SR 06:057 - Laserfiche WebLink

2006. At that time the City will need to prepare an EIR for the General Plan Update. Due to the amount of time and new development that has occurred since the 2003 Baseline Traffic Report was prepared, Staff recommends the preparation of a new Baseline report. For the 2005 Baseline Traffic Report, the traffic model will be updated to include all new construction since 2003, and all of the new developments that have been approved since 2003. In addition, the base congestion level forecasts for buildout of the 1996 General Plan land uses and 1996 General Plan roadway network will be analyzed. This will provide the base conditions for comparison to the General Plan Update that will include a new preferred land use and roadway network alternative. Staff is working to expedite the preparation of the EIR for the update of the City's General Plan. Preparing the Traffic Baseline Report now, as City Council works to identify the preferred land use and roadway network alternatives for the new General Plan, will reduce the time it takes to prepare the EIR by up to 6 months. The new baseline report will also facilitate new traffic impact studies for projects like Home Depot, Staples Ranch, and others yet to be proposed for review. One of the key work elements in updating the traffic model is to update the land development database for existing conditions, and calibrate the traffic model such that the model's traffic volume output closely matches existing traffic counts. Staff also uses updated traffic count information to retime traffic signals to match changes in traffic circulation patterns. The latter will be a topic of discussion at a future Council meeting in April 2006. Staff solicited traffic count proposals from the two companies used in 2003. After conferring with traffic study firms, ATD and Wiltec were still found the most qualified to collect and deliver reliable traffic and pedestrian count information. Staff divided the 131 study intersections into three groups so that the work could be divided between two or more companies. Many of the City's major intersections carry so many vehicles that it takes at least two persons to count the traffic and pedestrians. Staff and equipment limitations would require an extended period of time if only one company was hired to count all 131 intersections. Staff received proposals from WILTEC to count all 131 intersections. The proposal from A TD was for counting just the intersl;ctions included in group 2, as they did not think they could count more than that by the end of April 2006. To expedite the traffic data collection process, both companies are willing to collect a portion of the traffic SR 06:057 Page 3 of 4