Monroe County officials are preparing to take a closer look at how traffic congestion is measured along U.S. 1, including whether the standards and methodology currently being used are still appropriate.
Emily Schemper, Monroe County’s growth management director, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
The county has relied on essentially the same traffic measurement methodology since the early 1990s, when it established standards for determining whether U.S. 1 could accommodate additional development.
The system was originally established when the state required local governments to review traffic capacity before approving development. Although that state requirement was eliminated about 15 years ago, Monroe County has maintained its own requirements through its comprehensive plan.
Schemper said the county’s goal is to ensure that commercial and larger multifamily developments do not push traffic beyond the highway’s established capacity.
“In general, that level of service is to be able to drive up and down the highway back and forth from North Key Largo to Key West and back at an average of 45 miles per hour,” Schemper explained.
The county also has individual traffic standards for approximately 24 segments of U.S. 1, with requirements based on the posted speed limits.
Under the current system, traffic studies are conducted every two years. A traffic consultant drives the highway during peak season over a two-week period to collect travel-time information.
If a proposed development is expected to add more traffic than a particular segment can accommodate without falling below the established standard, developers must provide improvements such as turn lanes, traffic signals or additional lanes. Otherwise, they cannot receive approval for the development.
Schemper said the methodology has been questioned over the years, particularly regarding how certain delays are factored into the studies.
For example, construction-related delays may be excluded if they are considered temporary rather than representative of normal traffic conditions.
“If there are delays based on construction, for example, they exclude some of those if it’s too much of a delay, and they say that’s an incidental construction delay,” Schemper said. “That obviously is not always there. That’s just this week, or that’s just this month. It’s not a year-round, ongoing thing in this location.”
School bus delays and other factors have also generated questions about how traffic conditions are measured.
Following the presentation of this year’s traffic study, commissioners heard requests from community members for a more comprehensive examination of both the methodology and the 45-mile-per-hour standard.
Schemper said commissioners directed county staff to begin looking at a two-phase approach to the review.
The first phase would involve hiring an outside consulting firm to evaluate the existing methodology and compare it with traffic management practices in other communities that have similar geographic challenges.
“There are some areas that are somewhat similar to the Keys, like Longboat Key, Sanibel, just off the top of my head,” Schemper said. “Maybe they have traffic requirements and traffic management studies that they do.”
The consultant would prepare a written report examining those approaches and identifying alternatives that might be appropriate for Monroe County.
Based on that analysis, commissioners could then decide whether to hire a traffic consultant to develop recommendations for a new methodology, revised traffic standards or updated technology for conducting the studies.
Schemper acknowledged that changing the system could have an impact on how future traffic studies are compared with previous ones.
“In some ways, it’s good because it gives a good comparison when you’re comparing over time, multiple studies,” she said of the existing methodology. “If you start changing the methodology or changing the standard that you’re comparing it to, you can’t really get a good comparison.”
She said commissioners could also decide that the existing 45-mile-per-hour standard is no longer the appropriate goal for the highway.
“Maybe the board decides they want to change that, then you kind of start over with a new baseline,” Schemper said. “It would be a new study, a new era of studies for traffic.”
Schemper also emphasized that the county and the Florida Department of Transportation are not simply waiting for the next biennial study to address traffic problems. Improvements are being made and monitored throughout the year.
She pointed to an interesting finding in the latest study: There were more vehicles on the highway than in the previous study, but average travel speeds had improved.
“There are multiple improvements, large scale and small scale, that FDOT has been working on over time,” she said.
Those improvements include individual turn lanes as well as a larger traffic-monitoring system installed in recent years. Cameras positioned along the highway allow FDOT personnel to monitor conditions and make adjustments to traffic signals.
Schemper described seeing the monitoring operation firsthand, noting that a designated FDOT employee watches the cameras from a workstation with multiple screens.
“He’s able to do certain things with traffic signals, et cetera,” she said. “But they are watching and tracking and looking at speeds and backups and everything constantly.”
The county’s proposed review would examine whether newer technology could provide a better way to collect traffic information than the current system of having a consultant drive the highway repeatedly during peak season.
Monroe County commissioners are scheduled to consider final approval of this year’s traffic study on November 17. Schemper said commissioners had requested a minor adjustment before bringing the study back for approval.
Following that action, county staff will present a proposed scope of work for the first phase of the review. The county will likely issue a request for proposals to find a consulting firm to conduct the analysis.
For now, the county will continue conducting traffic studies every two years while monitoring development approvals to ensure that permitted projects do not exceed the capacity established under the current standards.