TRURO — A preliminary study analyzing the effects on traffic of development at the 69.9-acre Walsh property did not put a stop sign on the planning committee’s current goal of building 252 housing units there. Summertime delays for people exiting the site, however, are likely.
The data that Steven Tupper, deputy director of the Cape Cod Commission, presented to the Walsh Property Community Planning Committee on May 31 was based on existing conditions traffic data gathered using a radar unit. The study analyzed six major intersections on Route 6, including the property’s main entrance at Walsh Way.
The first step was gathering crash data for each of the intersections from 2018 to 2022, Tupper said. The range of five-year crash totals went from zero crashes at the intersection of Cabral Farm Road and Route 6 to nine at an intersection slightly farther south, where Whitmanville Road meets the highway.
“None of these intersections is considered high-crash from a regional perspective,” Tupper said.
The study also included an analysis of sight distance, which refers to the length of highway that is visible when vehicles are turning onto it. Tupper used an estimate of 55 miles per hour to gauge a sight-distance minimum, which he said was “conservative,” because radar data showed that 85 percent of drivers travel at or below 53 m.p.h. in that area.
The sight distance requirement for vehicles moving at 55 m.p.h. is 495 feet. There is more than 500 feet of visibility in each direction at the intersection of Route 6 and Walsh Way.
“This is a fairly straight stretch of road, so there are really no issues in terms of sight distance currently at this location,” Tupper said.
Traffic volume varies immensely by season. Because the Cape Cod Commission received the traffic study request in February, it could not include real-time data collection of summer traffic.
But there happened to be radar units set up on the Wellfleet-Truro town line in February and July of last year, which allowed engineers to create “adjustment factors” to predict summer traffic. Based on that data, the Cape Cod Commission anticipates summer traffic volumes that are double February amounts on summer mornings, and 2.5 times winter numbers in the afternoons.
The Cape Cod Commission’s forward-looking traffic models were based on 260 housing units and 32,000 square feet of commercial space at the Walsh property.
The most severe predicted delays were for drivers exiting Walsh Way onto Route 6 on summer days. The average wait time in peak conditions, according to commission data, would be about 196.8 seconds, or just over three minutes.
“Some would wait longer, some would wait shorter, but on average, that’s the amount of time that they would wait,” Tupper told the Independent. That data point resulted in a “level of service grade” of “F,” which appeared twice in the traffic report.
“I do want to highlight that ‘A’ is not the goal,” Tupper told the committee. “Unlike a report card where you’d like to get an ‘A,’ here ‘A’ just means there’s no congestion and everyone’s free-flowing.” Tupper said that major highway intersections often reach E and F levels. “If you go up to a C, D, and even an F, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s problematic,” he said.
Nonetheless, the scores drew some concern, including in public comments at the Walsh committee’s meeting on June 14.
Tupper declined to comment on the feasibility implications of that specific predicted wait time. Whether it affects project plans “is something that the town will have to determine,” he said.
At the June 14 meeting the committee also discussed other possible changes to its current development plans, including adjustments to the number of each housing type and the addition of market-rate home ownership units. Committee Co-Chair Eileen Breslin also proposed a reduction in the amount of commercial space from 32,000 to 10,000 square feet.
Based on the committee’s current schedule, a draft master plan will be available for public comment from July 7 to Aug. 11.
Finally, a concern from last month about continued consultant funding appears to have been resolved. Town Manager Darrin Tangeman told the committee on June 14 that “I can’t get into details, but I’m thankful to [Town Planner] Barb [Carboni] that she was able to garner a grant that will fund the entirety of the work plan.”
Using internal, reserve, and grant funding, Tangeman said, “We have all the funds that we will need to fund the remainder of the work plan until Oct. 21.”
