Rockingham County / Town of Wentworth, NC Intersection Investigation, Analysis and Design, & Master Plan
The Town of Wentworth is the county seat of Rockingham County, NC. The town is bisected from north to south by NC 704, and NC 87/65 is located on the eastern side of the town. Wentworth has sought to determine the effect of future land uses within the core area of the town's central business district - defined as the area between the Rockingham County Jail and Courthouse and Peach Tree Road - on major intersections within the CBD as well as the Jail and Courthouse accesses. Their initial concern was to determine the maximum traffic density the core CBD area could support before breakdown of the study intersections and to identify transportation improvements that would be required to accommodate the impacts of new development traffic.
DTC has worked with Rockingham County and the Town of Wentworth on this project in its various stages since 2008. The tasks related to this project have included two transportation impact analyses related to the Rockingham County Judicial Center, to determine the existing problems, traffic projections for future conditions, and driveway access negotiations. A customized trip generation study was prepared for the new Courthouse and Jail to accurately determine the number of trips that the new courthouse complex could be reasonably expected to generate. DTC also assisted the county with studying an alternate signalized access aligned with the intersection of NC 65 & NC 87. And finally, DTC was contracted to prepare a master plan for the area adjacent to the signalized intersection, which has been identified as the town's proposed new central business area. DTC was commissioned by the County to proceed with full construction documents including widening plans for a turn lane on NC 65, some geometry upgrades to the intersection of NC 65 & 87, new Streets A & B, and the design of a traffic signal. Complicating factors included limited right-of-way, adjacent development under construction, and limited funding. DTC successfully maneuvered through all the technical engineering issues. Recommended improvements were broken into phases to allow for budgeting, and considered the following issues: the ultimate cross section of NC 65/87; walkability; land uses; and the town's vision for the CBD.
