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, North Heights Traffic Impact Study Alliant Engineering, Inc. AprilS, 2003 Existing Geometries and Traffic Control . Highway 96 is a four-lane rural divided roadway that serves as a major arterial. The speed limit is 50 mph, and parking is prohibited. A 260' long eastbound right turn lane and a 240' long westbound left turn lane provide access to the site along Highway 96. In addition, eastbound highway 96 has a 250' long right turn lane and a 3()()' long left turn lane at North Snelling A venue. Westbound Highway 96 has a 250' long left turn lane and a 190' long right turn lane at North Snelling Avenue. The westbound right turn lane is no longer in use as it provides access to an abandoned driveway. North Snelling Avenue is a two-lane rural undivided roadway that serves as a local roadway. North Snelling Avenue has a speed limit of 30 mph and tenninates, at Highway 96. The three key intersections are all through-stop controlled intersections. The Highway 96/ North Entranee intersection is controlled by a stop sign on the North Entrance approach. The Highway 96/ North Snelling Avenue intersection is controlled by a stop sign on North Snelling Avenue, The Highway 96 / East Entrance intersection is controlled by a stop sigh on the East Entrance approach. The North Heights Church campus eontains three parking lots with a total of 891 parking spaces, The north lot has a capacity of 438 vehicles with 18 spaces reserved as handicapped. The central lot contains 226 spaces with 5 spots reserved as handicapped and the south lot contains 227 spaces. Traffic Volumes . Daily traffie volumes were obtained from the Year 2000 MN/DOT Traffic Volumes Street Series Map. Highway 96 has approximately 17,500 vehicles per day (vpd) and North Snelling Avenue has 990 vpd. AlIiant Engineering gathered traffic data on Thursday, December 12, 2002 for the key intersections. The counts were conducted from 4:30 pm to 10:45 pm, in order to gather information about the roadway peak hour and to capture the event traffic patterns associated with the Splendor of Chri5tmas performance that evening. The roadway peak hour was detennined to be 4:30-5:30 pm. The PM peak hour turning movements are included in the appendix in Table A- I. Traffic Overations Analvsis A traffic operations analysis was conducted using the 2000 Highway Capacity Manual. The "level of service" (LOS) for the key intersections was documented. LOS is a measure used to quantify the trafic operations at an intersection or roadway segment. LOS ranges from LOS A to LOS F, with A being uncongested, free flowing conditions, and LOS F being very congested, at capacity conditions. THE LOS DIE boundary is typically used as the indicator of congestion in an urban area. The LOS for each of the key intersections is documented in Table 1. . 5 of 16