Agenda - 8-15-16 Reg. Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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092 • Future Plans: The board was interested in any future plans to alter the road or add sidewalks or other improvements in this area. Last year, Lee County submitted 15 projects through the Triangle Area Rural Planning Organization (TARPO) for funding by NCDOT through SPOT 4.0, which is the funding formula used by NCDOT to identify the construction funding for and scheduling of transportation projects for funding from 2018-2027 through the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). Our Long Range/Transportation Planner, David Montgomery, of the Sanford/Lee County Community Development Department, has requested funding through the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) to widen NC 78/Tramway Road from USI to Lemon Springs Road and to install sidewalks along one side of the public street in this area. The design for this area would be a multi -lane divided roadway, similar to the improvements currently underway along Broadway Road; however, this is still a general request and no drawings have been created for reference. This request for road improvements was made prior to the Sanford Soccer Field Complex rezoning request was received by staff, but is not funded at this time. The request for road improvements to NC 78/Tramway Road was based upon a recommendation from the adopted Lee County Comprehensive Transportation Plan. At the time the plan was adopted in December of 2007, this segment of NC 78/Tramway Road consisted of primarily two 12 -foot lanes and a 14 -foot center turn lane with an estimated capacity of 9,500 vehicles per day, but actual experiences of vehicles per day from 11,000 to 14,000. It was noted that improving the facility to a four -lane divided boulevard would address the future capacity issues. Also, the facility experienced a crash rate higher than that of the state average. Adding additional lanes and constructing a median may help to lower the crash rate. No information or recommendations was provided for Airport Road. Since submittal of the 15 projects last year, NCDOT scored the projects along with projects from the other 3 counties in the Triangle Area Rural Planning Organization (TARPO): Orange, Chatham, and Moore counties. Projects were scored at the Division level, the Regional level if applicable, and the State level if applicable. The NC 78/Tramway Road project scored a 25.77 out of a possible 50 points at the Division level and a 33.24 out of a possible 70 points at the Regional level; it was not deemed to be a State level project. Following the release of NCDOT's project scores, TARPO staff worked with each county to develop a ranked top ten list of priority projects within that county. Based upon this information and how we ranked amongst the other county projects, Lee County was allowed to rank and put local points on 10 local projects in the spring of 2016. The NC 78/Tramway Road project was ranked 5h and given 60 local points. TARPO staff then used the county -level rankings as well as other data to score each project in accordance with the TARPO Prioritization Policy. Based on that policy, a draft list of proposed point assignments for the TARPO region was developed and was presented at a series of public meetings in each county. TARPO was permitted to assign 1400 points in the Regional category and 1400 points in the Division category. As a result