The traffic implications of this proposed multi-family development are many. It doesn’t take a traffic engineer to know that Hampton Road suffers from over-use and congestion. But just because Hampton has a low level of service due to it’s over-use doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be concerned about adding to or making the traffic worse.
Hampton Road is not the only road that will be impacted negatively by this project. North Boulevard Terrace, a dead-end street that runs parallel and to the west of Hampton will be connected to Plymouth Rd to the north as part of this project. In the 2017 Bond process, our current Council Member Chad West was the Chair of the Citizen Bond Task Force and was responsible for getting this connector road on the needs list. To make the $2.2M connector road possible, some privately owned land had to be seized through eminent domain.
Imagine how you would feel if your quiet cul-de-sac became a major cut-through for literally thousands of cars trying to avoid traffic on N Hampton Rd. — and all this to help a developer/city official make the money of a life time. And to add insult to unjury, private property was seized to do so. It is entirely disingenuous, when the developer says he did not want the bridge. In fact, in 2015 he said the only reason he had to put his ingress/egress onto Hampton Rd was because a bridge to Plymouth was cost-prohibitive and would make his project unprofitable. And other propaganda, that the City HAD to build the bridge to provide access for emergency vehicles is a false narrative. A turn-about at the end of the street would have been another viable and cheaper option.
The developer has expressed his belief that Hampton is “broken” and it’s traffic problem is a larger issue that needs to be addressed at the city wide regional level. Despite his acknowledgement of the issues related to traffic on Hampton Road, he makes no apologies or excuses for adding more vehicles to the already congested Hampton Road by seeking to develop a high density multi-family development. The developer’s “its-broken-so-who-cares” mentality is fundamentally wrong and irresponsible.
The image above graphically illustrates traffic counts along Hampton Road from I-30 to Davis. The segment of Hampton directly in front of the proposed multi-family development has approximately 39,000 vehicles per day. Its important to recognize that Hampton Rd can not be widened any more. There is no higher capacity thoroughfare designation to which Hampton can be promoted — it wall always be a six-lane divided thoroughfare. Since Hampton Road can not be widened, the 39,000 daily commuters, the nearby home owners and the community in general have a vested interest in maintaining the highest level of service on Hampton for as long as feasibly possible. Thus, this proposed high density multi-family development is counter to and undermines the general public interest.
The picture below supports the position that Hampton Road presents real risk to health and safety. These risks DO NOT need to be increased by unnecessarily contributing to increased traffic in an already over-utilized thoroughfare.
