Rapid growth in Pasco County has prompted the Pasco County Metropolitan Planning Organization to approve spending over $29,000 to research where and how often traffic counts should be taken.
“Given the rapid change to Pasco County — and the need to have current traffic counts — we deem it necessary to go ahead and establish a methodology for siting county locations and frequency of those counts,” Carl Mikyska, executive director of the Pasco MPO told the board, during its April 8 meeting.
“This contract is to do that work, and then ultimately we will have a series, or a set of locations, for traffic counts and a schedule of how frequently those counts should be conducted,” Mikyska said.
Board members approved paying a lump sum fee for $29,076.68 to Tindale Oliver & Associates Inc., to complete the work. The company is a general planning consultant for the MPO.
Traffic counts — which quantify traffic volume along the roadway network — can be documented over a period of years and can identify locations of high growth areas that impact the transportation network, according to background materials in the MPO’s agenda packet.
Traffic counts are used for many purposes, including roadway planning, congestion management, development approvals, traffic operations and capital improvement planning.
The scope of services to be provided by Tindale Oliver includes:
- A review of existing traffic count data collection by the MPO and its partners including Pasco County Departments and agencies such as the Florida Department of Transportation
- A review of traffic count locations in Pasco County, and recommend and create updated traffic count locations
- Develop a traffic count methodology
The project is expected to kick off in early May and be completed by Aug. 31.
Published April 21, 2021
