CORRESPONDENCE_2017-2018 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Mr. Don Mooney March 29, 2017 Page 3 is no posted speed limit, under California Vehicle Code § 22349 (b) the speed limit is 55 miles per hour. Ten-ton trucks have a maximum width of 8' 6". When trucks traveling in opposed directions pass one another on Frewert, if drivers center the vehicles in their own j lanes, they have 18 inches between them and 9 inches to the edge limit. When opposed trucks or a truck and a car meet close to where someone is bicycling in a lane or walking on the most walkable portion of the shoulder there is a conflict problem. The controlling guidance for lane width on local streets in California is A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets by the American Association Of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). This document states that a road width of 20 feet is considered adequate only for low- volume roads where meetings and passings are infrequent and truck volume is low. If there really are only 58 trucks per day entering and then, after weighing and unloading, leaving the facility and they are spaced out evenly over the full 12 hours of operation, there will be 12.41 minutes between trucks entering the facility'. Given the time it takes to drive the length of Frewert and go through the unloading protocol, there is a high probability that every truck entering the facility will encounter a truck leaving the facility somewhere on Frewert. The facts that truck approaches will be random rather than evenly spaced and that truck traffic will likely be more concentrated in some hours of the day than others make truck meetings even more probable. And the fact that truck trips associated with export of the finished compost may not have been accounted for makes truck meetings yet more likely. Hence, not even considering any other traffic on the road, this simply does not constitute a situation where 'meetings and passings are infrequent' makes the 20 foot width of Frewart inadequate for this usage. Given the conditions, adding more heavy truck traffic onto a 20-foot wide road that has no improved shoulders or sidewalks and that has resident foot traffic, bike traffic and recreational traffic along it, extending that truck traffic into the evening commute period and extending that truck traffic into Sundays certainly would be a potentially significant traffic safety impact that the IS/MND fails to disclose as such or mitigate. Conclusion That Traffic Impact Fees Will Be Sufficient For The County To Maintain Frewert Road Has No Basis. In response to a question from the public, County staff asserted that the Project's payment of traffic impact fees would be sufficient to offset cost of maintenance for whatever damage the Project's heavy truck traffic would do to the pavement of Frewert Road. We digress to observe that the necessary structural strength of road pavements used in design or to assess the adequacy of an existing Or for someone standing.walking or bicycling along Frewert,a truck from the Project will pass in one direction or the other once every 6.2 minutes. For people along a road this narrow,each truck passing,to say nothing of being near truck meetings,will seem annoying,unpleasant and dangerous. RAI 1:1C • 'I'It:%N,si,oR,rATI 0N • NANAGLNILN I X3)1 Lowry Road. Union City,CA 94587 tel:510.459.9477 lax: 510.48994-18 ., r