Corridor preservation is an issue of growing concern. The costs of providing transportation infrastructure are escalating, particularly in growing urbanized areas. Right-of-way (ROW) costs often represent the single largest expenditure for a transportation improvement. ROW becomes so costly that jurisdictions are unable to provide needed transportation infrastructure, the existing system will fail to function as planned, and quality of life will suffer. It is critical for local governments to work within their authority to ensure that land for future transportation facilities is preserved as development occurs. Better coordination of land use and transportation decisions will result in a variety of benefits, including earlier public notification of the ROW needs for planned road improvements, less need to relocate homes or businesses when improvements are made, and less damage to existing sites when the land is acquired. Many jurisdictions have some method of ROW preservation, but most lack a systematic program for preserving ROW and managing access. Those that have succeeded have assembled a variety of tools they can mix and match to the circumstances at hand. No single method works for all situations or is legally available in every state. The following measures can help ensure a more successful program: develop a long-range transportation plan with broad community support, set clear priorities and complete projects on time, establish an advance acquisition funding source, establish a systematic program of policies and regulations, and provide a range of mitigation measures to address potential hardships and preserve property rights.
Recently, many state and local transportation agencies have begun considering using U-turns as alternatives to direct left turns (DLT) from driveways through installing nontraversable medians on multi-lane highways. Some of the concerns are that this proposed change may transfer operational problems to the downstream median opening and increase delay or travel time of vehicles making a left-turn egress from driveways. However, the effect of this treatment on roadway operations is not clear. A comprehensive study of operational effects of this treatment would be beneficial, both in setting design policy and in project-level design. Field studies were conducted to obtain the data necessary to quantify operational effects of this treatment at eight sites in the Tampa and Clearwater areas of Florida. About 300 h of field data were collected, including delay, travel time, traffic volume, speed, traffic control, and geometric data. An operational effects database was developed to perform statistical analyses. Delay and travel-time models of DLT and right turn plus U-turn (RTUT) were developed as a function of major and minor road-traffic-flow rates. The curves developed based on delay and travel-time models present a clear picture of the operational effects of the two types of movement. Moreover, a ratio model was developed to estimate how many drivers would prefer to make a RTUT rather than a DLT under certain traffic-flow conditions. Finally, the operations models were used to measure system performance of a full median opening versus a directional median opening from the standpoint of weighted-average total delay.
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