City of Portsmouth, New Hampshire Public Works, 19 Apr 2022

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From YouTube: 4.19.2022 Public Input on Raynes Avenue - Vaughan Street One-Way Traffic

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4.19.2022 Public Input on Raynes Avenue - Vaughan Street One-Way Traffic

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This meeting is being recorded.

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Stephanie, what can you see on your screen.

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Deputy, are you still there.

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um I'm seeing your notes version as well as your first slide. Okay,.

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So we'll start the meeting now good evening, everybody, uh my name, is eric eby, the traffic.

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Engineer with the city of portsmouth and tonight we are going to be discussing the proposal to.

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Change the traffic flow on rains and avenue and bronze street from two-way flow to one lane. Flood.

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And with us tonight here at the ac, hotel is peter rice. The director of public works.

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And also, I have tyler reese associate engineer, who's helped on this project and.

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I will get right into it. I have a few slides and then we'll take any comments so.

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The uh the area you see on the screen.

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So this is the loop uh off of maplewood avenue from bond street and reigns avenue.

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With the intersection of green street coming in between the hotel and the condominiums and the.

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Proposal is to have all traffic exit entering the loop from maplewood at the southern end, the other.

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Railroad tracks coming in on vaughn street and then circling around in a car counter-clockwise.

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Pattern exiting onto maplewood avenue from reigns avenue at the uh near the north pond, so.

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The uh agenda tonight uh talk about some recent history of this area, the one-way flow and how.

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That was studied and how it would be proposed to be installed, and the next steps in the process.

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So we've had a lot of developments in this area. The hotel that we're in tonight is one of them.

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The ac hotel we've also in the last 10 years I saw condos built at 233 monastery and.

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We have the 145 maplewood avenue, building, which is just about complete and ready to be occupied and.

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The behind the hotel here on green street is another proposal for a building to replace the.

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Existing uh small retail stores and then at the end of greens, avenue there's also another proposal.

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For a mixed-use development that would replace the health club and the old cafes cleaners.

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uh Currently, the loop here with um bond street and reigns avenue is uh two uh two lanes.

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It's one 10-foot wide travel lane in each direction, so it's very narrow.

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There is metered parking spaces on both sides of the roadway.

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And a sidewalk does run the length of both sides of the roadway from midwood to.

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Is currently prohibited on the corners because it is tight and the angle of the geometry is radius.

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Of those curves doesn't allow for two weight or parking as well as too many traffic crosswalks.

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Exist on at the intersections of maplewood avenue, as well as one up at the green street intersection.

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And at the public access point, which leads into the future public space along the north pond.

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uh As the project at 140 um 53, I'm sorry, the rain's avenue mixed use project looked at the.

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Possible one-way traffic flow in the traffic study and they analyzed the impacts of that one-way flow.

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To make sure it was a feasible project, and not only did they look at it, but when the ac hotel.

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Was being built, the loop road was put into one-way traffic at that time. Geez the construction impacts.

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And to give the test drive and see how things would go for a possible future implementation.

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We also looked at this loop area as part of the midwood avenue complete streets.

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Design project in 2019 uh we had looked at it, both as a two-way street and a runway stream.

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It was determined that it could handle the traffic in either configuration.

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So the traffic study that was done by the developers of the mixed use building looked.

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At all, the traffic volumes, the intersections as far as market street russell street deer street.

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Midwood avenue counted all the volumes during the pm peak hour, as well as the saturday peak hour.

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And ran analysis of all the intersections, and these are the volumes here that are shown and they.

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uh They determined that it could be done with no significant impact. There would be some queuing.

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Back from the intersection with deer street, the civilized intersection of deer and maplewood, but.

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Then it would not uh block the intersection with bond street at all times, so it was determined.

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That coming in from laundry would be easier than exiting from pawn street because when you're back.

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Exiting at that point, occasionally, you would be blocked by the queue and you are also a.

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Railroad crossing so it's easier to have traffic coming in at that point and circulating around.

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Also, the sight lines work better with the radius avenue the intersection if you're.

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Trying to exit from monastery there's a crest in the road at maplewood avenue makes it limited.

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In the sidelines somewhere so coming out of range avenue, there's better sidelines in each direction.

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As well as further distance from the signal making it easier to get out of that intersection,.

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So to implement the one-way traffic change, there would be some signage and striping changes that.

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Would be needed? Actually, the striping changes wouldn't be too significant because it would.

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Just be a double yellow line at each intersection we need to be removed. There is no double yellow.

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Currently in the rest of the loop, and so that would not have to be just at the intersections.

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In addition, the stop bar and stop sign that the blonde street ends would need to be removed.

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And then additional signage would need to be placed at the intersection of green street.

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And each of the driveways coming out onto the uh so there we do not no right turn sign right out.

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Of the driveway from the 145 maplewood building there'd be no uh left turn coming out of the ac.

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Hotel driveway with one way signs and then for the new driveway for the raise after mixed use.

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Project there would be a no left turn and a one-way sign as well as well as out of canada.

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Bank parking lot: you have another right turn sign coming out of there along the.

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So those changes can be implemented very quickly once this is approved.

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And the next steps in this process to get it approved is that city staff will be going back.

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To the parking traffic safety committee at their may meeting and with the report back on the any.

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Input that we've received tonight from the public or the business owners, along with the roadway.

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The parking traffic safety committee will then make the recommendation on the traffic.

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Flow to the city council and when the meeting events go to the city council to their approval.

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That's when the uh one-way flow can be implemented on a trial basis.

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And the one-way flow as a trial basis will last until the city council approves. It could be in.

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Trial for up to a year or whatever the city council uh wants to take it up as a final.

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Approval so once city council proves that elon has a temporary measure, then we can come out and.

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Implement the changes which is changing the signage and striping on the roadway.

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In addition to that, we'll have advanced notice. You know message. Boards will be placed informing.

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The drivers of the change upcoming changes and when the change goes into effect, so we don't.

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Have any accidental two-way traffic so with that that ends the slide presentation. This is anybody.

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Don't appear to be anybody online, but I'm glad to take questions from the audience here at the hotel.

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I uh I do not have any questions. Just a quick comment. um Chris, I'm, the general manager of.

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Regional director of operations of the hotel- um I actually agree with all this. I think it'd be a.

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Almost from a safety standpoint, making it much easier for my guests and.

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My ballet to operate the street so definitely for it all right.

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Yeah, I don't see any other comments. People end this presentation in the meeting. Thank you very much.