For MIXED USE, COMMERCIAL & RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT

View Royal, British Columbia

Prepared for Jeffery Sengara

July 9, 2020 Revised on October 8, 2020

ADDOZ ENGINEERING INC 125 9 Avenue SE, Suite 2000, Calgary, AB T2G 0P6 Office: (587) 315-3610 Fax: (587) 315-3604 Web: www.addozeng.ca

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1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 General

Jeffery Sengara retained Addoz Engineering Inc. to prepare a traffic impact assessment (TIA) in support of the proposed Mixed Use, Commercial & Residential Development, View Royal, British Columbia. The proposed project will be built on a 19,945 Sq. Ft. lot. The development will be located on the northeastern quadrant of Island Highway and Helmcken Road intersection. This traffic impact assessment is being prepared to assess potential transportation impacts of the proposed development and to satisfy the Town of View Royal requirements for such a study as a result of the proposed development.

1.2 Planned Development

The proposed development will be a 6 storey high building with two underground parking levels. Access to the development will be provided via two access points, one access point on Helmcken Road that would lead to the two parking levels and a second access point on Island Highway that would lead to the commercial parking area. The development will have a maximum of 59 residential units and 6,014 Sq. Ft. of retail space on the first floor. The proposed site plan is attached in Appendix A of this report.

1.3 Purpose of Study

The primary purposes of this traffic impact assessment study are:

• To evaluate the traffic operations and levels of service (LOS) at the following intersections (please refer to Figure 1):
  • Island Highway and Helmcken Road intersection (Signalized);
  • First Site Access and Helmcken Road intersection; and
  • Second Site Access and Island Highway intersection.
• To evaluate any potential project traffic impacts of the proposed development to the surrounding roadway network, and to determine if the roadways, site accesses and traffic circulations in the project vicinities would be suitable for the intended development and the amount of development traffic volumes anticipated.
• To identify suitable intersection control and geometric configurations that would be required to properly service the proposed development.
• Also, to identify needed short-term and long-term roadway improvements in the areas to enable acceptable traffic operations that would satisfy View Royal’s requirements.

1.4 Methodologies

This traffic impact assessment utilizes the following evaluation methodologies:

• Data collection including but not limited to existing roadway and intersection geometric characteristic, pavement markings, traffic control types, and intersection turning movement traffic counts.
• The forecast of background peak hour traffic volumes without the site traffic for the 2023 (Opening) and 2033 (Opening + 10 year) horizons.
• Trip generation estimate for the proposed development based on appropriate Trip Generation land use categories and corresponding trip generation rates by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE).
• 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.
• Existing, background, Opening and future 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.

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2.0 EXISTING CONDITIONS

2.1 Area Road Network

There are two roadways providing access to the site as described below. These roadways are Island Highway and Helmcken Road. A brief description of each of these roadways follows.

Island Highway is a two-lane two-way undivided highway that runs in the southeast / northwest directions in the vicinity of the proposed development. Island Highway is a major highway within View Royal with raised median sections east of View Royal Avenue. The speed limit of Island Highway in the vicinity of the proposed development is posted at 50 Km/hr. Bicycle lanes exist on the two sides of Island Highway west of Helmcken Road. However, bicycle lane exist only on the westbound direction east of Helmcken Road.

Helmcken Road is a two-lane two-way undivided roadway that runs in the north / south directions in the vicinity of the proposed development site and intersects with Island Highway. This road connects the areas south of Island Highway 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. to the north of Island Highway and posted at 30 Km/hr. to the south of Island Highway.

The intersection of Island Highway and Helmcken Road is a four-leg signalized intersection with exclusive left-turn only lanes on all approaches. The detailed lane configuration for each approach along with the available storage lengths for the right-only and left-only lanes are presented on Figure 1c. The westbound right-turn only lane is channelized with a Yield traffic control sign.

2.2 Historical Roadway Traffic Volumes

The Town of View Royal was contacted to provide their recent counts available for the study roadways. The available recent counts were performed in 2017 at two locations along Helmcken Road. The AM and PM northbound (NB) and southbound (SB) peak hour volumes are presented in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Historical Traffic Volumes along Helmcken Road

Note that the 225 Helmcken Road data was collected from 5/26/2017 9:31:19 AM through 6/5/2017 9:56:21 AM and the 168 Helmcken Road data was collected from 6/23/2017 11:01:12 AM through 7/5/2017 2:21:42 PM. The 225 Helmcken Road is closer to study intersection.

2.3 Existing Traffic Volumes and Conditions

A field reconnaissance of the site and its surroundings was conducted to establish a database of the existing conditions. The peak period for the proposed residential and commercial Development would typically occur during the weekday morning and the late afternoon periods.

Turning movement traffic count data was collected on Wednesday June 3, 2020 from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM and from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM for the a.m. and p.m. peak periods respectively at the following study intersection:

• Island Highway and Helmcken Road Intersection.

The observed AM and PM peak-hour traffic volumes for the above intersection are illustrated on Figure 2. The AM and PM peak hours of traffic occurred from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM, and from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM, respectively. Due to the current COVID-19 conditions the observed traffic would not properly represent the typical volumes in 2020 regular condition. Therefore, Addoz Engineering Inc. utilized the Town of View Royal’s 2017 traffic count data collected along Helmcken Road in order to determine the appropriate factors to estimate 2020 volumes.

An annual traffic growth factor of 1.4 % has been utilized that was applied on 2017 data for 3 years to estimate 2020 volumes. Note that this factor has been determined after reviewing Town of View Royal’s Transportation Master Plan (TMP) completed by BUNT & ASSOCIATES that utilized a 1.5% annual growth factor.

Table 2: Historical 225 Helmcken Road & Observed Counts to Determine Growth Factors

Table 3: Historical 168 Helmcken Road & Observed Counts to Determine Growth Factors

Based on the above table results and discussion, the combined Growth Factors, which are the averages of the factors at the two Helmcken Road Count Locations, are presented below:

• AM Average Growth Factor = 1.35
• PM Average Growth Factor = 1.21

The above two factors were applied on Figure 2, the 2020 study intersection observed peak hour traffic volumes, to determine the estimated 2020 Existing peak hour traffic volumes, which are presented on Figure 3.

2.4 Existing Heavy Vehicle Composition

The AM peak hour and PM peak hour heavy vehicle compositions were determined from the intersection turning movement traffic count performed at the study intersection and are presented in Table 4. Note that the sum of Single Unit Trucks and the Tractor Trailer Unit were considered to represent heavy vehicle traffic and their percentages are presented in the below table.

Table 4: Adjacent Highway Heavy Vehicle Composition (in %)

2.5 Planned Roadway Improvements

Town of View Royal provided Addoz Engineering Inc. with their plan for improvements of the Island Highway starting from Helmcken Road to the east. Here is a description of the planned improvements compared to existing conditions for this roadway section:

1. A raised median island separating EB and WB movements will be constructed.
2. Bicycle lane will be installed on the south side of Island Highway for EB direction.
3. Pedestrian sidewalks would continue to exist on both sides of Island Highway but there will be some modifications and portions of the sidewalks will have buffers between the paved roads and sidewalks.
4. Intersection lane configuration will not change.

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3.0 PROJECTED TRAFFIC VOLUMES

3.1 Trip Generation for Known Background Developments

Based on Addoz Engineering Inc.’s discussions with the Town of View Royal staff, there are no approved developments in the vicinity of the project site that are being developed. Therefore, known background development traffic has not been considered for this TIA.

3.2 Historical Traffic Growth Rate

To account for inherited growth in traffic and those traffic generated by other unknown developments that may occur at the build-out of the proposed project, a traffic growth factor was applied to the existing traffic volumes to forecast the future traffic conditions. A 1.4% annual growth rate was used to estimate traffic growth for the 3-year opening horizon as well as the 10-year after opening horizon, which was applied to the 2020 existing traffic volumes to derive the 2023 and 2033 background growth traffic volumes for future development impact analyses.

3.4 Site Generated Trips

The number of trips that would be generated by a proposed development would be estimated based on the rates published in Trip Generation Manual, 10th Edition by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE).

Table 5: Trip Generation Rates – ITE 10th Edition ITE Manual

Table 6: Projected Site-Generated Peak-Hour Traffic Volumes

3.5 Trip Distribution

The resulting directional distributions are as follows:

• 38% of site generated trips will travel to and from the west on Island Highway;
• 46% of site generated trips will travel to and from the east on Island Highway;
• 13% of site generated trips will travel to and from the north on Helmcken Road; and
• 03% of site generated trips will travel to and from the south on Helmcken Road.

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4.0 EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDED IMPROVEMENTS

4.1 Level of Service Criteria for Intersections

The intersection identified for the study was analyzed according to the methodologies presented in the 2016 Highway Capacity Manual (HCM 6th Edition).

Table 7: Level of Service Criteria for Unsignalized Intersections

Table 8: Level of Service Criteria for Signalized Intersections

4.2 Capacity and Level of Service Analyses

Table 9: Capacity Analysis for Existing 2019 Traffic Conditions

A review of Table 9 indicates that the study intersection is currently operating at acceptable levels of service during the AM peak hour. However, during the PM peak hour the westbound is operating at capacity conditions with the volume to capacity ratio (V/C) exceeding 1.0. Therefore, mitigation is needed under existing traffic conditions.

Table 10: Capacity Analysis for Existing 2019 Mitigated Traffic Conditions (Optimized)

Table 12: Capacity Analysis for Background 2033 Traffic Conditions (with Optimization)

Suggested Mitigations for the Background 2033 Conditions:

1. Convert the WB left turn only lane to a shared through/left lane
2. Convert the currently EB left turn only lane to become a receiving through WB lane
3. Convert the currently EB Through only lane to become an EB Left turn only lane
4. Convert the currently EB right-turn only lane to become a shared through/right lane
5. Construct a receiving downstream EB through lane to receive traffic from the now shared through/right lane.

Table 13: Capacity Analysis for Background 2033 Mitigated Traffic Conditions

Table 14: Capacity Analysis for Opening 2023 Conditions (With Existing Optimization)

4.3 Merge Spillback Assessment

Addoz Engineering Inc. utilized SimTraffic simulation program to compare the future 2033 conditions operations with and without the proposed intersection improvements.

Table 17: Future 2033 With and Without Improvement Simulation Queue Lengths

Only the WBL turn lane queue increased, highlighted with yellow, compared to the without improvement scenario. This is because this lane became a shared left/through lane.

4.5 Site Access on Helmcken Road Operation

Even though these volumes are very low, the owner of the property would like to make this site access a right-in / right-out only access point. A right-turn only arrow pavement marking with the word ‘ONLY’ will be drawn on the exiting lane to inform users this is a right-turn only movement.

These FG 300 posts would prevent all left turn movements off the site as well as into the site safely and comfortably without any operational issues.

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5.0 PARKING, LOADING AND TRAVEL DEMAND MANAGEMENT

5.1 Vehicle Parking Supply / Demand Analysis and Loading Requirement

The rates presented in the below table were taken from the Town of View Royal’s 900 – Zoning Bylaw standards included in Section 5.10, “Parking and Loading Schedule”.

Table 18: Town of View Royal’s Parking Requirements (Supply / Demand Analysis)

5.2 Bicycle Parking Supply / Demand Analysis

Table 19: Town of View Royal’s Bicycle Parking Requirements (Supply / Demand Analysis)

5.3 Travel Demand Management

The following transportation management initiatives are being considered and implemented:

• Bicycle parking at a rate exceeding 1.0 per unit is being provided.
• Bicycle parking will be provided indoors in a safe and secure locations in P1 and P2 parking levels.
• Ramps to the building will be provided for cyclists to access the bike storage facilities.
• Plenty of sidewalk areas are provided around the building to encourage walking to/from the building.
• The retail planned on the first floor of the building encourages less utilization of the vehicle.

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6.0 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This study analyzed the traffic impacts of the proposed Mixed Use, Commercial & Residential Development to be located in View Royal, British Columbia. The proposed project will be built on a 19,945 Sq. Ft. lot. The development will be located on the northeastern quadrant of Island Highway and Helmcken Road intersection. The estimated number of total site generated trips entering and exiting the development would be 18 trips during the AM peak hour and 22 trips during the PM peak hour.

The proposed intersection improvements to mitigate the unacceptable operations are listed below:

1. Convert the WB left turn only lane to become a shared through/left lane
2. Convert the currently EB left turn only lane to become a receiving through lane for the new WB shared through/left lane
3. Convert the currently EB Through only lane to become an EB Left turn only lane
4. Convert the currently EB right-turn only lane to become a shared through/right lane
5. Construct a receiving downstream EB through lane to receive traffic from the now shared through/right lane

In summary, this traffic impact assessment concludes that the proposed Mixed Use, Commercial & Residential Development will have some impact on the traffic operations of the future road network. However, this impact will be alleviated by implementing the improvements recommended above.

ADDOZ ENGINEERING INC

Prepared by: Emad Alsaidi, PhD, PEng, PE Direct Phone: (587) 703-5222 Or (587) 703-9321 E-mail: ealsaidi@addozeng.ca Web: www.addozeng.ca

October 8, 2020