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• Regarding weekend traffic, two intersections would worsen to unacceptable levels <br />of service - Stanley/Valley/Bernal and Bernal at Valley. Mitigation would be to <br />retime the traffic signals to reflect weekend, not weekday traffic; <br />• Regarding alternative uses for the site compared to the proposed Home Depot, <br />the grocery store would produce more traffic except during the weekday am peak, <br />a smaller home improvement store would produce less traffic at all times, and an <br />auto service center would produce more traffic at all times. <br />Santa Rita Rd. /Valley Ave. Intersection: In addition to the above issues, a major <br />neighborhood concern pertains to the traffic levels at the intersection of Santa Rita and <br />Valley Ave. Under Existing + Approved conditions, this intersection operates at a LOS D <br />in the a.m. and LOS F in the p.m. With the proposed project, this intersection would <br />continue to operate at the same levels of service; the average delay would increase by <br />1-2 seconds but the traffic would remain in the same LOS categories. <br />The mitigation is to construct a third left turn lane from southbound Santa Rita Rd. to <br />eastbound Valley Ave. Staff realizes that members of the adjacent neighborhood and <br />the City Council may not be in support of this mitigation; however, it is in the existing <br />General Plan and Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). The Council has directed that this <br />mitigation be removed from the updated General Plan due to concerns that it would <br />encourage more traffic and reduce pedestrian safety and since the Stoneridge Drive <br />Extension would mitigate traffic congestion at Santa Rita Rd./Valley Ave. at build-out. <br />However, the timing of construction of the extension has not yet been determined, <br />creating the possibility that the proposed shopping center, if approved, would likely be in <br />operation before the Stoneridge Dr. Extension is constructed. Therefore, residents of the <br />Santa Rita/ Valley neighborhood have asked that the Council commit to a timeline for the <br />Stoneridge Extension project so that impacts at the Santa Rita/Valley intersection could <br />be mitigated in a reasonable timeframe. <br />Some members of the community have expressed disagreement concerning two <br />assumptions of the traffic study, which are the reductions in the amount of traffic <br />generated by the project to account for internal capture and pass-by trips. Internal <br />Capture is a trip made from one use on the project site to a different use on the same <br />project site. As an example, a person may drive from their home to Longs Drugs, then <br />from Longs drive to Home Depot then leave the development and return home. This <br />would normally account for four of the total trips, which include: one trip arriving at <br />Longs, one trip leaving Longs, one trip arriving at Home Depot, and one trip leaving <br />Home Depot. Two of the four trips never leave the development (the trips leaving Longs <br />and arriving at Home Depot) and these trips are called internal capture. Using internal <br />capture would deduct the two trips that never leave the project site. <br />A pass-by trip is a trip to the development by a vehicle that is already on the adjacent <br />roadway. As an example, a person working in Hacienda drives home to the Vintage Hills <br />neighborhood. The drive home takes him/her past the Home Depot development where <br />he/she stops at Longs to purchase an item. From a traffic generation perspective there <br />are four total trips: one trip leaving Hacienda, one trip arriving at Longs, one trip leaving <br />Page 6 of 14 <br />