 Hello everyone, thank you for taking the time to watch this video. I would like to talk to you today about this upcoming city of Fort Worth project. My name is Shweta Rao and I am one of the project managers in transportation and public works departments, capital delivery team. And I'll be the construction project manager for the upcoming WJ Boz Road and Bournemont Roberts Road roundabout project. This presentation was originally meant to be given at an in-person community meeting with all affected residents and other citizens who would utilize this location. However, due to city's proactive response to the current coronavirus outbreak, this meeting has been cancelled and the presentation has been recorded in lieu of the actual meeting. This presentation is meant to provide you with some information about the scope of this project that is happening in your neighborhood and provide you on the details of the project and the schedule for construction. The design engineering firm working on this project is Dunaway Associates. Here is the agenda of what I hope to cover in my brief presentation. I'll be talking about the project as a whole, providing the background on existing conditions and why we chose this intersection, reviewing the scope of the project, some of the design considerations and schedule for construction. I will also be answering few frequently asked questions on similar type of projects. This slide shows the location of the project site. As we can see that WJ Boz Road and Bournemont Roberts Road intersection both connect to some major arterials like Boat Club Road on the west, Bailey Boswell on the north, Marine Creek Parkway, Old Decatur Road on the east, and Cromwell Marine Creek on the south. Coming to the background of this project, the intersection is currently a two-way stop controlled intersection. The geometry of the intersection is also skewed and the roadways are not meeting at 90 degrees at the intersection. This leads to reduction in site distance while trying to turn at the intersection. And this is a major reason for accidents at this location. Also the current situation results in high peak hour delays during morning and evening. The project goal was thus to improve the safety and operations at the intersection by reducing the number of crashes and also reducing the delay during peak hours. As we can see in the site conditions in this picture, the intersection has a skewed geometry which makes it really unsafe for drivers driving through the intersection. So to make the intersection safer and improve the operation during peak hours, a mini roundabout is proposed. The improvements will also include some pavement repair and drainage improvements at the intersection. The project is funded using 2014 bond funds and approximate cost of construction will be 560,000. We will also be including street lighting at the intersection to make it more bright during night times and avoid crashes. As we can see in this picture, a mini roundabout of 95 feet, central island diameter will be installed at the intersection. This roundabout will be a bit different from what we currently have on Cromwell Marine Creek as this is a mini roundabout and the central island will be fully traversable. Also it is designed as a single lane roundabout which will be easier to traverse. As shown in the picture, the roundabout will help in smoother movement of traffic by eliminating the site distance issue. As the traffic will now flow only in one direction, it will also reduce the number of crashes significantly. We have also proposed dedicated right turn lanes for traffic going east from northbound Baumann Roberts Road and also for traffic going west from southbound Baumann Roberts Road. This will further reduce the delay during peak hours. As a part of this project, the pavement at the intersection shown in grey colour in the picture will also be redone. The drainage ditches on all four corners of the intersection will also be improved under this project. We will also be including street lights that will be installed at the intersection to make it more visible during night. The nail down curbs will be used for medians on this project instead of traditional concrete. This slide shows a similar mini roundabout which is fully traversable. It helps trucks and heavy vehicles to make easy turns at the intersection. The proposed project will be mostly similar to the one shown in the picture but with raised medians on all four legs. Now coming to why a roundabout was selected as a preferred alternative for this location. The main reason was the geometry of the intersection. Having a unidirectional flow of traffic through the intersection will eliminate most of its current issues. Roundabout are proven as the safest at grid intersection type. It eliminates the T-bone crashes that are the most fatal type of accidents. Most of the T-bone accidents occur while turning left on a yield sign. A roundabout eliminates this issue. Also, a roundabout will operate more efficiently during peak hour. It will have a continuous flow of traffic and hence reduce delays. If we consider the economic standpoint, the roundabout has lower life cycle cost when compared to signals as it requires less maintenance over the years. We have also performed traffic signal analysis for this location. The traffic counts were collected for a day at the intersection and were analyzed based on factors like peak hour traffic, turning movements and delays. Our study suggested that a traffic signal will improve operations for traffic going through the intersection during peak hours but it will increase delays for traffic turning left. Also the left turn on yield makes the intersection more unsafe due to its geometry. A solution to this issue will be to provide a separate left turn lane so that it will not impede the traffic going straight. But this solution would require major drainage improvements, additional right of way acquisition, major utility relocations and higher cost of installing a traffic signal. So this alternative thereby increases the overall cost of the project. So a traffic signal will not solve the current issue of speeding through the intersection, thus still making it unsafe. Therefore comparing both the alternatives for a traffic signal and a roundabout, a roundabout was chosen as a preferred alternative for this location, considering both safety and operations. Coming to the project schedule, we are currently in preliminary design phase. That means we have completed 60% of the design for this project. We are anticipating the start of construction by late 2020 depending on all the utility relocations and the right of way acquisitions. The duration of the construction would be four months. I would like to finish the presentation by presenting some frequently asked questions regarding this project and providing answers. So the first one is, will there be roadway closures during construction? If so, what will the detour look like? The final construction staging and traffic control has not been defined thus far. However, there are multiple options to construct the intersection improvements, both under traffic or without. If the intersection were to remain open to traffic, appropriate lane shifts and traffic control would be installed around the work areas to allow the construction to be performed in stages. This construction scenario is generally more expensive and has longer duration due to multiple phases and work areas. Alternatively, a full intersection closure could be implemented wherein through traffic would be detoured to adjacent major thoroughfare streets, that is, both Club Road, Bailey Boswell Road, etc. Local neighbourhood traffic would still have access to these adjacent roadways, but traffic would not travel through the intersection until completion. This construction scenario is generally less expensive and has significantly shorter duration due to larger areas of construction being performed without interruption. This scenario is also more safe for construction workers. The second question, why was roundabout selected? Roundabout has been classified as the safest-ed grid intersection control type, and roundabouts accommodate larger traffic volumes than traditional intersection types, which improve traffic mobility. The intersection has experienced multiple crashes and unsafe speeding due to unsafe geometry and two-way stop condition. A roundabout was chosen as it was determined to be an optimal solution to address safety and geometry issues, traffic congestion, and construction cost constraints. Though a traffic signal is warranted, it will not improve safety at the intersection. Additionally, traffic signalized intersections generally have a higher life cycle cost when compared to a modern roundabout control. Please visit the city's website link to learn more about benefits of modern roundabout. The third question is, will there be any sidewalk connectivity at the intersection? At this time, no sidewalks are being planned as a part of this project. Currently, no sidewalks exist in place along WJ Boz Road and Bournemond Roberts Road within the vicinity of this project. The fourth question is, will the project impact access to adjacent properties? No, it is not anticipated that any access would be impacted to adjacent properties during or after construction. The business on the southeast quadrant of the intersection is the only active business and has active access to the property, and it won't be restricted during construction. The remaining adjacent three properties are currently vacant. This concludes my presentation. Thank you very much for taking time to listen and watch. It is unfortunate that I was not able to meet you all in person due to public health concerns and discuss any of the comments that you might have, but I would still like to hear from you. My phone number and email address are provided here. Please feel free to contact me if you choose. Thank you again.