HomeMy WebLinkAboutTrafficActivityReport-810 Commerce DrFebruary 04, 2021
Traffic Activity Report
Peconic Transfer Truck Facility
810 Commerce Drive
Cutchogue, New York
PREPARED BY
100 Motor Parkway, Suite 350Hauppauge, NY 11788(631) 787-3400
PREPARED FOR
Town of Southold
Zoning Board of Appeals
54375 Route 25
Southold, NY 11971
1
Introduction
Northfork Recycling Property, LLC (the Applicant) is seeking approvals from the Town of Southold for the construction of a 21,450 square foot single-story truck terminal with 50 parking spaces and two truck loading spaces. The Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), as Lead Agency for the Town in its initial examination of submitted materials, retained Nelson, Pope & Voorhis, LLC (NP&V) to assist in the review of the application and to conduct an environmental assessment. As part of that review, NP&V prepared a memorandum dated 3/1/2019 which recommends that the Applicant provide a Supplement to the Environmental Assessment Form. VHB Engineering, Surveying, Landscape Architecture and Geology, P.C. (VHB) has been retained by the Applicant to address the Traffic comments from NP&V. This report presents our response to those comments.
Existing Traffic Activity
In order to document the existing traffic activity generated by the site, a pole-mounted video camera was installed on the southeast corner of Commerce Drive and Corporate Road, facing north on Commerce Drive. This view was able to capture all vehicles entering and exiting the Applicant’s property, and an in-office review of the videotape was then undertaken to develop data regarding the site-generated trips. The video camera was installed and recorded activity on Friday, November 20, 2020 from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (Based on discussions with the Applicant, it was confirmed that the day and week in which the recording was done represented typical conditions.) The business is closed on weekends. Upon summarizing the observations, vehicles were broken down into two categories: “non-trucks” (passenger cars, SUV’s and pick-up trucks) and “trucks” (flat bed trucks, garbage trucks, trailers with containers, oil tankers and misc. trucks). Tables 1 and 2 presents a summary of the observed activity for the morning period (7:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.) and the afternoon period (2:00 – 5:30 p.m.), before the business was closed for the day at 5:30 p.m.
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Table 1 – Existing Traffic Activity (Morning)
Time Non-Truck Trips Truck Trips All Trips TOTAL TRIPS
Entering Exiting Entering Exiting Entering Exiting
7:00–7:15 a.m. 3 - - 3 3 3 6 7:15-7:30 a.m. 1 - - 1 1 1 2 7:30–7:45 a.m. - - 3 - 3 - 3
7:45–8:00 a.m. 2 - - 3 2 3 5 8:00–8:15 a.m. - 1 - 2 - 3 3 8:15–8:30 a.m. 1 - 1 - 2 - 2
8:30–8:45 a.m. - - 2 - 2 - 2 8:45–9:00 a.m. - - 2 1 2 1 3
9:00–9:15 a.m. 2 - 3 3 5 3 8 9:15–9:30 a.m. - - 2 5 2 5 7
9:30–9:45 a.m. 1 - 2 2 3 2 5 9:45-10:00 a.m. - - 1 2 1 2 3 10:00–10:15 a.m. - - 4 1 4 1 5 10:15-10:30 a.m. - - - 4 - 4 4 10:30-10:45 a.m. 2 1 3 1 5 2 7
10:45-11:00 a.m. 2 - 3 2 5 2 7 The busiest one-hour periods during the morning period were: 8:45–9:45 a.m. (23 total trips) 9:00–10:00 a.m. (23 total trips) 10:00–11:00 a.m. (23 total trips)
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Table 2 – Existing Traffic Activity (Afternoon)
Time Non-Truck Trips Truck Trips All Trips TOTAL TRIPS
Entering Exiting Entering Exiting Entering Exiting
2:00–2:15 p.m. - 1 2 4 2 5 7 2:15-2:30 p.m. 4 3 1 2 5 5 10
2:30–2:45 p.m. - 2 1 1 1 3 4 2:45–3:00 p.m. - - 2 - 2 - 2
3:00–3:15 p.m. - - 3 3 3 3 6 3:15–3:30 p.m. - 1 3 - 3 1 4
3:30–3:45 p.m. - 5 - 2 - 7 7 3:45–4:00 p.m. - 3 2 - 2 3 5
4:00–4:15 p.m. - 3 1 1 1 4 5 4:15–4:30 p.m. - - - - - - -
4:30–4:45 p.m. 1 2 1 2 2 4 6 4:45-5:00 p.m. 1 - 6 - 7 - 7
5:00–5:15 p.m. - 1 - - - 1 1 5:15-5:30 p.m. - - 1 2 1 2 3
The busiest one-hour periods during the afternoon period were: 2:00–3:00 p.m. (23 total trips) 2:15–3:15 p.m. (22 total trips) 3:00– 4:00 p.m. (22 total trips)
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Future Traffic Activity
The proposed action involves the construction of a 21,450 square foot truck terminal. It is planned that the building will be divided into 16 bays, of which one-half would be used by the Applicant for its maintenance shop or storage of its own vehicles, rather than having them park outdoors elsewhere on the site. Since these are part of the existing business operations on the Applicant’s adjoining transfer station property, there will not be any additional traffic generated by this component of the building. It is proposed that the remaining 8 bays (10,725 square feet) will be rented to one or more contractors for the indoor storage of vehicles or equipment. In order to develop projections of the number of trips to be generated by this component of the building, reference was made to the widely-recognized “Trip Generation Manual – 10th Edition” published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). This reference manual includes data for a wide range of land use categories. Table 3 presents the results for four related industrial uses. Table 3 – Trip Generation Comparison (for 10,725 square foot of floor area)
Land Use Code/Category
A.M. Peak Hour P.M. Peak Hour Rate* Trips Rate* Trips
LUC#110 General Light Industrial 0.92 10 0.83 9
LUC#130 Industrial Park 0.41 5 0.40 5
LUC#150 Warehousing 0.22 3 0.24 3
LUC#151 Mini-Warehouse 0.20 3 0.20 3
*Rate is expressed in trips per 1,000 square feet of gross floor area.
As presented in Table 3, the highest projections show that the portion of the building to be leased to contractors would generate 10 trips during the a.m. peak hour and 9 trips during the p.m. peak hour. This is equivalent to adding one vehicle trip to the roadway system every 6 minutes on average. This minimal projected level of traffic is less than one-half of the peak hour volumes currently generated by the existing site operations on Applicant’s adjoining transfer station property, and would not have any perceptible impact on the local roadway system. (In fact, even if the entire proposed building with 16 bays were to be rented to contractors at some point, the projected peak hour traffic of the building would be less than the existing traffic currently going into or out of Commerce Drive.)
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