BYLAW NO. 1130 – REZONING OF 294 AND 296 ELTHAM ROAD AND 242 HELMCKEN ROAD
Staff report recommending legal agreements and rezoning for a three-storey townhouse development.
- Also, to identify any needed short-term and long-term roadway improvements in the project areas to enable acceptable traffic operations that would satisfy View Royal’s requirements.
1.4 Methodologies
This transportation review utilizes the following evaluation methodologies:
- Data collection including but not limited to existing roadway and intersection geometric characteristic, pavement markings, and traffic control types.
- A new peak hour traffic count collected on a typical weekday at the major study intersection.
- Trip generation estimate for the proposed development were based on appropriate Trip Generation land use categories available in the trip generation manual published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), 11th Edition.
- Distribution of the site generated trips to/from the development site based on population, land uses, roadway network, and existing traffic patterns in the project vicinities.
- Assignment of the project trips to the adjacent roadways based on the proposed project site plan and the estimated roadway trip distribution characteristics.
- Intersection layout assessment based on the Transportation Association of Canada’s standards will be completed to determine any needed improvements for the study intersection. The study will analyze whether there is a need for a left turn lane for either Helmcken Road or Eltham Road.
- Sightline field measurement and assessment will be completed for the site access intersection and the Helmcken Road / Eltham Road intersection. The town indicated they have concerns with respect to the sightlines, both vertical and horizontal, as a result of this development.
- Existing and Post Development traffic capacity analysis for the study area intersections and roadways to identify possible capacity constraints and to assess overall traffic impacts of the proposed development, which is based on the latest Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) methodologies by the Transportation Research Board, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
2.0 EXISTING CONDITIONS
2.1 Area Road Network
There are two roadways providing access to the site as described below. These roadways are Helmcken Road and Eltham Road. A brief description of each of these roadways follows.
Helmcken Road is a two-lane two-way undivided roadway that runs in the north / south directions in the vicinity of the proposed development and intersects with Eltham Road creating a T-intersection. Helmcken Road connects the areas south of Eltham Road to provincial Highway 1 and the areas to the north of Highway 1. The speed limit on Helmcken Road is posted at 40 Km / hr. in the vicinity of the proposed development. Helmcken Road has marked bicycle lanes on the northbound and southbound direction adjacent to vehicle travel lanes.
Eltham Road is a two-lane two-way undivided paved local roadway that runs in the east / west directions in the vicinity of the site. The speed limit on Eltham Road is not posted but the prima facie speed is 30 Km/hr.
The intersection of Helmcken Road and Eltham Road is a 3-leg unsignalized intersection with stop-control sign on Eltham Road approach and a free flow operation on Helmcken Road north / south approaches. This intersection has one left/right shared lane in the westbound direction, one shared through/left lane in southbound direction, and one through/right lane in the northbound direction. Refer to Figure 1c that presents the current intersection layout for more details.
2.2 Existing Traffic Volumes and Conditions
A field and desktop reconnaissance of the site and its surroundings was conducted to establish a database of the existing conditions. The peak period for the proposed residential development would typically occur during the weekday morning and afternoon periods. Turning movement traffic count data was collected on Tuesday, December 13, 2022 from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM and from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM for the a.m. and p.m. peak periods respectively at the following study intersection:
- Helmcken Road and Eltham Road Intersection.
The Existing 2022 AM and PM peak-hour traffic volumes for the above intersection are illustrated on Figure 2. Details of the collected traffic count data for the study intersection are contained in Appendix B.
Additionally, the Existing 2022 bicycle traffic and pedestrian crossing the study intersection are presented on Figure 3. A review of Figure 3 indicates that observed bicycle traffic was low; however, pedestrian crossing was significant. The numbers of conflicting pedestrian and bicycle were considered in the Synchro capacity analyses for the study intersection.