The developers were right.
People living in Lower Macungie Township’s 55-and-older developments really don’t drive at the busiest times of the day.
That has been confirmed by an independent traffic count study done for the township by Keystone Consulting Engineers.
Keystone’s findings were presented Tuesday night by township engineer Alan Fornwalt, during a joint meeting of the township commissioners and planning commission.
Some township officials have been skeptical that people who live in 55-and-older developments drive less during peak traffic periods.
Officials were concerned that developers of proposed 55-and-older projects might minimize projections about the amount of additional traffic those projects will generate at the busiest times of day, to make them more palatable to officials who have to approve them.
Developers also pay less money in traffic impact fees to the township if their trip generation projections conclude there will be less afternoon peak hour traffic.
“Peak traffic trips can cost developers additional money for roadway improvements,” said Irvin Keister, chairman of the township planning commission.
Added township planning director Sara Pandl: “Peak hour trips drive traffic improvements and also our traffic impact fees.”
She added: “There was skepticism when these developers were coming in with over-55 communities about whether there really would be that much less traffic — and also that much less fee required.
“Many of us are over 55 and we’re pretty active. We didn’t believe their numbers. But Alan is saying they’re probably right on.”
The planning commission had recommended the study be done on traffic coming and going at Lower Macungie’s own age-restricted neighborhoods, so the township has its own local data.
In early November, township commissioners authorized paying Keystone $7,500 to do a traffic count study at Lower Macungie’s four existing 55-and-older developments: Four Seasons, Legacy Oaks, Millbrook Chase and Wild Cherry Knoll.
Keystone gathered data before Thanksgiving week, by using automatic traffic counters on access roads serving those four neighborhoods.
Fornwalt explained traffic typically is heaviest on adjacent roads between 7 and 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m., which he called the a.m. and p.m. peak periods.
But Keystone’s study showed traffic to and from the four developments peaks “right in the middle of the day.”
Fornwalt said most of the traffic coming and going at those developments is between noon and 1 p.m., with the larger volume between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Two 55-and-older developments that would impact local traffic 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 — although all the additional traffic it generates will use Lower Macungie roads.
Developers of proposed 55-and-older projects use national traffic data generated by the Institute of Traffic Engineers—ITE— to determine the amount of peak hour traffic generated by an over-55 community.
Fornwalt said ITE’s data is based on traffic counts done all over the United States.
He explained ITE has determined a development with no age restrictions will generate four times as many peak drive-time trips as a comparably sized over-55 development.
Keystone’s study shows that peak-hour trip generation at Lower Macungie’s over-55 developments is consistent with ITE’s data.
“Lower Macungie is right there,” he said. “It matches with ITE very well, not only in the quantity of trips generated but also in the distribution.”
The township engineer, who is employed by Keystone, said the findings do not necessarily mean township residents in 55-and-older developments are driving four times less, “but they’re not driving in the morning when everybody is going to work and they’re not coming home when everybody is coming home from work.”
Some local officials wanted the local study done because they thought that ITE data was way off base, said Fornwalt, but others thought ITE was on target.
Keister acknowledged his personal feeling was the ITE standards might under-estimate what happens in over-55 communities, because “over-55 people are out and about.”
Fornwalt noted that traffic generated is only one aspect of whether or not the township wants more over-55 developments.
Responding to the study, planning commission member George Doughty noted the traffic impact of additional development “is not zero.”
Doughty said adding even a small amount of additional peak-hour traffic to the intersection of Lower Macungie Road and Cedar Crest Boulevard, where the Farr 55-and-older development is proposed, “makes it much, much worse.”
Resident Mike Siegel told officials traffic peaks along Route 100 in the township between noon and 3 p.m., when schools let out and shifts change in the Mack Trucks plant.
Siegel said township officials should consider that fact before approving not just 55-and-older developments, but any future residential projects along Route 100.
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