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Agenda 04/06/2004 Wr Joint BCC and City of Naples Workshop 9:00 a.m., April 6, 2004 Collier County Board of County Commissioners Boardroom 3301 East Tamiami Trail Naples, FL 34112 1. Update on Golden Gate Parkway/Airport-Pulling Road Intersection Improvements 2. City of Naples Comprehensive Plan Amendment 3. Annexation Policy 4. Waterside Shops and other Commercial Interests 5. Second Gordon River Bridge Options 6. FEMA FIRM Negotiations EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A REVIEW OF ALL FEASIBLE PLANNING & DESIGN ALTERNATIVES (CONVENTIONAL & UNCONVENTIONAL) FOR INTERSECTION IMPROVEMENTS AT AIRPORT-PULLING ROAD/GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY AND THEIR IMPACT ON ALL OTHER MAJOR INTERSECTIONS ALONG THE GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY CORRIDOR. A GRADE SEPARATED OVERPASS IS THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE ACHIEVING AN ADEQUATE LEVEL OF SERVICE IN 2025 WHILE PROVIDING THE MOST COST EFFECTIVE, LONG-TERM BENEFIT TO TAXPAYERS. OBJECTIVE: To present comprehensive data, analysis and information to the Board of County Commissioners, Naples City Council, and Collier County citizens regarding various improvements to the Airport-Pulling Road/Golden Gate Parkway intersection resulting from extensive study by staff and five professional consulting firms. All conclude that a grade separated overpass is the only alternative achieving an adequate level of service in 2025 while providing the most cost effective, long-term benefit to taxpayers. CONSIDERATION: Collier County is approaching the completion of a $1.8 million design effort that will substantially address existing transportations deficiencies at the intersection of Airport- Pulling Road and Golden Gate Parkway, and more importantly, accommodate transportation needs well into the future. This $1.8 million design cost does not include an additional $435,000 the County has already spent on supplemental studies, analysis and reports considering alternative improvements and impacts along the corridor. The design effort to date is in accordance with a decade of extensive planning and preparation by City and County officials. The project, a grade separated overpass, is one critical step in a series of improvements to occur along the Golden Gate Parkway corridor. Such improvements include the 6-lane expansion currently under construction, the 1-75 interchange to be completed in 2007, and the Goodlette-Frm~ Road improvements to begin early in 2005. In reviewing a decade of plmming, this project is specifically called out within the Halstatt (Grey Oaks, Estuary & Naples Grande) Development of Regional Impacts (DRI)/PUD, which was approved under an Interlocal Agreement between the City and the County in 1990. This development was required to reserve the rights-of-way for an overpass with Golden Gate Parkway to fly over Airport Road. An overpass was identified as a need in the Metropolitan Plarming Organization's (MPO's) Long Range Transportation Plan since 1993. The project was also identified in the County's Transportation 5-Year Funded Work Program since 2001. In 2002, the County received notice that it was the recipient of $7.45 million in grant funding from the State of Florida (TOPS Grant) specifically for the proposed improvements to the Parkway which included an overpass to handle the traffic increase fi'om the new 1-75 interchange. As part of the overall corridor study, as well as concerns expressed by the City of Naples, the County advanced improvements to Goodlette-Frank Road in its 2002 update to the 5-Year Transportation Work Program. To evaluate all conventional and unconventional alternatives to improve the intersection and corridor, the County has worked with five different professional consulting firms; and the City has worked with one firm. Kimley-Horn's first study looked at improvements to several intersections throughout the County and evaluated those intersections against several criteria including existing and future traffic conditions, activity centers, whether the roadways are evacuation routes, and parallel roadway options. The Grade Separation Study indicated that even with at-grade intersection improvements this intersection would fail from a level of service standpoint, which would cause a severe delay to the transportation system. Even if at-grade improvements were designed to include free flow rights and triple lefts along with six through lanes for each approach, the intersection still fails to operate at an acceptable level-of-service (LOS) in 2025. Additional analysis in the report was undertaken to estimate the user benefits of an Overpass at this location. It is estimated that over 550,000 hours of delay per year could be saved based on 2025 traffic conditions at a cost savings of $2.9 million. In addition the overpass is projected to reduce traffic crashes and save motorists approximately $130,000 per year. Subsequent to Kimley-Horn's study of conventional, at-grade improvements, Kimley Horn prepared a Teclmical Memorandum in 2001, which reviewed the types of overpass structures that could operate most efficiently and at the greatest level of safety. Structures that were considered include diamond, cloverleaf, trumpet and single point urban interchanges (SPUI). In summary, Kimley-Horn states, "the combination of relatively high capacity and low right-of-way costs makes the SPUI an ideal candidate for urban arterials". The need for a grade separated overpass at Airport Pulling Road and Golden Gate Parkway was further evaluated under a contract with RWA Consultants who were tasked with the refinement of design traffic movements to develop an overpass concept within reserved rights-of-ways. RWA was also charged with coordinating public involvement activities to develop a concept that would be consistent with the expectations of quality as characterized by the community. County staff and RWA met with the Board of County Commissioners (BCC), the Naples City Council on February 6, 2002, Bear's Paw on April 4, 2002 and held Countywide public meetings on February 11, 2002 and March 4, 2002 to present the conceptual plan and gain input into the design of this project. This concept plan was finalized in February of 2002 and it included almost $4 million in architectural and landscaping features to establish a more human scale to the structure and to serve as the gateway into the City of Naples. On May 14, 2002, County staff received authorization from the BCC to begin design and engineering with RWA based on the work accomplished tln'ough the conceptual design study. 2 In late 2002, the City of Naples asked Kimley-Horn to look at the traffic impacts associated with the future interchange and overpass. This study was undertaken to determine the traffic conditions at the intersections of Airport Pulling Road and Goodlette Frank Road. The results again indicated that the intersection at Airport Pulling Road fails in 2025 during both AM and PM peak hour conditions even with the best conventional at-grade solutions. With an overpass, the intersection would operate at an acceptable LOS for peak hour conditions in 2025. Kimley-Hom also determined that the intersection at Goodlette Frm~k Road is projected to fail for both the AM and PM peak hours with at- grade improvements within the existing right-of-way in 2025. It should also be noted that the intersection operates at a LOS F for the peak hour conditions today in this analysis and is projected to fail with or without the overpass at Airport-Pulling Road. At the January 7, 2003 City/County joint workshop, Kimley-Horn confirmed the need for an overpass at Airport-Pulling Road and concluded the need for an overpass at Goodlette-Frm~ Road. However, they assumed that they would have to stay within the current ROW. County staff stated that because the primary movements are turning movements (unlike Golden Gate Pkwy. at Airport) the intersection should be able to be addressed with at-grade improvements. Subsequently, the County and City have been cooperatively working with American Consulting Engineers (ACE) to design improvements to the intersection at Goodlette-Frank Road (as well as that segment of Goodlette-Frank Road between the Parkway and Pine Ridge Road). The current design creatively calls for improvements that bypass westbound right turns outside the existing right-of-way. The design is quickly approaching 30% complete and will provide for an acceptable level of service today and through 2025. Kimley-Horn's study utilized the MPO's 2025 traffic model, which includes two Gordon River Bridges. Subsequent to the City/County workshop, Kimley-Horn was asked by the City to remove the bridges from the model and determine the impacts along the corridor. Kimley-Horn concluded that without the bridges, delay and extended queue lengths already experienced along the con'idor would increase considerably. At a City Council Meeting, these results were discussed and concerns were raised with the Overpass. Later, in response to issues raised by the City at an MPO meeting about the beneficial impacts of building one or two additional bridge crossings across the Gordon River, the County hired the TBE Group to prepare a detailed analysis of the costs and traffic impacts of additional bridges, particularly as they provide relief to Golden Gate Parkway. In building two bridges, different scenarios were developed to maximize diversion from Golden Gate Parkway. In summary, the cost to establish a single bridge crossing is estimated at $75 million. The cost to establish two bridge crossings is estimated at $90 million. These estimates are attributed to the acquisition of right-of-way, design, engineering, construction, and inspection associated with the proposed bridges and roads leading to the bridges. TBE concluded that the bridges would improve the operation of the network, with primary relief to Radio Road and Davis Boulevard rather than Golden Gate Parkway. FINAL REPORT In November 2003, the County comracted with Parsons Brinkerhoff Quade & Douglas (Parsons), a transportation firm identified by the City as uniquely qualified in evaluating unconventional intersection designs. Parsons visited the area and reviewed prior studies and data. They quickly discounted previously considered unconventional approaches such as round-a-bouts, jug-handles, continuous flow intersections and quadrant roadways because of the volume of traffic seen at this intersection and right-of-way constraints. Parsons found that only grade separation would meet the 20-yem' design needs (see Figure 1 below). However, Parsons did recommend a split intersection / median u-turn concept as a possible interim solution (see Figure 2 attached). Parsons proposed that this unconventional concept could likely fit within the dedicated right-of-way for an ultimate overpass. Parson also estimates that grade separation would be needed between 2010 and 2015; the earlier date likely if the corridor experiences a 2% a year growth rate which Parsons raised as a likely probability based on historical growth along the corridor. They noted that a split intersection design has been used as a temporary measure during interchange construction in the U. S., but there is presently no known longstanding specific application. In whichever year grade separation becomes necessary, it is estimated that $3.5 million worth of construction associated with the unconventional design would be disrupted and/or removed as part of an overpass construction. The unconventional nature of Figure 1:2025 Volume-to-Capacity Analysis Results 2025 PM INTERSECTION DESIGN Volume-to- Capacity Ratio Conventional Intersection 1.42 single P0in~ OverpaSs(planned) 0:85 Median U-Turn (crossovers only on GGP) 1.21 Continuous Flow Intersection 1.05 Split Intersection (with median crossovers) 1.11 Echelon Interchange (grade s eparafi0n) 0:98 V/C Ratio above 1.0 = greater delay and longer peak volume time, such a design requires significant driver acclamation, education and special law enforcement. Lastly, the County has been working with Post Buckley Shuh and Jernigan (PBS&J), another leading transportation consulting firm, to evaluate future traffic conditions along Golden Gate Parkway from Santa Barbara Boulevard to U.S. 41. Two specific assignments were given. The first included the evaluation of different build scenarios for the Golden Gate Parkway intersections with Goodlette-Frank Road mad Airport-Pulling Road in 2005 and 2025. The second assigmnent focused on the evaluation of different traffic scenarios due to the implementation of a second Gordon River bridge crossing. PBS&J's results are best surnmarized in Tables 1 and 2. Findings from the first assignment as depicted in Table 1 revealed the following: · Operations at US 41 and at Santa Barbara Boulevard are relatively unaffected by the specific improvement decision at the Airport Road and Golden Gate Parkway intersection or by the possible addition of two Gordon River Bridges · The addition if two Gordon River Bridges will slightly reduce delay at Goodlette Frank Road, but add more delay at Livingston Road regardless of the specific improvement decision at the Airport Road and Golden Gate Parkway intersection Given that all Airport Road at Golden Gate Parkway intersection alternatives, when optimized, do not significantly impact other intersections along the corridor, Table 1 below provides the best tool to evaluate the corridor operations and cost of the Airport Road at Golden Gate Parkway improvement options. · An overpass at Airport-Pulling Road provides significm~t benefit to the operation of the intersection well into the future; · Alternative improvements, such as a westbound bypass, at the intersection of Goodlette- Frank Road significantly improve the operation of the intersection. · In 2005, the signalized intersections within the study co~Tidor are expected to operate better than a LOS 'D', with the proposed improvements; In 2025, the following intersections along the Parkway are expected to operate below LOS 'D' with the proposed improvements: Goodlette-Frank, Livingston, Santa Barbara (which is policy constrained). However, only Santa Barbm'a will operate below a LOS E (the county's minimum standard) for portions of the day. Findings from the second assignment as depicted in Table 2 revealed that an overpass at Airport-Pulling Road, along with a second Gordon River bridge crossing, provides the greatest savings in travel time, delay and fi.~el consumption along the Parkway corridor when compared to all other alternatives. The alternative of best conventional at-grade improvements, without a second Gordon River bridge crossing, is used as the baseline by which other alternatives are gauged. The baseline alternative has a cost of approximately $12 million. Other alternatives that were considered include: 1. An overpass without additional Gordon River bridge crossings; 2. At-grade improvements at Airport-Pulling Road with two Gordon River bridge crossings; 3. An overpass with two Gordon River bridge crossings; 4. Split intersection / median U-turn concept without additional Gordon River bridge crossings; 5. Split intersection / median U-turn concept with two Gordon River bridge crossings. The PBS&J findings confirm the results of all prior studies that the only conventional or unconventional improvement that meets the needs in 2025 is grade separation. Their emalysis showed that the overpass does not adversely impact the other intersections along the corridor and that the overpass, even without two new bridges, provides for nearly a 20% reduction in travel time over the entire corridor. Even with 4-1anes on a north Gordon River bridge crossing and 2-lanes on a south bridge crossing, the addition of two new bridges does not provide sufficient relief to Golden Gate Parkway traffic to eliminate the need for grade separation. Lastly, they found that the split intersection with median u-turns would initially provide better operations than at-grade conventional improvements, but would actually operate less effectively than conventional at-grade intersection improvements in 2025. Neither the split intersection nor the conventional at-grade improvements, even when combined with the additional bridges, would meet the 2025 traffic at an acceptable LOS. FISCAL IMPACT: The Overpass is estimated to cost $27.2 million, which is to be funded by Gas Taxes, Impact Fees and a portion of the TOPS grant. GROWTH MANAGEMENT: The design, construction, and all-inclusive detail analysis of a grade separated overpass is consistent with the Growth Management Plan and the MPO's Cost Feasible Plan. RECOMMENDATION: To recognize that an exhaustive analysis of all conventional and unconventional improvements concludes that a grade separated overpass is the only alternative achieving an adequate level of service in 2025. Secondly, to recognize that irnplementation of a split intersection with median u-turns would only address deficiencies for a short duration even if additional bridges were constructed and, therefore, construction of an overpass at the outset would deliver the most cost effective solution meeting the long-term needs of the entire county with the least construction disruption. And lastly to recognize that the current overpass design includes $4 million in aesthetic enhancements to maintain community character. Prepared by: Gregg R. Strakaluse, P.E. Director, Engineering & Construction Management Date: Reviewed by: Don Scott, AICP Director, Transportation Planning Date: Reviewed mid Approved by: Norman Feder, AICP Transportation Administrator Date: