On August 14th, 2017, the Town Council held a Special Call Meeting to discuss Miami-Dade County's report on the Impacts of Opening and Connecting NW 170th Street and NW 154 Street Bridges over I-75. During the discussion, the Town Council directed the Town Manager to conduct an independent study to further analyze the impacts of opening the bridges over I-75.
Town Staff decided to utilize one of our recently awarded Transportation Engineering Consultants as the best and fastest way to conduct the study. The Town Council authorized the Town Manager to enter into negotiations and subsequently award the Town's engineering consultants at the September 5, 2017 Regular Town Council Meeting. Negotiation efforts were delayed by Hurricane Irma, but resumed after the Town returned to normal operations.
The Town reached an agreement with H.W. Lochner on November 3, 2017 and the contract was executed November 7th, 2017. Once an agreement was met with H.W. Lochner, the Town requested a Work Order Proposal be drafted to conduct a study on the impacts of opening the I-75 bridges.
The purpose of the study is to evaluate the traffic impacts of the NW 154th Street and NW 170th Street bridge openings, due to population growth and construction of new developments. The study will demonstrate the roadway network needed, considering all programmed roadway improvements and planned developments in the area.
The study will look at several no build and build scenarios to assess the current and future impacts of the I-75 bridge openings. The study will analyze the following scenarios:
• No build scenario (without American Dream Mall)- This scenario will look at the future traffic conditions, if no improvements are made to the area. This analysis will include the impacts of population growth and the construction of new developments, excluding the impacts of the American Dream Mall (ADM).
• No build scenario (with ADM)- This scenario is the same as above, but includes traffic impacts of ADM.
• Build Scenarios- Each of the following build scenarios below include two options: one without ADM impacts and another with ADM impacts
o Build Scenario of opening both NW 154 Street and NW 170 Street bridges
o Build Scenario of opening NW 170th Street bridge and keeping NW 154 Street bridge closed
As part of the study, a separate analysis will also be conducted to see if a connection to I-75 at either NW 170th street and NW 154th street bridges will be beneficial to the surrounding traffic.
Once, the study is completed a presentation will be made to the Town Council summarizing the results of the study.
Data collection for this project has already started since it was important to complete this effort prior to the traffic disuption created by holiday traffic and the impact of schools being out. A work order in the amount of $18,836.70 was issued to H.W Lochner on November 9th, 2017. Thus, when combining both work orders the total project cost for the study comes out to $99,776.61.
As budgeted, funds from the Peoples Transportation Plan (PTP 80%) – Traffic Studies line item will be used to cover the data collection cost ($18,837). To conduct the study, funds from the Mobility Fee Trust Fund have been identified for this effort, and a budget revision is required to transfer $80,940 from the Mobility Fee Contingency line item to the Traffic Studies line item as summarized in Exhibit A.