Access management economic impact

[southern_yank]

I'm managing a streetscape project where we're coming up with design alternatives which include access management components. The corridor is a 1 mile retail/commercial arterial road with a few scattered houses. A major component of the concept plan will be improving traffic flow. This means limiting left turn movements with medians, removing retail curb cuts, consolidating access/egress points, and removing some traffic signals.

I foresee that retailers along the corridor will have concerns about the plan during our next public meeting. I'd like to present some case studies which will help them see the big picture. Even though we're reducing the number of access points and turning movements, overall, queues will be reduced and it will be less hair-raising for drivers to access their businesses. I'd like to show that the net economic impact of the project on retail businesses will be neutral or positive.

Can anyone refer me to case studies to this affect which I can include in the presentation?

[Random Traffic Guy]

"Accessibility rather than access" is the key, improving the road to get customers there faster offsets any small delays at entering or cross-access. Plus a good new road will attract new drivers to the corridor. However, depending on the intensity of construction, business can have a hard time surviving the construction detours etc. If they can get through that, they will have an advantage later.

Some links:

http://www.ctre.iastate.edu/research/access/

There's a section on ecomonic impact in the TxDOT Access Management manual, I've copied out the footnotes here:

6 Urban Land Institute (ULI), Shopping Center Development Handbook, Second Edition, Washington, D.C., 1985.
7 Reilly, W., et al., .Capacity and Service Procedures for Multi-lane Rural and Suburban Highways,. Final Report
NCHRP Project 3-33, JHK & Associates and Midwest Research Institute, May 1989.
8 Stover, V. and F. Koepke, Transportation and Land Development, Institute for Transportation Engineers (ITE),
1988, 2002.
9 Eisele, W. and W. Frawley, .A Methodology for Determining Economic Impacts of Raised Medians: Data
Analysis on Additional Case Studies,. Research Report 3904-3, Texas Transportation Institute, College Station, TX,
October 1999.
10 Iowa State University, Iowa Access Management Research and Awareness Project: Executive Summary, 1997.