Busiest Local Arterial Street by ADT.

[Zmapper]

We all know that the busiest stretch of highway in North America is the 401 in Toronto or the I-405 in Long Beach depending on how you count it, but what is the busiest stretch of local non-freeway road in your area?

North Colorado- US 287/College Avenue between Drake and Prospect, ~50,000 ADT.

[Alps]

NJ 17 gets over 110,000 ADT in the four-lane stretch between I-80 and Garden State Parkway.

[Zmapper]

NJ 17 looks more like a freeway with businesses than a local street, so I don't know if it should count.

[NE2]

NJ 17 looks more like a freeway with businesses than a local street, so I don't know if it should count.

It's a so-called "Jersey freeway", functionally classified as Urban Principal Arterial. Perhaps though it would make the most sense to consider only roads that have frequent local access and median breaks, or you get pathological cases like NJ 17 (or I-10 in west Texas).

[tradephoric]

Detroit Area:
87,300: M-59 between Van Dyke to Garfield (8-lane boulevard w/Michigan Left turns)
72,300: Telegraph between I-696 & 13 Mile (8-lane boulevard w/Michigan Left turns)
68,800: M-5 Between 13 Mile & Maple (8-lane boulevard w/Michigan Left turns)
68,800: Van Dyke between 16 Mile & 18 Mile (6-lane boulevard w/Michigan Left turns)
65,500: Woodward Ave between 13 Mile & Maple (8-lane boulevard w/Michigan Left turns)
64,000: 8 Mile Road between The Lodge & I-75 (8-lane boulevard w/Michigan Left turns)
54,000: Big Beaver Road between Livernois & John R (6-lane boulevard w/Michigan Left turns)
53,000: Rochester Road between Big Beaver & Long Lake (6-lane boulevard w/Michigan Left turns)

(source: MDOT's 2010 ADT map http://www.michigan.gov/documents/detmetro_19640_7.pdf)

All these roads have something in common... the Michigan Left turn.  Michigan Left turns are safer, more efficient, and improve coordination over a standard intersection.   The video below really highlights the coordination benefits of an arterial that utilizes Michigan Left turns:

If Detroit didn't have Michigan lefts their arterial road network would probably look very similar to Tampa or Orlando; major 6 to 8 lane boulevards that widen out at intersections to fit double left turn lanes.  The problem with major Florida cities is they need to run very high cycle lengths... over 180 seconds is common... just to be able to fit the pedestrian times.  Signals running a 180 second cycle lengths in Detroit would look bad.  SE Michigan has a very defined grid network where major roads are spaced 1-mile apart from each other.  If a major arterial is running 180 seconds, you could achieve perfect coordination in one direction but the other direction would be green-red-green-red coordination.

This is a very interesting topic and hope to hear a lot of input from different parts of the country.

[Zmapper]

How pedestrian friendly are boulevards with Michigan lefts? Not having left turn lanes at the intersections significantly cuts down on crossing difference, but is that made up by needing more right turn capacity?

One noticeable advantage I see is the grass median; so able bodied people can cross wherever they want in a reasonable amount of time. One way streets have the same advantage in a way.

[Beltway]

What is the AADT on US-1 Roosevelt Boulevard in Philadelphia PA?

That is a 12-lane dual-divided (3-3-3-3) arterial, for over 10 miles.

[tradephoric]

How pedestrian friendly are boulevards with Michigan lefts? Not having left turn lanes at the intersections significantly cuts down on crossing difference, but is that made up by needing more right turn capacity?

Right turn volumes are only increased along the minor sidestreet.  It is common to have a dual right turn lane with the outer most lane being a thru + right set up for sidestreet traffic.

As far as ped crossing distances go i recently did a comparison of Oakland County Michigan to Orange County Florida that i posted in another thread searching for the longest pedestrian crossing in America.  I picked Orlando to compare since they were #1 on the list of most dangerous cities for pedestrians in a recent survey:





Even with all those nice dots on those map I didn't really answer your question of how pedestrian friendly Michigan Lefts are.  I've read studies about the benefits of Michigan lefts but the study that i read only compared safety improvements for vehicle to vehicle crashes and didn't address pedestrian accidents (which was disappointing to say the least).

[nexus73]

Medford OR: State route 62, the Crater Lake Highway, is at or over 100K.  That's more than I-5, to which it connects directly.  The highway runs right through a large commercial area and being fed by I-5 plus downtown outbound traffic juices up the flow even more.

Rick 

[agentsteel53]

I couldn't even tell you what the busiest road is around here, but Mira Mesa Blvd (a connecting road between I-805 and I-15, placed in between the CA-52 and CA-56 freeways) is pretty damn over-awfuled.

there are 11 traffic lights between my work and my home.  today, I got all 11 red. 

[citrus]

I couldn't even tell you what the busiest road is around here, but Mira Mesa Blvd (a connecting road between I-805 and I-15, placed in between the CA-52 and CA-56 freeways) is pretty damn over-awfuled.

there are 11 traffic lights between my work and my home.  today, I got all 11 red. 

The SD city traffic counts appear in crappy unsortable form here: http://www.sandag.org/resources/demographics_and_other_data/transportation/adtv/sandiego_adt.pdf. Looks like Mira Mesa (which sucks) tops out at 77300 ADT which is about the same as what CA-56 gets. CA-52 makes it up to 100K.

[tradephoric]

There's 22 traffic signals that stop both directions of travel in that 5.6 mile stretch of Mira Mesa Blvd... i pity the guy who is in charge of coordination.


The signal at Mira Mesa & Westview Pkwy has a pedestrian crossing length of over 170 feet, requiring a thru green time of 55 seconds to satisfy the ped clearance times for pedestrians crossing the east leg of the intersection.  Let's assume Mira Mesa needs to run slightly longer to prevent gridlock along Mira Mesa during rush, say 60 seconds, and the left turns for both approaches run a short 18 seconds.  That comes out to over 150 second cycle length.  That seems to be about the minimum cycle you could get away with.  These new pedestrian walk speeds of 3.5 feet/second are driving up the cycle lengths of major intersections:

[Chris]

http://ladot.lacity.org/2009_10Countbookpdfs/Book2009-10.htm

Los Angeles city traffic counts (beware, takes a while to load).

The busiest I could locate so far is Wilshire Boulevard at Veterans Avenue: 122,618 vehicles per day.

[Takumi]

In Colonial Heights, it's Temple Avenue (VA 144). The intersection with Conduit Road has an AADT of 35,000, and at the ECL it has 30,000. Makes sense because it serves the shopping district and connects I-95 to Fort Lee. VDOT has 2010 AADT counts by locality here.

[Chris]

^^ VA 123 in Tysons Corner has 69,000 and VA 7 scores 64,000 vehicles per day near the same location.

[agentsteel53]

There's 22 traffic signals that stop both directions of travel in that 5.6 mile stretch of Mira Mesa Blvd...

it disturbs me profoundly that I can look at each of those yellow pushpins and name the cross street *and* recall a time that I was stopped there for no discernible reason when there was hardly any traffic.

Mira Mesa is one of those boulevards that needs to go flashing-yellow/flashing-red between about 1am and 4am.

[Takumi]

The two highest numbers I saw in Chesterfield County: US 360 (Hull Street Road) at Spring Run Road had 67,000 and US 60 (Midlothian Turnpike) at Robious Road with 61,000. The highest on a secondary route in the county was the SR 653 section of Courthouse Road, whose AADT was between 20,000 and 38,000. That's comparable enough to VA 147 that Courthouse between US 60/VA 147 and US 360 could easily be an extended VA 147.

^^ VA 123 in Tysons Corner has 69,000 and VA 7 scores 64,000 vehicles per day near the same location.

That's a little lower than I expected.

[Mapmikey]

The top 6 AADT values for non-interstates in Virginia are segments of VA 28 from I-66 to SR 625 (94,000-126,000).   The highest AADT segment is VA 267 to SR 606

Then comes US 50 from SR 608 to I-66 (94,000); VA 143 from I-64 to Bland Ave (86,000); VA 3 just west of I-95 (86,000)

Mapmikey

[Takumi]

Within Richmond proper, the highest AADT is, somewhat surprisingly, the segment of US 60 between VA 150 and Carnation Street, with 42,000. The Chesterfield County segments I listed before are the two highest in the metro Richmond area. The highest AADT in Henrico County is Broad Street (US 250) between I-64 and Short Pump (specifically, VA 271), with 53,000. Hanover County's is the segment of US 360 (Mechanicsville Turnpike) between I-295 and SR 643 (Lee-Davis Road) in Mechanicsville, with 41,000.

[vtk]

I don't know the traffic counts, but I would guess the highest in Columbus is US 23 north of I-270 (north side), Riverside Dr (US 33) just northwest of the long ramps to/from I-670 (US 33T), Frank Rd just west of I-71, Morse Rd near I-270, Main St near I-270, or OH 256 near I-70.

[tradephoric]

In Chicago the highest arterial is on US83 between St. Charles Rd & E North Ave (73,000):

http://www.dot.il.gov/trafficmaps/ADT_chicago.pdf

[Takumi]

The VA 144 segment I previously mentioned (with 35,000) is the highest AADT count for an arterial in the Tri-Cities. Prince George's highest is also VA 144, with 33,000. Hopewell and Petersburg both have a peak of 31,000; Hopewell's is its westernmost segment of VA 36 and Petersburg's is the combined one-way split of Washington/Wythe Streets between I-95 and Jefferson Street.

[sp_redelectric]

Medford OR: State route 62, the Crater Lake Highway, is at or over 100K.

Uh, say what???

ODOT's traffic volume tables for 2010 (latest available) show that Crater Lake Highway's highest AADT is a mere 42,400 AADT (MP 1.11, 0.64 miles east of I-5).  Which is very strong given it's a highway well removed from the Willamette Valley, but it's a long ways from 100,000.

Oregon 99E/McLoughlin Boulevard in S.E. Portland has 63,200 AADT south of U.S. 26 (Ross Island Bridge) but one could argue that it is on a segment of McLoughlin that is an expressway with only very limited accesses (no driveways, only signallized intersections and a few on/off-ramps.)  But it's definitely not a freeway.  (Six through lanes with a jersey barrier)

Oregon 99W/Pacific Highway West in Tigard has 50,200 AADT just northeast of Oregon 217 which would rank it high for the title of the "busiest local arterial street".  Four through lanes with a single center left-turn lane.  (Unless you want to count the right-turn lanes for 217 northbound and for Dartmouth southbound so traffic going into Costco doesn't back up too miserably.)

U.S. 26/Powell Boulevard, just east of the Ross Island Bridge and Oregon 99E, gets 53,900 ADT and appears to take the top prize.  West of the Ross Island bridge is 58,200 ADT but with so many ramps going different directions it's hard to call the west end an "arterial" rather than a spaghetti mess.

Even Oregon 8/T.V. Highway tops out at 41,900 AADT - all the way out at S.W. 219th Avenue in Aloha - the hopelessly congested Canyon Road stretch in downtown Beaverton only has 30-35,000 AADT.

Oregon 212/224 in Clackamas has 47,200 AADT between I-205 and 82nd Drive.

Oregon 22/Santiam Highway North, a.k.a. Mission Street in Salem, has 56,300 AADT west of I-5.  However this one would also be questionable since this is a limited-access stretch where Mission Street ends at Turner Road and becomes a freeway east to Stayton except for the signals at the off-ramps (only) from I-5.

And finally, Oregon 213 (Cascade Highway South) has 65,000 AADT between I-205 and Washington Street in Oregon City.  This is also a limited-access stretch but it's between traffic signals, as the "freeway" portion is about a half mile south.  And construction is underway that will create a "jughandle" and eliminate traffic crossing 213 as well as left turns.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

I don't know the traffic counts, but I would guess the highest in Columbus is US 23 north of I-270 (north side), Riverside Dr (US 33) just northwest of the long ramps to/from I-670 (US 33T), Frank Rd just west of I-71, Morse Rd near I-270, Main St near I-270, or OH 256 near I-70.

According to MORPC, US 23, north of I-270, would be first (83K), Sawmill Road, north of I-270, would be second (50K), then a bunch of other between 25-30K.
http://www.morpc.org/info_center/dataport/transportation_traffic.asp

[nexus73]

sp_redelectric, the ADT for state highway 62, was something I ran across some years ago as ODOT was discussing what to do with that stretch of highway.  We have differing figures and apparently differing sources (which I did not bother to save as I expected no disagreements over the ADT years later) but I do recall the number and it was surprisingly high, higher than I-5 itself, which led me to write ODOT and recommend an "I-905" alternative for the overcrowded 62.

Your mileage may vary...LOL!

Rick