Blue Lake Park Entry Drive

Client: Metro

Service: Traffic Operations Analysis

Project Description: The purpose of this project is to improve Blue Lake Regional Park (BLP) traffic circulation challenges at the BLP Entry Drive.  The two existing booths and lanes do not have the capacity to provide the space and circulation needs for the volume of traffic entering the park during peak periods on summer weekends.

This study evaluates the queue storage area at the booths and at the overflow parking entrance (the northbound stop control). Queue analysis for base year 2014 and year 2024 traffic conditions will be evaluated; and, measures to avoid park traffic from backing up onto Blue Lake Road will be considered.

Results: The queue length analyzes for all scenarios evaluated for the 30th highest hour volume showed that:

• Three booths with vehicles stopped at each booth are adequate to serve peak hour visitor arrival rates.
• There will be adequate storage area for vehicles stopped at the ticket booths to avoid vehicle queue back up beyond BLP Entry Drive provided the time to serve a vehicle is limited to 45 seconds.
• The queue length for vehicles stopped at the ticket booths will be less than 250 feet.
• The proposed stop sign at the overflow parking is likely to interfere with the traffic flow near the booth and at the proposed parallel parking near the overflow parking.