CE 453 Lab #2Page 1 of 7

LOCATION STUDY

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

See: DOT to build fewer bypasses, 12/29/2003

The assigned project is a condensation of an actual project. The project corridor control points and zone of influence limits are set (as they would be in a real assignment). You are to act in a design team to develop a project alignment meeting the control points and staying within the corridor zone limits already established.

Your selected and recommended route alignment must begin at CP A and connect to CP B. Figure 1 shows the control points (load them from the ftp site; they are named controlpoints.shp). The project is on U.S. 20 in HardinCounty; the city to the north of CP A is IowaFalls.

Figure 1: Study Location and Control Points

Part of your assignment is to develop a final design report; in preparing it you will be expected to demonstrate your communication skills (both written and graphic) to explain to a non-technical person who is keenly interested in your project the following:

  • What transportation problem you are solving
  • What your recommended solution is
  • How you arrived at that recommendation
  • What are the implications of that recommendation

Imagine that your audience is a person attending a design location hearing, a city council member, a county commissioner, or a department of transportation commissioner, any of whom will be asked to pledge funds to support your project. The report also has to be written to be reviewed by a senior technical person (design squad engineer, or supervisor) who will be interested in the technical details of what you did in addition to the same things the policy decision persons listed above will be looking for. You will also be required to make an oral presentation of a portion of your project to an engineer/planner peer review team during one of the lab sessionsduring the semester.

PROBLEM:

The purposes of this lab are to identify and analyze three alternative route locations and to determine the preferred route for design consideration.

CONSTRAINTS:

As the designer you are expected to examine at least three alignments including the existing route through the corridor. The existing or “do nothing” route should be the route your team feels most residents use. This route can go out of the corridor. IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE THAT THE PIs FOR YOUR ALIGNMENTS ARE FAR ENOUGH APART TO ACCOMMODATE HORIZONTAL CURVES. WITHIN THIS CORRIDOR YOU SHOULD PROBABLY NOT HAVE MORE THAN 6-8 PIs.

Individual alignments may include portions of another alignment at the terminals or to bypass a particular constraint along the alignment, they should be essentially different routes, and they all must begin and end at the same points. Your selected alignment will form the basis for your future design.

Limitations that may affect your route selection include wetlands, cultural areas, parks, churches, neighborhoods, schools, etc. Note that the cost of the project will be seriously impacted by the Iowa River crossing; you must minimize the length of this bridge for both economic and environmental reasons. You may place your alternatives through these areas; however, this should be reflected in your decision matrix as well as in your conclusions. Each constraint must be identified on the location map and outlined. The identification may take the form of a number or color scheme to illustrate the critical nature of the problem. Legends are appropriate to describe the scheme used in the identification.

PROCEDURE

You will use the files that you used last week during the ArcView introduction lab. Other shapefiles that you will need are in the ArcView data folder located on the ftp site. You should use the ortho photos that are available on the ftp site as well. These will be a great asset in the design process. Open the project you started in the last lab. Constraints are in the folder Lab 2zip in the lab instructions area of the web site; extract the files in the folder and save them to the C:\User\your name directory (or whatever directory you are using). Add the constraints shape file to your project, make it active and open the attributes file to see some added constraints. Load the control points shape file and check its box. Lay out your alignment options using the drawing tools you experimented with in the last lab. First create a new theme – View/New Theme, set Feature Type to Line, and then name it alignment1 (for example). Now use the line drawing tool to draw some alignments, taking into consideration the river and your constraints. You are free to use other resources to identify additional constraints. These might include underground pipe lines and railroads from the map of HardinCounty on the Iowa DOT website. Also note that there is an overhead transmission (power) line crossing Section 7 from NW to SE, about 1.5 miles due east of ControlPointA.

COMPLETION STEPS:

1. Identify the corridor limits and each of the land use and geographical constraints. The corridor control points, land use constraints (map 3), and other limiting physical features may be identified on separate layers using GIS. Use color-coding to identify the relative sensitivity of each area. The colors should represent areas that have the following characteristics:

  • They cannot be used for highways
  • They are somewhat sensitive
  • They have potential for highway use (even though right-of-way acquisition may be difficult).

Be especially careful to identify any special use or sensitive areas such as lakes, parks, schools, cemeteries, etc. Any effects of the proposed route on the existing transportation system such as road closings, relocations, railroad grade separations, interchanges, or intersections used to control access, should be noted on the map.

Some of the criteria that will later be used to complete the environmental impact statement (EIS) are helpful in identifying constraints:

  • Recreation And Parks
  • Public Utilities (there are underground pipe lines and a major transmission line in the area)
  • Aesthetics
  • Residential/Neighborhood Character And Location
  • Religious Institutions And Practices-
  • Conservation (Air, Water, Wildlife, Ecology)
  • Natural And Historic Landmarks
  • Noise, Water And Air Pollution
  • Property Values
  • Displacement Of Families And Businesses

2. Develop a written report to accompany the graphic display as outlined in the expected results. The report should include a discussion of the features described in item one above and some type of numerical rating system to compare the alternates. An example of the decision matrix that may be used is provided on page 6. You are to personalize this matrix, not just use the one we show you. You should add, delete or change factors in the matrix,to reflect the factors that you feel are important, and assign them a weight according to your perception of their importance. Likewise you may exclude factors that do not pertain to your alternative. For each criterion you choose, explain what would constitute an excellent score (e.g., 10), a mid-level (e.g, 5) and poor (say, 0 or 1). Place some value on each of these – in many cases these will be subjective judgments, just as they are for actual projects. Your challenge is to represent the desires and input of the decision makers (elected officials or the public in some cases) in the qualitative measures. Be sure to include a “do-nothing” alternative in addition to your design alternatives. Don’t forget to explain why you are proposing to build the project (that is, what problem(s) are you trying to solve). On a real project you would finalize the report AFTER the public information/input meeting; you would include summaries of the input and comments from the public as well as a description of what steps would need to be taken to meet public concerns.

3. You are to describe the centerline of your preferred alternative in terms of tangent lengths and direction, points of intersection location; curve direction, radius length, and length; and beginning and ending points of the alignment (to match up to Control Points A and B). Note that routes of this type are described from south to north or west to east depending on the general direction of the route. Obviously at this time we cannot expect you to have a totally refined description of the alignment but you should be able to provide a preliminary description that allows us to understand what you are proposing. A sample description is provided on page 7 of these instructions. NOTE THAT THIS IS A METRIC PROJECT AND MAKE SURE YOUR DESCRIPTION IS IN THE METRIC SYSTEM.

GRADING CONSIDERATIONS AND EXPECTED RESULTS:

Adequacy of the laboratory report will be judged in the following areas:

  1. Executive summary, in which you provide a concise capsule description of the project, an overview of the project, and a brief summary of your recommendations.
  2. A paragraph or two to indicate the reason for considering the project and who will it serve.
  3. Documentation of corridor controls (Note: Identify map orientation (north arrow), scale, and legend for each map you submit)
  4. Written description of the corridor in terms of geographical features and constraints or controlling features (refer to and support with maps below – use the ArcView data provided as a starting point and supplement as required.)
  5. Map 1: Map with corridor limits and route controls identified (use DRG, digital raster graphic or aerial as backdrop – see web page)
  6. Map 2: Property Ownership
  7. Map 3: Constraints (see COMPLETION STEP 1) – can be more than one map if needed to avoid clutter
  8. Written evaluation of each alternative alignment
  9. Description of controls (issues or problems) that govern/direct each alignment and the pros and cons of each alignment.
  10. Identification of the type of access control to be employed and its impact on the existing transportation system.
  11. Map 4: Identification of three routes and terminals (use DRG or aerial as backdrop)
  12. Numerical evaluation of each alternative alignment. Utilize the matrix provided as a guide. Be sure to add other criteria you think are important. Do not just cut and paste the provided matrix. For each criterion you choose, explain what would constitute an excellent score (e.g., 10), a mid-level (e.g, 5) and poor (say, 0 or 1). (See completion steps) Make sure that your matrix is clear enough that a non-technical person can understand your scores.
  13. Summary and identification of the alternative selected by the designer as the "preferred alternative". List the reasons why the alternative is recommended.
  14. Written legal description of your preferred alternative centerline in terms of termini location, tangents, deflection angles, and estimated radius of curve and length of curve (see EXAMPLEdescription below). Exact distances will not be known, but give a fairly accurate estimate when writing the description. You can measure your distances using the ArcView measurement tool. Note that your beginning and ending points should coincide with Control Points A and B respectively.
REPORT FORMAT(The report must be submitted in this format with these section headings)
  1. Executive Summary (3 pts)
  2. Introduction (3 pts)
  3. Corridor (Include Maps 1, 2, 3) (30 pts.)
  4. Alternatives (Include Map 4) (12 pts.)
  5. Evaluation (Include Matrix. If matrix is too large to fit nicely in report, then put in an appendix and be sure to refer to it.) (12 pts.)
  6. Preferred Alternative (5 pts.)
  7. Centerline Description (5 pts.)
  8. Presentation, Grammar, Style (30 pts.)

HIGHWAY ALIGNMENT STUDY

EXAMPLE EVALUATION MATRIX OF ALTERNATE ROUTES

ITEMWEIGHTALTERNATIVE 1 2 3 4

COST 20

Drainage

Earthwork

Pavement

Structures

Right of Way

Miscellaneous

COMPATIBILITY WITH THE HIGHWAY SYSTEM 20

Major intersections

Minor intersections

General system features

Through traffic services

POLLUTION 10

Noise

Water

Air

Traffic

ACCESSIBILITY 20

To recreation

To fringe business

To community

To public services

IMPACT ON LAND USE 30

Farmlands

Recreation

Existing housing/future housing

Existing commercial and industrial

Future commercial and industrial

TOTAL 100

EXAMPLECenterline Description

The centerline, designated by station points 100 m apart, numbered consecutively from south to north, is described as follows: Beginning at Station 562+63.4 a point 344.5 m west of the S ¼ corner of Township (N) 8, Range (E/W)3, Section 7, on the south line thereof, on the centerline of existing Iowa 330, in Washington County thence N 00 50-1/2’ 00” E, 486.5 m to Station 567+49.9, thence northerly 500.0 m along a 11,460 m radius curve, concave westerly and tangent to the preceding and following courses to Station 572+49.9, thence N 10 39-1/2 ‘ W 554.7 m to Station 578+04.6, thence 195.4 m along a 573 m radius curve, concave westerly and tangent to the preceding course to Station 580+00 on the centerline of said Iowa 330, a point 52 m west and 98 m east of the SE corner of said Township 6, Range 9 and Section 6.