“It’s Time to Listen to the Experts: We Must Have a Solution to Our Traffic Issues”

by Bob DeCorte, Vice President of Operations and Engineering DirectorTraffic Improvement Association of Oakland County

The Traffic Improvement Association of Oakland County (TIA) was founded 37 years ago because of a fatal traffic accident near Oakland University. During a period of one year, 200 business leaders, police, engineers, city, county and township officials met and compiled a list of 93 recommendations that should be implemented to improve traffic safety. One of those recommendations was to form a non-profit organization, TIA, to implement the other 92 recommendations. Therefore, TIA was born in March of 1967. Since then we have added reducing traffic congestion to our other goal of improving traffic safety. These are the same goals as the Commerce Township Downtown Development Authority (DDA).

During the past 30 or 40 years we have seen several attempts to reach those two lofty goals in our area by building a north-south road. The original plan was to continue Northwestern Highway to join I-275, which would continue north to I-75; that was stopped by local citizens. In the 1970’s, local citizens stopped I-275. In the 1980’s, local citizens stopped M-275. In the 1990’s, local citizens stopped M-5 at Pontiac Trail. In 2003 local citizens told the Michigan Department of Transportation that we didn’t want their $50 million to build a north-south road between I-96 and M-59. Here we are in 2004 still trying to build a north-south road to reduce congestion and improve traffic safety.

At a recent Commerce DDA meeting, I heard attendees talking about goals such as reducing speeds, traffic calming, three-lane roads, and other traffic related issues. These are the basis of traffic congestion. Our area already has slow speeds due to congestion; we already have traffic calming in the form of congestion, and because our roads only have two through lanes, we already have traffic patterns similar to three-lane roads. We have already reached our goals of slow speeds and calmed traffic!

We need to put our biases, pre-conceived notions and unfounded myths aside and rely on professional traffic and road engineers and planners. For instance, some have called for three-lane roads as opposed to four. Three-lane roads have a capacity similar to two-lane roads. The primary purpose of a three-lane road is to provide a center lane for left turns so that motorists don’t have to block a through lane waiting to make a left turn. There are only two through lanes on a three-lane road, exactly the same as on a two-lane road. Neither two-lane roads, nor three-lane roads provide a lane for drivers to pass slower vehicles, such as trucks. Therefore, speeds are limited to the slowest vehicle in the area, creating congestion. If the projected traffic demand requires a five-lane road then a five-lane road should be built and if only a three-lane road is required then only a three-lane road should be built.

Several steps can be taken to reduce traffic congestion and improve traffic safety in addition to widening roads. A change in Michigan law would allow local governments to charge developers a development impact fee that could be put into escrow for future road improvement projects. Currently it is illegal for local governments to require lane developers to make improvements off-site. So, a project could be built that would increase traffic in the area and the road agency is left with the bill to improve the roads to accommodate the traffic generated by the new development.

Another tool is for local governments to require Traffic Impact Statements, which are reports of existing and projected traffic based on the proposed development. This report and its data allow a local agency to determine what new traffic can be expected and how the developer intends to accommodate it.

Local governments could work with road agencies to control access to sites based on Access Management Practices. This would go a long way in limiting driveways onto major thoroughfares. Every site deserves access; however, sites don’t necessarily require several access points. An example is gas stations. Only two driveways are needed, one driveway on each major road, but often four driveways are permitted. Each driveway has its share of turning, stopping, slowing and accelerating movements that cause traffic congestion and traffic accidents. The fewer the driveways the less congestion and accidents.

We need a plan! Not a static plan, but a dynamic plan that flows with the developmental changes in the area. The plan must include all of the tools available: Access Management Practices, Traffic Impact Statements, developers’ cooperation, adherence to engineers’ and planners’ experience that are based a history of research, studies, tests and ‘best practices.’ Traffic engineers have the same goals that we have, just stated a little differently: “to move people and cargo as safely and efficiently as possible.”

Every one, every group and every interest should be heard, with emphasis on the experts, then a consensus should be strongly supported by everyone, every group and every interest. If not, another decade will have flown by and there will be another group trying to “decrease traffic congestion and improve traffic safety” in the face of even more congestion, more accidents and at a higher cost than today.