Traffic at the Rock Springs Road/Welch Road intersection may get some temporary relief in about six months using short-term solutions city and county engineering experts have proposed, while long-term solutions may be realized in about three years or so.
City planner Pam Richmond gave an overview of the intersection’s traffic problem at the Wednesday, April 17, Apopka City Council meeting. Dr. Hatem Abou-Senna of Orange County Transportation Planning Division discussed the proposed solutions.
Depending on certain aspects of the intersection, the city and Orange County divides responsibilities on Rock Springs Road/Welch Road. The city has been discussing the congestion with Orange County.
The Rock Springs Road/Welch Road traffic problem has been a concern to the city of Apopka for years. In 2016, the city had a study done that examined potential solutions to the intersection’s traffic congestion.
“A lot of good information came out of that study, but it was a high-level planning study that didn’t get us where we need to be to address improvements,” Richmond said to the City Council.
In 2018, the city added the issues to MetroPlan Orlando’s Project Priority List, the first necessary step in getting funding for improvements to the intersection.
The Rock Springs Road/Welch Road intersection’s turning movement volumes collected a few months ago are very similar to the volumes gathered in 2016 and used in the city’s study, Richmond said. She also said the volumes haven’t increased because the intersection is overcapacity. Abou-Senna’s analysis shows it is 23 percent overcapacity.
There have been 134 crashes on record in the intersection’s vicinity since January 2014, with the annual average being 25, Richmond said. The most common type of crash is rear-end crashes, most likely due to the heavy congestion and stop-and-go conditions. There have been no deaths and injuries have been low between 2014 and currently, she said.
The full story starts on page 1A of the Friday, April 19 issue of The Apopka Chief.
