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Approved 11/28/18 168 Alex Castro: I see 4 crossings of the railroad, I am familiar with one at Mt Willing Rd where a young woman was racing 169 the train and did not make it at that crossing, so my question is, what kind of road modifications will be made if the 170 railroad does not want any more at-grade crossings with increase of traffic flow, is there any thought of reconfiguring 171 those roads so they are no longer at-grade crossings? The crossings are there, they are major roads. 172 173 Nish Trivedi: The Plan does not go into any detail about what specific crossing will be closed. It does not make any 174 recommendations at any railroad crossing. Some intersections with the railroad are identified in the Plan as needing 175 additional study. 176 177 Alex Castro: No at-grade crossing between 85 to 70 and the segment I am looking at on page 66; it just shows the 178 railroad. If they close all those at-grade crossings and you can’t get from 70 down to 85 in this area and if you are 179 coming out of the Economic Development Zone you are not going to get up there. The big rail crossings are Buckhorn 180 Road and Mt Willing Rd. I know this Board with the Planning Department looked at what was going to be done in terms 181 of the traffic flow down Buckhorn Road and the railroad and some of the proposals were ludicrous down to tractor trailers 182 being able to manage the roundabouts they were proposing. 183 184 Abigaile Pittman: That was part of Mebane Traffic Separation Study that was done, which studied about 5 existing 185 crossing. The Study recommended closing a couple and 3 were remaining. For Buckhorn they did 3 different options for 186 doing an overpass and the Orange County Planning staff had a preference that varied somewhat – A connection with 187 Frasier Road was favored, but without a round-about on Buckhorn Road just north of the interstate interchange. 188 189 Alex Castro: Some were problematic like the one where that accident occurred. That is very difficult for tractor trailers 190 and are also a problem for low-boy trailers that get hung up because of the crest of the railroad crossing and so, that is 191 why I brought up the question. The railroad is not going away, and you are talking about access management road 192 improvements and they co-inhabit, and you must co-exist with the railroad and how are you dealing where they meet. 193 194 Abigaile Pittman: The railroad also has some plan to alter the curve to make it less sharp because of the future train 195 speed increase. More planning needs to be done at the intersection of Buckhorn Road and the railroad. If you ever 196 want to see the Mebane Traffic Separation Study it is on the City of Mebane Website. The railroad will not have the 197 much higher speeds in Orange County as in other counties. 198 199 5.0 Staff Updates 200 201 5a MPO/RPO and NCDOT (Nish Trivdei) Materials to be provided at Meeting 202 OUTBoard Action: Receive Information. 203 204 Abigaile Pittman passed out project updates for the Burlington-Graham MPO which was not available at the time the 205 agenda packet was distributed. 206 207 Alex Castro: Question, Hwy 54 Corridor. Temporary traffic lights. They have been removed. Do you have any 208 information about what they found out about the lights, the effectiveness, traffic, cross traffic or any other results of the 209 test period? 210 211 Nish Trivedi: I can find out for you. 212 213 Alex Castro: The lights were removed completely. They were active for about 60 days at most. They were installed for 214 longer than that. A lot of people were complaining that it was causing traffic problems. 215 216 Heidi Perry: Was it signalization timing or something else? 217 218 Nish Trivedi: It slowed down traffic. It was supposed to improve the traffic. 219 220 Alex Castro: They put one at Hatch Rd and one at Neville and both roads were one way, the north side of both roads 221 were a dead end at 54, Hatch goes a little further but basically, they were a dead end at 54 and it was to prevent traffic to 222 flow out of Neville up 54 during the rush hour. 223