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Rachel Juba From: Joe Gustafson <Joe.Gustafson@co.washington.mn.us> Sent: Wednesday, May 4, 2022 3:52 PM To: Rachel Juba Cc: Lyssa Leitner; Kurt Howard; Mitch Bartelt; Frank Ticknor; Ryan Hoefs; Emily Jorgensen; Wayne Sandberg; Jennifer Oehler Subject: Liberty Academy on CSAH 7 - Washington County PW Comments Caution:This email originated outside our organization; please use caution. Hello Rachel, Thank you for providing us with the opportunity to review and comment on the proposed site plan for the Liberty Academy site (formerly Withrow Elementary) located at the intersection of County Road 57 (Keller Ave) and County State Aid Highway(CSAH) 7 (122"d Street North). Below are comments from Washington County Public Works on the site plan and proposed usage. • A Washington County Right-of-way permit would be needed for any work that takes place within existing highway right-of-way along CSAH 7 or along CR 57, including shoulder closures or construction vehicle staging. • Compared to other commercial or institutional uses, schools often have high peaks of vehicular traffic which can lead to traffic conflicts on adjacent roadways. Unfortunately, warning signs and even school speed limits have only marginal effects on driver speeds and behaviors, and therefore it is essential for all school sites to ensure that traffic queues and pickup/dropoff activity are fully accommodated within the site and not extending onto adjacent highways. • The applicant contacted Washington County Public Works earlier this year to inquire about installation of school warning signage or speed zones on the adjacent county highways and submitted a permit application for such installation. We notified them that such signage is not normally installed except when pedestrian crossings of the county highway are present, or other unusual conditions that cannot be mitigated by other more effective strategies. Therefore,the permit application was withdrawn at the county's recommendation. We have not had further contact with them. • The proposed parking lot expansion and associated traffic loop is a positive improvement that will help to lengthen the available stacking within the site, and the proposed one-way loop configuration is also a sensible improvement. It may be advantageous to explore the potential to convert two a dual-lane queue in the future, if and when it becomes necessary. • Will school bus service be provided to students? The site plan does not appear to show any areas specific for school bus queuing or staging. Buses, naturally,take up considerable space and there is often a desire for buses to be able to "queue jump" other vehicle traffic in order to maintain schedules. • We recommend that the city consider adopting conditions within the Conditional Use Permit that it is the responsibility of the site operator to ensure,through site design and operating procedures, that queuing does not extend onto the highways, and that such queuing may be considered a violation of the conditional use permit. • It should be noted that Washington County Public Works typically requires construction of turn lanes as an condition of an access permit when the number of daily trips exceeds approximately 100 per day. This site is likely to exceed that threshold, however it is not likely to need an access permit since these are not new driveways nor are they a change in use of existing accesses, since the site is remaining an elementary school. The existing driveways also are within the zone of any future turn lane serving right turns onto CR 57 (Keller Ave), due to their proximity to the intersection (see next bullet). i