JACKSON – The impact on local roads of vehicles entering and leaving a proposed recycling facility on Wright-Debow Road was the subject of a professional’s testimony when the Jackson Zoning Board of Adjustment continued a public hearing on an application submitted by A and A Truck Parts.
A and A Truck Parts is seeking a use variance from the zoning board to operate a recycling center for used truck parts and trailer parts. Recycling is not a permitted use in the Commercial Office/Light Industrial zone on Wright-Debow Road in Jackson. The hearing continued at the zoning board’s June 20 meeting.
Traffic engineer John Rea testified on behalf of the applicant. Rea said he heard discussion during previous hearings about the condition of the pavement on Wright-Debow Road and the road’s ability to handle traffic.
“I want to let everybody know I am not an expert on pavement, I am a traffic engineer. I deal with capacity and safety issues and it is clear to me … if there was an issue … with some facet of the road not being able to handle truck traffic, there would have been a posted truck restriction on Wright-Debow Road,” Rea said.
Rea said he has not seen any posted truck restrictions on Wright-Debow Road. He said there are existing businesses in the surrounding area that generate truck traffic.
He said he conducted initial traffic studies during the summer of 2017.
“There was a detour on Wright-Debow Road in June 2017. There was some construction toward the north end of Wright-Debow Road by Route 537. I purposely kept my eye on that situation waiting for the construction to be over, waiting for the detour to be done, and then we conducted our traffic counts,” Rea said.
The zoning board’s traffic consultant raised the issue of whether summer traffic counts were appropriate to use for the traffic impact analysis.
“That is a totally legitimate concern, schools were not open. So what I did do was, since I had the time to do it, I went back out in October 2017 and recounted the traffic,” Rea said.
Rea said turning movement counts were conducted at the intersection of Patterson and Wright-Debow roads.
“We updated the traffic counts in October 2017. We compared them to the summer 2017 counts and actually the summer 2017 counts were a little bit higher. They were comparable, but the summer counts were a little bit higher … I do not think there is any issues with respect to the traffic counts,” Rea said.
Rea said 130 vehicles moving in two directions were recorded during the peak morning hour, 6:30-7:30 a.m., on Wright-Debow Road.
“70 vehicles were northbound, 60 vehicles were southbound in the vicinity of where the site access (for the proposed business) is going to be,” Rea said.
The afternoon peak hour on Wright-Debow Road is 4:30-5:30 p.m.
“So 130 vehicles in two directions going in the morning peak hour and 100 vehicles in two directions going in the afternoon peak hour, and again with the residents who often characterize this as a lightly traveled road, those traffic volumes are pretty much on the light side with respect to the capacity of the road to handle traffic,” Rea said.
Rea said two-lane roads like Wright-Debow Road have the capacity to handle “a lot more traffic.”
“Probably closer to 1,000 vehicles in two directions without creating any capacity issues,” he said.
Rea said he believed there would be between 80 and 90 truck trips generated during a 12-hour business day at the proposed A and A Truck Parts operation, which is seven or eight trucks per hour.
He said there will be employees coming to the business in the morning and leaving in the afternoon. Rea said Wright-Debow Road will be able to handle the vehicles.
Rea said he examined reports of accidents that occurred at the intersection of Route 537 and Wright-Debow Road and at the intersection of West Commodore Boulevard and Wright-Debow Road. He said that after reviewing the data, there is not a significant crash history at either intersection.
Rea’s final point was in regard to the zone.
“This property (for the A and A Truck Parts operation) is in the LM zone and contains 48 acres. The minimum lot size permitted in the LM zone is 3 acres. So essentially (the A and A Truck Parts) property could be chopped up into 14 conforming light manufacturing lots … think about what could go into 14 conforming 3-acre lots that are zoned light manufacturing. The uses that are permitted include offices and convention centers, things of that nature.
“Overall, from a traffic perspective, this 48-acre site, based on the operation that has been proposed, is not going to be as major of a traffic generator as what could be developed from this property if it was developed in accordance with the light manufacturing zone,” Rea said.
The A and A Truck Parts application is expected to resume at the zoning board’s Sept. 5 meeting.
