Agenda Packets - 1997/05/12 - Laserfiche WebLink

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APR-18-97 FRI 1421 SRF FAX NO. 4752429 P. 05 •Pam Sheldon - 4 - April 14, 1997 • The analysis completed mpleted for the March 12, 1997 memorandum was based on the pcak hour of the adjacent street, which is the critical time period for evaluating the ability of the street system to accommodate the expected traffic levels. Additional information was requested on the number of trips that would be generated by the movie theater during the peak hour of the generator (i.e., the theater). Although data was available from the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) for estimating trip generation for the peak hour of the adjacent street, the ITE data for the peak hour of the generator was extremely variable. In order to develop a better estimate for the peak hour of the generator, a traffic count was conducted for an existing movie theater complex in the Twin Cities that is similar to the Carmike Theater being proposed. Counts were taken at an existing 2,300 scat movie theater on a Friday night between 8:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. This time period was selected to include both the vehicles exiting from movies that had started in the 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. slot and the vehicles entering for movies that would be starting in the 8:30 to 10:00 p.m. time slot. Friday night was selected because poor weather was expected on the Saturday of the weekend that the counts were taken. The counts described above resulted in a trip generation rate of 0.15 trips per seat for the peak hour of the generator (8:30 - 9:30 p.m.). Using this trip rate to estimate trips for the proposed 2,648-seat movie theater resulted in a peak trip generation of 397 trips per hour. It has been assumed that the trips generated by the office buildings during the peak hour of the movie theater trip generation would be negligible. TRIP ASSIGNMENT The assignment of site-generated trips to the street system was originally based on the distribution of existing traffic volumes on the streets. This is typically the method used for small traffic studies. Comments made at the PIanning Commission meeting indicated that the assumed direction of approach was not consistent with travel patterns observed by residents in the area. Consequently a more detailed analysis, usually used for more complex traffic studies, was used to refine the assumed direction of approach. For this analysis, the Metropolitan Council's regional travel forecasting model was used to assign site generated trips to the street system. The resulting direction of approach, shown in Figure 1, indicates that more of the site generated trips would be destined to the south and southwest on County Road bI-2 and Long Lake Road them assumed previously. Figure 2 shows the number of site-generated trips that would be added to Long Lake Road and County Road H-2 by the proposed project on a daily basis (theater and office), during the peak hour of the adjacent street (theater and office trips), and during the 8:30 - . 9:30 p.m. peak hour of the generator (theater only, office trips would be negligible). The proposed development would result in increases of between eight and eleven percent over