The Cashiers Area Community Planning Council resumed the ongoing special use hearings for the proposed Marketplace development May 7. Marketplace attorney Brian Gulden called traffic engineer David Hyder to present his expert testimony.
At the end of Hyder’s presentation, opposing counsel joined a motion to strike his testimony as evidence in light of inaccurate numbers. Hyder’s model indicated one set of values while the report indicated other numbers. Hyder was unsure where the differences could have occurred, although numbers were not significantly different and materials were still accepted by responsible parties. Planners decided to keep his testimony admitted following a brief closed session to confer with legal counsel.
Hyder, traffic engineer with J.M. Teague Engineering PLLC, has worked with Marketplace and the approved East Village, and he anticipates working with Cashiers Lake. In his testimony, he presented his traffic impact analysis, which he said reviews existing traffic in the area and multiplies it by under three percent to account for growth.
As he prepares his work, Hyder works with the client, the local NCDOT division maintenance engineer, and congestion management out of Raleigh. He then receives the parties’ feedback and continues.
“Raleigh is going to look at everything that comes out of Cashiers because it’s a point of concern for them,” Hyder said.
Hyder looked at intersections in the area, including US 64 and Frank Allen, 64 and Highway 107, 64 and Marigold Street, 64 and Monte Vista Road, 64 and Ingles, and 107 and Marigold. Hyder suggested a lower speed limit on Monte Vista to assist with visibility and limiting left/right turns and installing roundabouts to potentially help Cashiers’ level of service. Level of service is the amount of vehicles that can get through each traffic light cycle and it can be impacted by busy intersections, narrow roads, and additional buffer time to prevent factors like running red lights.
“If you’re going from one side of Cashiers to the other, you’re going to have to go through the intersection (of US 64 and Highway 107). The quality of life in Cashiers is basically dependent on how well that intersection works,” Hyder told The Highlander in a separate interview.
In testimony Hyder proposed right-only turn lanes he believes could make intersections safer. Left turns and middle lanes require more time, which can lead to more congestion.
Hyder said there are some concerns with the trip distribution, which is how travelers get from point A to point B. The Marketplace development is expected to add under 4,300 daily trips, with a morning peak of 213 and an afternoon peak of 469.
Hyder’s report measured trips during the mornings and afternoons in September. This drew some concerns from planning council members, notably Daniel Fletcher, who argued the report doesn’t capture Cashiers’ unique seasonality.
“It’s hard to wrap my head around how it’ll really affect traffic if we don’t look at actual peak times,” Fletcher said. “This report doesn’t show the reality of what we may have to endure.”
The NCDOT does not accept traffic counts from May to August when schools aren’t in session. The logic, as Hyder explained, is traffic patterns differ during this period when parties may take additional trips and bus routes during the morning and afternoon. Holidays can also skew traffic routes, so in the separate interview, Hyder said analyses use Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday data and look at the 25th busiest day, which he said can give more consistent day-to-day data than holidays.
Planning council member Doug Homolka argued if the traffic analysis was accepted by DOT and Raleigh, it must have passed strict requirements, errors notwithstanding. The DOT required no additional mitigations. Notably, Marketplace’s analysis also occurs during September rather than the approved East Village’s January analysis.
The Marketplace hearings are set to continue May 20 at 1 p.m. and May 21 at 9 a.m. in the Cashiers library.