor the commuting pattern into the calculations of traffic growth on NC 54. Scott Walston, NCDOT advised that two things were looked at, past traffic trends and also the Triangle Regional Model, which is a travel demand model that replicates the travel patterns that both DCHC and CAMPO use to predict their traffic patterns. Matthew Day, TARPO added that Alamance County has no plans to extend their 4 lanes of NC 54 farther down than it is now. Jeff Charles added that at the bicycle committee meeting in Chapel Hill it was reported there were 51,000 jobs in Chapel Hill, noting that this puts some perspective on how many people are coming into Chapel Hill for work. Highway Map Comments: Jeff Charles commented on the improvements regarding making improvements to Old NC 86 that include four -foot wide shoulders for use by bicyclists. He stated that Old NC 86 will never make a good commuter bike route because of the line of sight deficiency. He noted that no one is going to ride on a road that is as dangerous as Old NC 86 is to bicyclists. The only way it would work is if you straighten it and make elevation changes which is unlikely due to the investment it would require. Additionally, Jeff commented that improvement for cars would be favorable but no monies should be spent on it to install 4 foot shoulders to accommodate bicyclists. Cars travel too fast and it makes no sense to invest money there and it is not a necessary connector. There are other roads for recreation and commuter cyclists in that area, such as new 86. The exception to that is the one project that is a pet project of the cycling community which is Calvander, the one section of Old NC 86 between Carrboro and the Homestead /Dairyland intersection. Jeff noted the natural place to stop improvement on the Highway Map in regard to accommodating bicycles /pedestrians is at the Dairyland /Homestead intersection. 10