See 2001 traffic count deceptions by GDOT (here)

Forest Hill Road

Faulty traffic estimates fuel road debate

 Posted on Sun, Jun. 12, 2005 page 8A

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/11874848.htm

Faulty traffic estimates fuel road debate

Group says traffic counts used to justify widening were trumped-up; zoning officials say estimates 'unimportant'

By Travis Fain  - Telegraph Staff Writer

When critics of the Forest Hill Road project argue that the planned three- and four-lane sections of the road will be overbuilt, they point south to five lanes of relatively sparsely traveled asphalt: Houston Road.

Inflated traffic counts were used to justify the widening of Houston Road, according to members of CAUTION Macon, a roads watchdog group.

Local planners dispute that, but acknowledge that since the decision was made to widen Houston Road, traffic projections have indeed gone down by as much as 10,000 cars a day - about half of the initial projection for the busiest stretch.

Critics are waiting for the same thing to happen on Forest Hill Road, which is scheduled to be widened in the coming years, in part because of future traffic projections.

"The traffic counts were always wrong," said Lindsay Holliday, one of CAUTION's most vocal members and a recent candidate for the county commission chairmanship. "They let it slide."

Like the Forest Hill Road project, the widening of Houston Road was part of Bibb County's sales-tax-funded roads improvement program. On Jan. 7, 1999, the program's decision making body voted to widen Houston to five lanes, including a turn lane.

Verbatim minutes of that executive committee meeting continually reference a report by Jim Evans, a private traffic consultant, that predicts between 20,600 and 24,100 cars a day will use the north end of Houston Road (north of Sardis Church Road) by 2025. The report concludes that 14,700 cars a day will use the southern portion of the road in 2025.

But a March 2003 report by the Macon-Bibb County Planning & Zoning Commission drops those projections to 9,430 to 14,480 cars a day for the north end and 6,000 to 11,660 cars for the south end of Houston Road. Evans has declined in the past to comment on why the new projections are lower than the ones he formulated, but did say he was confident of the higher numbers in 1999.

Planning and zoning officials, specifically commission director Vernon Ryle and planner Don Tussing, dismiss the difference as relatively unimportant. The Evans report, they say, was not used to justify the Houston Road widening. Instead, a 1998 report that predicts roughly the same traffic volumes as the March 2003 report was used, they said.

What's more, the need to widen Houston Road had more to do with the number of curb cuts along the road - which correspond to turns and, therefore, potential rear-end collisions - than traffic volumes.

But a transcript of the Jan. 7, 1999, executive committee meeting makes only passing references to curb cuts and safety, while traffic counts are mentioned repeatedly.

Minutes from the technical advisory committee meeting held a month before also make no mention of curb cuts, but do reference traffic growth and Evans' report.

Congressman Jim Marshall, who was mayor of Macon in 1999 and sat on the executive committee, said the Evans traffic counts were the deciding factor on the road.

"(The Evans report) basically was the reason (for the widening). ..." Marshall said. "The one reason offered for widening it was the traffic count. That was it. No other reason was offered."

Tussing has said he was never comfortable with the predictions in the Evans report. But during that January 1999 meeting Marshall specifically asked Ryle, who is Tussing's boss, if he had a problem with the Evans numbers.

"No," Ryle replied, according to minutes. Tussing was in that meeting, according to the minutes.

"The Evans report was never used for anything than to verify what had already been done and when they came out higher, that was it," Tussing has said. "We moved on."

That was news to Marshall.

"I personally recall no one in authority challenging or questioning the 24,000 projection. ..." Marshall said. "And I recall asking whether anyone had any doubt. The answer was no."

Tussing's projections for Forest Hill Road predict more than 27,000 cars a day will travel the road between Wimbish Road and Ridge Avenue in 2025. That's up from the 2002 count that found an average of about 14,000 cars traveled the road each day.

"Forest Hill is approaching or at capacity now," Tussing said in an e-mail to The Telegraph. "Future growth will increase the traffic and only make things worse."

CAUTION members dismiss the projections, which member Tom Scholl called "as completely bogus as they were on Houston Road." Scholl and others have repeatedly asked that turn lanes be added to the road, but that it not be fully widened. The idea has been dismissed by Tussing and other planners who say you don't build roads for tomorrow, you build them for 20 years from tomorrow.

Tussing cited commercial growth near the corridor, especially in the Interstate 75, Riverside Drive, Arkwright Road and Bass Road areas as the reason for the predicted traffic growth. He said just because the Evans numbers were high, that doesn't mean his are, too.

Also, traffic projections aren't the only justification offered for widening Forest Hill Road. The two-lane road has curves that will be smoothed out. Turn lanes will be added, which should cut down on rear-end collisions because instead of braking in the travel lane, drivers can get into a center turn lane.

There have been 44 accidents on Forest Hill Road so far this year and most were rear-end collisions, according to Lt. Eric Woodford in the Macon Police Department's traffic division.

"Traffic backs up from vehicles making left turns, widening the road will solve this problem," Woodford wrote in an e-mail to The Telegraph.

Side Box in printed version - but not online:

THE HOUSTON ROAD EXAMPLE:

Inflated traffic counts were used to justify the widening of Houston Road, according to members of a roads watchdog group. Critics are waiting for the same thing to happen on Forest Hill Road.

In 1999, Bibb County officials discussing the possible widening of Houston Road continually referenced the traffic count numbers from a report by a private consultant that predicted

between 20,600 and 24,1000 cars a day

would be using the north end of Houston Road (north of Sardis Church Road) by 2025.

But a 2003 report by the Macon-Bibb Planning and Zoning Commission drops those projections to

9,430 to 14,480 cars a day.

Zoning officials dismiss the difference as relatively unimportant, and say the need to widen Houston Road had more to do with the number of curb cuts along the road than the traffic volumes.

James H. Evans, transportation engineer planner and consultant with PBS&J.
http://www.macon-bibb.com/ROADS/Houston/jan7th.txt
his testimony starts on page 146.

Much related info is linked from
http://www.macon-bibb.com/ROADS/Houston/H-road.htm
including the Walter Kulash saga

Comments by L Holliday in a letter to the Telegraph:

I appreciate Travis Fain's Sunday article exposing the road planners misrepresentations of the traffic counts they used to justify Houston Rd and Forest Hill Road.

Most recently, the 2030 Long Range Transportation Plan summary misstated public support for widening FHR. In fact, the data in the manual itself showed 4/1 AGAINST widening. When I confronted Mr Ryle with this discrepancy, he made several excuses and indicated he had no intention of correcting the summary.

Planners continue to also misrepresent accident data, the effects of road geometry on speeding and noise, the destructive effects on adjacent neighborhoods, and the options for safer, less expensive, more efficient, traffic calming intersections such as roundabouts.

Vernon Ryle who is Executive Director for Planning and Zoning Commission recently showed his ignorance and obstinacy by demanding that I show him the studies that prove greater safety of roundabouts. Within hours I faxed and emailed him links to the US Federal Highways book "Roundabouts - An Informational Guide" which contains dozens of studies from the US and all over the globe.

These studies show "a reduction in crashes after building a roundabout of about 37 percent for all crashes and 51 percent for injury crashes in the US."

Bibb County and Macon should demand better performance from the P+Z Director.   http://mbpz.org/administrative.html

Emails to Macon-Bibb officials about Forest Hill and Roundabouts

Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 08:32:03 -0500

To: bwikle@co.bibb.ga.us,nfloyd@macon.ga.us

From: Holliday Dental <teeth@mindspring.com>

Subject: Roundabouts review in Carolina - can use info for Forest Hill Rd

Cc: jack.ellis@macon.ga.us,mburns@mpd.bibb.ga.us,Katy.Allen@fhwa.dot.gov,   vryle@mbpz.org,Kenneth Sheets <ksheets@co.bibb.ga.us>,

Elmo Richardson <erichardson@co.bibb.ga.us>, Charlie Bishop <cbishop@co.bibb.ga.us>,mike.cranford@macon.ga.us

Dear Bill and Nigel,

Thank you again for the time we spent on Oct 7th discussing the advantages of Roundabout intersections.

Below is an interesting site that shows how North Carolina is moving ahead of Georgia with their intersection designs:

http://www.ncdot.org/doh/operations/division14/roundabout/roundabout.htm

I would like to learn what you may have found about the traffic counts at the Roundabout near Emory University at North Decatur and Lullwater Roads. My impression during a site visit there is - it carries more traffic more safely and more efficiently than the Forest Hill intersections.

I plan to call you sometime next week.

Thank you both,

- Lindsay

Blind copies to Forest Hill Citizens:    http://www.macon-bibb.com/FHR

See 2001 traffic count deceptions by GDOT (here)

Traffic (mis)Projections 

Macon-Bibb RIP 

- CAUTION Macon -