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<br />City Commission Workshop February 10, 2016 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida
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<br />Analysis, they wanted to make sure they understood it, and the different issues. They met
<br />with City staff and the Architect and discussed the project in general, what are different land
<br />users, different shared parking users, etc. They met with the Police to discuss the school
<br />traffic, the routing, the bottlenecks, different man-power required going into the field,
<br />eventually that seven (7) Police Officers are present during the arrival time and during the
<br />departure time. Also three (3) Cross Guards are present to help the kids cross the street.
<br />They met with the School Principal so that they would have a better understanding of the
<br />current and future school enrollment. They discussed issues such as drop-off and pick-up,
<br />the timings, and also they got an idea of how many students use buses out of the total current
<br />enrollment. There are three (3) buses being utilized for about 250 to 300 students out of
<br />about 2,000 of the total enrollment. They met with the Miami Dade County School Board
<br />about the Project but the main purpose was to discuss the staggering option of arrivals and
<br />departures for the middle school. That was important as that gave them an idea of what the
<br />real issues are after they met with the different stakeholders.
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<br /> Mr. Rathore said on the Traffic Analysis, they began by collecting data. They collected
<br />intersection volume counts, the analysis included a total of 11 intersections with 3 signalized
<br />and 8 un-signalized intersections. All were collected in the vicinity of the project and during
<br />morning and midday peaks. He showed a map with all those intersections that can be located
<br />by numbers, Collins Avenue and 178th Street, North Bay Road, 170th St. etc. As part of the
<br />traffic analysis they always start from existing conditions. Current impact of traffic on the
<br />network, delays, congestion, bottleneck, in spite of the existing conditions, he went out into
<br />the field and spent about half a day with Police Officers. They looked at the arrivals and
<br />departures, how the queues are developed, how the Police are managing the pedestrians, the
<br />traffic, in the morning, and midday during the departure time. One thing that is important to
<br />note is that the presence of Police Officers and Crossing Guards is absolutely important.
<br />Without their presence there would have been a mess out there to manage traffic and
<br />pedestrians from a safety perspective. In the morning the traffic is dispersed between 25 to
<br />30 minutes. In the midday it was a little longer, perhaps parents were coming in, dropping
<br />off, waiting for their kids, forming queues, picking up their kids and so during that time it
<br />took longer, between 40 and 45 minutes. Still it wasn’t that bad due to the Police and
<br />Crossing Guards presence, direction and guidance. Out of the eleven (11) intersections that
<br />he had highlighted, five (5) of the intersections they showed from an overall perspective were
<br />okay. From an operations point of view, from a delayed perspective they were operating
<br />okay. But all of these intersections had at least one (1) failing approach and are highlighted.
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<br /> Mr. Rathore said as part of the second phase we go to the future conditions. The future
<br />conditions is current traffic plus the future anticipated citywide road plus the proposed
<br />project traffic. Everything together approximately 2,300 future school enrollment plus this
<br />mixed-use project which needs to be looked at as part of the future conditions. Once they
<br />looked at the results, it was important to highlight mitigation for the future conditions. As
<br />part of the mitigation effort he came up with, as part of the study, two scenarios which were
<br />analyzed as part of the mitigation. Scenario 1 was to just look at traffic, school arrival and
<br />departure traffic as is, and add the project traffic on top of that. Scenario 2 was more of a
<br />standard school option, you have K-1 arriving at a certain time, 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. and
<br />departing at 3:05 p.m. Middle School arriving at 6:00 to 8:00 arriving at 7:40 a.m. and
<br />departing at 2:20 p.m. By the way, that 6:00 to 8:00 timing was discussed at Miami-Dade
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