One of my best friends is a Senior Urban Planner at a large engineering firm that does work worldwide. His specialty is transportation. He has done work all over the globe, including a consulting gig at the London Summer Olympics in 2012, to help cope with the short-term increase in traffic and transportation solutions for those Games.

He and his wife were over for dinner last week and we began to discuss, of course, this development and the proposed density of the 1165 units. He couldn’t believe it! He told me that this increase in traffic would be devastating to this area.

He suggested I use a commonly used metric for estimating traffic generation through the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) for trip generation rates. I did this, and this is what I found.  For attached housing units (often categorized as "townhouses" or "condominiums" in ITE terms), the typical trip generation rates might look like:

Single-family attached (townhouse): Around 6 to 8 trips per day per unit.
Multi-family attached (apartments): Approximately 4 to 6 trips per day per unit.

So, using a mid-range estimate of 6 trips per day for each unit for the proposed 1,165 units × 6 trips/unit/day = 6,990 trips/day.

THAT ESTIMATED 6,990 TRIPS A DAY IS ABOVE WHAT WE ARE CURRENTLY COPING WITH!!!!

Absolutely no disrespect to my good friend, but with these kind of numbers in this proposed development, we really don’t need a senior traffic expert with 35 years’ experience to come to this conclusion. We already have. 

However, it DOES confirm, reinforce, and support our argument that a senior transportation expert, who has worked on hundreds of traffic and transportation related developments, agrees with our own conclusions that this development is just too large for our area. It is as simple as that.

I challenge Aragon to tell ANYONE who lives directly OFF of Cordova Bay Road that these proposed unit numbers make any sense! Try turning left off ANY side street along Cordova Bay Road NOW, let alone after these units have been developed. Heck, try turning right off some of these side streets and you need to wait a LONG time. Alderley, Hunt, Lochside, Rambler, Parker, Walema, Doumac, Claremont, just to name a few, but you get the picture. This also continues to the four corners of Royal Oak Drive and Blenkinsop Road and beyond. I have talked to LOTS of local folks along these streets and our consensus is the same. Imagine once these get built!

Has Aragon gone out into the community and REALLY asked the residents for THEIR LEGITIMATE concerns? I doubt it, and I have not seen or heard ANY evidence of this. I would like to believe that a large development, and large development company, like Aragon, would do preliminary research on this. Seems like a basic thing to do. Also seems like the right thing to do.

One thing that did come up at the November meeting, was an excellent question by a resident who lives on Sayward. She was very concerned about two traffic related issues that initially I didn’t really think about. So thank you to that lady on Sayward! This is what she brought up.

We NOT only need to be concerned about the devastating traffic numbers that will be created by the 1165 units as shown above, but what about the “in between” times from the initial start of the development to the actual completion of the development?

Not only do we get dust, dirt, noise and concentrated truck traffic along all our streets DURING construction (which has been estimated to be around 20 years), but then we ALSO get the increased traffic of the subsequent completed units! 

And, to add a little bit of insult to injury here, the Aragon principle told the resident of Sayward that Aragon is NOT RESPONSIBLE for ANY improvements or changes to our roads! That falls on us the taxpayer. They are ONLY responsible for INSIDE the 26 acres of the Gravel Pit! 

And what about all the aforementioned rock, gravel, dirt, dust, and garbage that will inevitably spill out on to our roads as this development is being constructed? It will be a mess. Since they are only responsible for the actual site, do we get to clean it up ourselves along Cordova Bay Road, Fowler, Sayward and Alderley? Doesn’t sound too appealing to me. 

This is also in ADDITION to all the OTHER developments that are happening within Cordova Bay, and along Cordova Bay Road!

By the way,  the Aragon guys don’t live here.

WE ARE STILL WORKING BEHIND THE SCENES TO BE READY FOR THE FORMAL SUBMISSION WHEN ARAGON GETS AROUND TO IT. 

Our petition is currently at 1,341 signatures! Thank you very much everyone for signing.

Sincerely,

Dan Horth