Do people who are 55 and older really drive that much less than younger folks?
Lower Macungie Township officials, who are skeptical of some developers’ claims that they do, intend to find out for themselves.
On Thursday night, township commissioners authorized paying Keystone Consulting Engineers $7,500 to do a traffic count study at Lower Macungie’s four existing 55-and-older developments: Four Seasons at Farmington, Legacy Oaks, Millbrook Chase and Traditions at Wild Cherry.
Acting township engineer Alan Fornwalt of Keystone said that study will begin Monday and continue for a couple of weeks.
Officials are concerned that developers of proposed 55-and-older projects minimize projections about the amount of additional traffic those projects will generate, to make them more palatable to officials who have to approve them.
Developers also have to pay less money in traffic impact fees to the township if their trip generation projections conclude there will be less afternoon peak hour traffic.
The amount of additional traffic created by a new development also can result in its developer being required to pay for off-site intersection improvements.
Two 55-and-older developments that would impact local traffic currently are being proposed in the township.
One is the Farr tract, on the northwest side of the intersection of Cedar Crest Boulevard and Lower Macungie Road.
The other is Fields at Indian Creek, which is mostly in Upper Milford Township and Emmaus. But the traffic it generates “would be primarily in Lower Macungie,” said Fornwalt.
Fornwalt indicated the township planning commission keeps pondering questions about the actual traffic impact of those age-restricted developments.
One of those questions is: How much do people who are over 55 really drive during peak hours?
He said the planning commission recommended the study be done on traffic from Lower Macungie’s own age-restricted neighborhoods, so the township has its own local data.
That data then will be presented to developers and “we can argue successfully that we will be impacted by a project,” said Sara Pandl, Lower Macungie’s planning director.
Pandl said developers of the Fields at Indian Creek “are showing very little traffic impacting our roads.”
But she said township officials are skeptical about that and expect to see more traffic on Sauerkraut Lane, Millrace Road and Brookside Road if the development is built.
“Anecdotally, we think we’ll see more traffic, but we don’t have the traffic count to back that up,” said Pandl.
Both she and the planning commission are “interested is seeing what the numbers actually are in our communities. The impact is important to gauge.”
Counting cars
Keystone plans to gather data by using automatic traffic counters on a total of 14 access roads leading into the township’s four 55-and-older neighborhoods.
It will have the traffic counters at each location round for clock for three to five days.
The information-gathering is expected to take several weeks to complete, but Fornwalt said Keystone may borrow extra counters to expedite the process.
It will use automatic tube counters, which are like thin hoses cars drive over.
Weather is a concern, because the tube counters cannot be used in snow.
Also, Keystone does not want to compromise the integrity of the study by doing it during the Thanksgiving holiday, when traffic counts could be impacted by holiday shopping and out-of-town visitors.
Resident Joe Ludroff warned traffic counts should be done soon for another reason: many people living in those developments move south for the winter.
Ludroff estimated in the Four Seasons development, 30-40 percent of residents go south for four to five months and claimed the same is true in the township’s other age-restricted neighborhoods.
Ludroff said some residents migrate south before Thanksgiving and others do so after Christmas.
More weight than national data
Fornwalt said the local study results will be more accurate for Local Macungie planners than national traffic data provided annually by ITE — the Institute of Traffic Engineers, which he said produces what is considered the “bible” of traffic generation.
He said the Lower Macungie study will confirm if ITE’s data is in line with age-restricted developments in the township.
Pandl said ITE data shows the amount of traffic generated at peak hour by an over-55 community is only about one-third the amount generated by a conventional subdivision.
She said it's not developers' fault if their traffic projections turn out to be too low, because the ITE figures minimize the potential peak hour and "that’s the only standard we have to go by."
Commissioner Douglas Brown questioned whether the local study will be binding on developers, especially if that study shows 55-and-older developments do indeed generate more traffic than ITE data projects.
Fornwalt explained ITE has specific guidelines allowing municipalities to come up with “a local rate; and we will be following those guidelines.”
He added studying four age-restricted developments in the township meets ITE guidelines “to establish our local rate.”
“If these new numbers come up higher, they’ll be gospel,” confirmed Commissioner James Lancsek, “and we can assess those developments for more than what normal ITE would call for.”
Lancsek also noted that 10 percent of the people living in a 55-and-older community can be under age 55.
“They just can’t have children and they have to abide by the rules within the community. So you could have people that are working and generating more traffic than what the ITE estimates.”
Keystone intends to present commissioners with a report on its study by mid-December.
Bridge work coming
Also during the meeting, Fornwalt said Schoeneck Road will be closed from April through June between Alburtis Road and Scenic View Drive, so its tiny bridge over Swabia Creek can be replaced.
The engineer said many people using that road might not even notice the old bridge, which is just south of the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks.
He said Jaindl Land Company is paying all the costs for the new bridge as well as widening the roadway on both sides of it, as part of off-site improvements for its nearby Hills at Lock Ridge development.
A detour will be set up using Alburtis and Gehman roads as well as Route 100, said Fornwalt.
Norfolk Southern plans to replace a train trestle over the creek and Fornwalt said the plan is to have the two projects done simultaneously.
He said the trestle is only 75 feet away from the Schoeneck Road bridge.
A choice of two intersections
Keystone proposes doing “a quick analysis” on which of two intersections along Brookside Road should be improved first.
The choices are between the intersection of Brookside and East Texas Road or the intersection of Brookside and Indian Creek Road.
“Some people think one intersection should be done before the other,” said Fornwalt.
He told commissioners that Keystone’s analysis would be done early in 2015 and cost $5,000 per intersection.
Commissioners took no action on the proposal Thursday.
Fornwalt if all the commissioners agree that one intersection is more important than the other “there’s no need to go ahead with this.”
“If you listen to residents, we would have done Brookside and East Texas yesterday,” said Commissioner Ron Beitler. “And it is bad. I live around there and I drive through it.”
But he added: “It’s always good to substantiate these things with hard data.”
Fornwalt said the result of the analysis will be a recommendation about which intersection should be improved in 2015 and which should not be done until 2016 — with cost estimates.
He warned the actual improvements will not be inexpensive.
Beitler predicted improving the Indian Creek intersection will be significantly less expensive than the East Texas intersection, which he said will be “a major, major expense.”
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