Dales Column The past week has found me writing stories about two new additions to the Island’s transportation system; one at each end of it. The first was the discussion of a new traffic light near the base of the JFK Causeway and the other the dedication of the new headquarters building of the Port Aransas ferries. As I have pointed out here before the roads and beaches between the JFK Causeway on Padre Island and the ferry landings in Port Aransas are all part and parcel of a one contiguous, twenty-mile-long, inexorably intertwined organic system which forms the backbone of our tourist economy. The beach is where visitors are headed and the roads are how they get there. The way they use the beach defines how the roads are built and the way the roads are built defines how they use the beach. The roads are the front door and the beaches are the back porch. Shaky numbers The additions to both ends of the road system sent me on a search for a critical piece of information which, to my great surprise, I found out doesn’t exist; to wit, exactly how many vehicles travel up and down main Island thoroughfares each day. The fact is we don’t know. The best information I can find shows that we in essence have about half a dozen snap shots taken at different times and places which provide jumping off points for the extrapolation (guesswork) at how many vehicles are driving around our roads every day. The problem with the traffic models that I have seen is fundamental, and profound. The most comprehensive as far as the numbers is creates, was done in May 2013 by the Corpus Christi Metropolitan Planning Organization and is called the Park Road 22 Access Management Study and can be found on the MPO website. It was funded by grants from the Federal Highway Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation and focuses on SPID/Park Road 22 from Aquarius, where the new stop light is going, to Whitecap but also makes some rather startling claims about traffic on State Highway 361. Cookie cutter methodology The problem is with it, and with the other less comprehensive studies I have been able to find, is that it is cookie cutter software designed to predict traffic patterns driven by commuter traffic; which is not our situation on The Island. Our problem is not early morning commuters who return in the evening, our traffic issues are created in the summer months when everyone wants to be on The Island at the same time and leave at the same time. This leads to the study’s conclusion, among others, that peak afternoon traffic on SH 361 at any time of the year other than Special Events such as holidays, is 630 vehicles per hour – and that includes both directions. Anyone who thinks 630 vehicles is the highest number on SH 361 on a summer afternoon is not paying attention. The rule of thumb is that a single traffic lane can handle up to 1600 cars per hour and I last summer I personally saw cars backed up past Island in the Son Church on non-holiday weekends, which means there were well over 630 vehicles per hour. The study also says 1010 vehicles per hour is the highest traffic load on SH 361 anytime of the year, including summer holidays and Spring Break. This is fantasy. What is missing from the report is when the baseline traffic count was taken. The report doesn’t say. It also makes the jaw dropping conclusion, based on its modeling that the wait time driving southbound on SPID from Aquarius to Whitecap varies only 18 seconds whether it is the slowest traffic day of the year or Spring Break . Monday, June 18, 2012 The one actual, non-holiday traffic count I can find comes from an MPO count done on June 18, 2012, a Monday. On that day 27,000 vehicles were counted; 12,265 coming to The Island, 14,375 leaving. Another count (on an unknown day) in 2010 found 13,047 vehicles coming onto The Island and 14,734 leaving. Those numbers are very close to the 2012 count, so if we add the additional 3000 vehicles per day estimated to arrive here once Schlitterbahn opens we have as close to a real count as we can currently get. Not a survey but a census But my point here is that when it comes to how many vehicles go up and down our main roads on a daily basis we don’t know. We take a sample here and there and extrapolate the rest. We are using guesswork to plan the future of the one system that can kill the goose that lays the golden egg. If a visitor comes once and the traffic is a nightmare they won’t come back. What we need is not a survey but a census. According to current city projections by the summer of 2016 SPID between Commodores and Whitecap will be torn up for the building of the Water Exchange Bridge and will remain that way through the summer of 2017. That means that summer 2015 is the last chance we have to get an uncluttered census to find out exactly how many vehicles we have on our roads. If we miss that window then we will be rolling right into 2018 with our head in the sand and using the same guesswork, cookie cutter models based on random snapshots of traffic counts to make strategic design decisions for our roads. There is a good chance that well before that, possibly as early as the legislative session which starts next month in Austin, that we will find the money to completely revamp the roads between the Port A ferries and the JFK, it would nice to know how many vehicles we have on those roads now before that design work is done. Traffic counters are cheap. A line across the road connected to a box. Place one at the base of the JFK, one on SPID before Commodores, another before Whitecap, another at the Packery Bridge, right on up the road into Port Aransas and to the ferry lines. Put them there before Spring Break 2015 and leave them there until after Labor Day 2015. Then we will have the baseline data we need to make rational design decisions and to plan the future of the system that is the lifeblood of our tourist economy. Otherwise, we will still be just guessing.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 23:54:25 +0000
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