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<br />RECEIVED <br /> <br />JUN 2 8 2005 <br /> <br />CASS COUNTY COMMISSION MEMORANDUM <br /> <br />TO: Cass County Commission <br /> <br /> <br />FROM: Keith Berndt, Cass County Engineer ~."7 <br /> <br /> <br />DATE: June 28,2005 <br /> <br />SUBJECT: Information Paper: Why control access on Cass County Highways? <br /> <br />There have been a number of recent discussions surrounding requests from adjacent <br />property owners tor access on to County Highways around the metropolitan area. On <br />busy County highways, each access point may well cost the County Government over <br />$100,000 for highway improvements to accommodate in the next few years. The figure <br />will be much higher if the access point triggers the need for a traffic signal. <br /> <br />However, the issue is more complex than just the near term taxpayer improvement costs. <br /> <br />There has been a lot of emphasis and a variety of publications in recent years by highway <br />planning and safety experts about the need for access management. The paragraphs that <br />follow provide a bigger picture explanation about the need to practice good access <br />management in Cass County. Most of the information below is taken from a recently <br />published access management manual by the Wyoming Department of Transportation. <br /> <br />Effective access management contributes to increased safety, better mobility, and higher <br />capacity. Access management of roadways balances the competing needs of providing <br />access to land while preserving safe and efficient traffic flow on the roadway. Effective <br />access management requires that traffic engineering principles are applied to the design, <br />location, and operation of accesses along the roadway. Access management, through the <br />use of traffic engineering principles, attempts to anticipate and prevent safety problems <br />and congestion. <br /> <br />Having poor or no access management contributes to the following: <br />. High crash rates. <br />. Poor tramc flow and congestion. <br />. Neighborhoods disrupted by through traffic. <br />. Use of parallel local streets to relieve traffic on the overburdened arterial. <br />. Pressure to widen an existing street or build a bypass. <br />. Bypass routes as congested as the routes they were built to relieve. <br />. Decreases in property values. <br /> <br />Without access management and control, new roadways that are built to relieve <br />congestion soon have as much congestion as the old roadways. This is seen with outer <br />belts that arc constructed in ever widening circles. With no access management, the <br />'new' outer roadway becomes as congested as the one it was built to relieve. In urban <br /> <br />1 <br />