Agenda - 05-22-1989 - Laserfiche WebLink

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1 . The goals and policies of the Orange County Land Use Plan seek to focus commercial activities in a concentrated manner at and near the intersections of important highways and roads, thereby providing for the needs of the local residents and minimizing the inconvenient, land consuming and unsightly sprawl of such uses along the transportation system. Certain important intersections in the County have been designated activity nodes at which non-residential development of various types and varying levels of intensity would be permitted within a given distance of the intersection. In essence, the transportation system would serve to provide good access to these activities and would support the land use policies directed at achieving the pattern of development desired in the County. ORANGE COUNTY HIGHWAY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM In order to assess the capacity of the existing transportation system to accommodate existing and future land use in term of access and mobility, a highway classification system is required. The highway classification system describes the roads comprising the transportation network by a functional hierarchy; that is, the level of service provided. In the classification, the higher the road \ classification, the greater the access provided to land uses; the lower the road classification, the greater the land service provided. As the Orange County Land Use Element is concerned primarily with those areas outside the corporate and planning boundaries of the urban areas, the focus of the classification scheme is the rural road network. A modified version of the N.C. Highway Functional Classification Systeml was used by the Orange County Planning Department to describe the County's road network. The system describes parts of the road network according to the service they are intended to supply based on the factors of access and mobility. The classification of roads reflects the integration of road types in providing transportation service throughout the County. The classification scheme used describes roads according to the following categories: Interstate, arterial, collector and local. The Interstate and arterial highways provide the best service (shortest travel times) to and from important employment, shopping, educational and population centers. They are characterized by relatively high travel speeds with 1 minimum interference to through movement. Collector roads provide areas with access to the major road system. Local roads are least important in terms of traffic movement, but 1- Highway Functional glagaitia&LOILLOAQMIAL gLinALLA And Pro U.S. Department of Transportation: Federal Highway Administration. July 1974.