Dear Colleen,
Thank you so much for meeting with us to learn about you, our new Planning Director. We appreciated knowing about your work in Maryland with small area plans and neighborhoods. We know that you will have lots of opportunities
for this kind of work in Chapel Hill and that you will be an asset to our town.
I am writing today to elevate one such issue growing out of the
Central West Small Area plan completed in 201
3. To
provide you with a bit of background, hundreds of neighbors were involved in that small area planning process. I can report that the neighbors did not get the plan they hoped for, but instead a final plan that provided more density but half of what was originally
requested.
The recommended density numbers in the final small area plan were negotiated based on the capacity of Estes Drive, and the amount of intersection improvement that practically could be made. That is a key point.
Mary Jane Nirlinger was a town staff person involved in this planning effort
and two council members, Amy Ryan and Michael Parker, chaired the Central West steering committee.
The somewhat controversial planning process should signal to anyone the importance of Estes Drive traffic to the neighborhoods in light of the AURA proposal requesting over 650 parking spaces near a busy intersection. Interestingly,
together with the Azalea Estates just completed, the density requested for Aura would exceed the Central West Small Area Plan recommendations, leaving nothing for a dozen future parcels in the area.
We attended the November 16, 2020 information meeting that include a presentation by the Aura developer. Out of that meeting the public asked many questions. Judy Johnson promised the staff would provide answers as well as a transportation forum
to discuss the TIA and show town realtime model results. Brian Daniels and Sandy Turbeville, local neighbors, helpfully reorganized the 51 questions raised
by neighbors (listed on the town web page) by topic and sent them to staff in an effort to facilitate information flow. We have not yet received responses to these questions nearly 3 months ago.
It’s clear to everyone that traffic on Estes is the most important, overriding issue in the Aura rezoning request. We are pleased that the Town is holding a transportation forum to talk about the traffic data, currently set
for February 10th. However, in correspondence below Tim O’shea asks Kumar Nepalli, the town traffic engineer, to delay the date of that forum until the town realtime traffic model of the Estes/MLK intersection can
be demonstrated at the Traffic Information Meeting.
We concur with Tim’s request. While we are eager to hear about the results of the updated TIA, the mobility modeling results are even more important. CHALT folks and others have spent almost 8 years advocating for the town
wide traffic modeling capability and we are thrilled that is has finally happened.
Therefore, we think it would be a mistake to go ahead with the February 10 date without benefit of the persuasive visual evidence about future traffic conditions provided by this modeling
capability.
We appreciate that COVID has wrought many changes and impediments to efficient work, and your department may be very stretched. We think this situation argues for rescheduling the February 10th Forum to March to ensure careful,
comprehensive work.
Thanks for considering this request.
Julie McClintock, Fred Lampe
Begin forwarded message:
Subject: Re:
Traffic studies
Date: February
2, 2021 at 10:08:59 AM EST
Kumar,
Thanks for that response. However, that’s not really satisfying. Aura can postpone those meetings too, if staff won’t be ready to have the traffic forum that was promised.
Thanks,
Tim
My understanding is that Aura will miss certain days of scheduling with he Council and Advisory Boards. I can assure you that most recent Aura TIA was completed thoroughly.
Kumar
If the town-wide traffic model will be ready in a couple of weeks, that means the traffic forum should be postponed a couple of weeks too, right?
Having the forum before the model is ready would severely undermine the usefulness of the forum, because the forum’s purpose is to help citizens understand the Aura project impact on traffic. If the model isn’t ready, the discussion will be limited and speculative.
Indeed, in December, town staff agreed to have the forum in February because it expected model would be available then.
Am I missing something? What is the downside of delaying this meeting a few weeks until the model is ready?
Hi Julie,
Sorry for the delay in my response. I was sick.
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It will be posted very soon to the website and will send you a link.
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Will be ready in couple of weeks.
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it is not a valid study.
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
Thanks for the December update on transportation studies surrounding the Aura proposal.
We are eagerly anticipating the results of these transportation studies listed below at the end of January. Please let us know where things stand on the studies listed.
1. VHB to present their Aura TIA results to the public.
2 A public viewing of the Real-Time Town-Wide Traffic Model.
3. Any results in hand from the developer’s own traffic study by Earl Lewellyn (a VP at Kimley Horn)?
We are sure you are aware that the Planning Department has agreed to a transportation forum to discuss all these study results some time on February 10. That date is rapidly approaching.
Hope you get a chance to look at the request below sent last week. I bet you’ve been busy.
We were able to get a copy of the Trinsic alternative traffic study which I attach below. Have you seen it?
Adding a couple of points to my original message:
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When can we expect the revised VHB TIA for the Aura development? We have noted some questionable info and assumptions in the Kimley-Horn TIA and need to compare it with the updated VHB TIA.
We are still finalizing the scope for the updated TIA and it will be available late January.
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As noted in the previous message, we need an explanation of the “trip reduction” factors used for the Aura project, i.e. how specific trip reduction values were selected for bike, pedestrian, bus and possibly BRT reductions.
I will share this information as soon as we finalize the scope.
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We need an update on how the Town Real-Time Traffic Model of MLK/Estes area is coming.
Model will be ready by early February.
Subject: Estes Drive Project Plans
Date: November 29, 2020 at 2:44:37 PM EST
Hope you got some time with your family over the holiday!!
I am following up with you after the November 16 Informational session on Aura about the important and essential transportation analyses discussed in the meeting. Could you let us know where we are on the following items?
We would like a copy of the traffic study performed by by Earl Lewellyn (a VP at Kimley Horn). Mr Lewellyn spoke briefly I believe at the meeting and said he thought his plan would “fix” the Estes traffic problem. Also outstanding is the update to the VHB
May 2020 Aura Traffic Impact Analysis. Neither of these is up on the AURA webpage..
It would really be helpful if you could provide us with an explanation of the “trip reduction” factors applied in the TIA that reduce peak hour vehicle trips via use of alternate transit means including pedestrian trips, bicycle trips, bus trips and BRT trips.
We are really excited about seeing the new Traffic model work. Please provide an update on when we can see the Town’s visual modeling of traffic flowing at the MLK/Estes intersection as per the HNTB demonstration of the traffic around the E Rosemary parking
deck. It is a long time coming but an important new tool for the town.
Thanks for your help on this!
