Ken Larsen's web site - Traffic on Farrington Road in southwest Durham, NC
On Wednesday October 10, 2018 I video recorded traffic at the intersection of Ephesus Church and Farrington Roads in southwest Durham, North Carolina.
Here is the resultant video. It shows traffic between 2:00 PM and 2:35 PM. To reduce viewing time, I used video editing software to compress 35 minutes into 2:51 (two minutes and 51 seconds). [The vehicles are not speeding!]
I chose 2:00 to 2:35 PM, because Creekside Elementary school ends its day at 2:15 PM. They are a quarter mile away on Ephesus Church Road.
There were 205 vehicles that went through this intersection during my 35 minutes of filming.
33 (16%) traveled straight north along Farrington and did not make a turn. North is to the right on the video.
36 (17.6%) traveled north on Farrington and then made a left turn at the intersection ... heading towards Creekside Elementary [or towards Chapel Hill's Eastgate shopping center].
46 (22.4%) traveled straight south along Farrington and did not make a turn. They would be heading towards Interstate 40.
12 (6%) traveled south on Farrington and made a right turn onto Ephesus Church Road ... heading towards Creekside Elementary.
62 (30%) traveled east on Ephesus Church Road and then made a right turn onto Farrington ... heading towards Interstate 40.
16 (8%) traveled east on Ephesus Church Road and then made a left turn onto Farrington ... to head north.
The main reason that I made this video is because I am concerned about the traffic implications of DOLRT (Durham-Orange Light Rail project) on Creekside Elementary School. DOLRT will have an at-grade crossing on Farrington, and that will block traffic for over two hours/day [spread over 18 hours]. If traffic is bad now, it will become unbearable when DOLRT goes online [in the year 2029]. DOLRT will also have its ROMF [Railroad Operations Maintenance Facility] on Farrington Road ... on the very spot from which I made my video. That, too, will negatively impact Creekside Elementary.
Tony Blake calculates that the at-grade crossing on Farrington will block traffic for an average of 3:11 (3 minutes and 11 seconds) for every 35 minutes. It might even be more than that, because vehicles will lose some time slowing down and then speeding up at each crossing of a train.
It should be noted that DOLRT's negative impact on Farrington Road could be avoided if DOLRT crossed Farrington Road via a bridge and not an at-grade crossing. I explain this in this video that I made in 2017.
Here is my personal assessment of the DOLRT project. It has links to many secondary pages. DOLRT is a very long story. Today's traffic analysis is just one of the pieces.