Dollar Store Traffic Assessment - Piner Road 1-28-19 copyRAMEY KEMP & ASSOCIATES, INC.
5808 Faringdon Place
Raleigh, NC 27609
Phone: 919-872-5115
www.rameykemp.com
January 28, 2019
Fredric Royal, PE, CFM
Wilmington Metropolitan Planning Organization
P.O. Box 1810
Wilmington, NC 28402-1810
910.772.4170
Fredric.Royal@wilmingtonnc.gov
Subject: Traffic Impact Assessment
Dollar General – Piner Road
Wilmington, NC
Dear Mr. Royal:
This letter provides an assessment of the traffic impacts associated with the proposed Dollar General store to be
located along Piner Road west of the Myrtle Grove Middle School in Wilmington, North Carolina. The plan
proposes to redevelop the parcel from its existing use of an office / golf training facility to a Dollar General
store with the potential for 3 single family homes. Access to the existing site is via one full movement
driveway along Piner Road. The proposed redevelopment is expected to maintain the existing site access along
Piner Road.
Existing Conditions
The property is currently developed with an office / golf training facility with a building approximately 1,350
s.f. in size. While in operation, the existing office / golf training facility has not experienced significant issue
with the current driveway. The adjacent school site driveway currently has a designated left-turn lane that has a
storage that extends past the existing driveway for the proposed site.
Piner Road is a three-lane road in front of the proposed site and has a posted speed limit of 45 miles per hour
(mph) with a school speed limit of 35 mph on school days between 7:45 – 8:45 AM and between 2:45-3:45 PM.
Piner Road serves primarily residential development with a school and a church to the east of the proposed site
location. West of the proposed site location, Piner Road provides access to retail development and serves as the
westbound approach to the S College Road and Carolina Beach Road intersection commonly referred to as
“Monkey Junction.”
In 2017 Piner Road had an average annual daily traffic volume of 18,000 vehicles per day at a location west of
the proposed site, according to data published by the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT).
Based on turning movement counts taken by Burns Service Inc. in December of 2017 at the eastern site access
of Myrtle Grove Middle School, and assuming that the peak hour volume is 10% of the average daily traffic, the
AADT in front of the site was approximately 15,300 vpd.
Piner Road Dollar General - Wilmington, NC – Trip Generation Page 2 of 3
Trip Generation
The proposed development is assumed to consist of an approximate 9,100 square foot (s.f.) Dollar General
store. The rear portion of the property is proposed to be rezoned as single family commercial and support 3
homes. The residential units would have access via the Dollar General site driveway. Average weekday daily,
AM peak hour, and PM peak hour trips for the proposed development were estimated using methodology
contained within the ITE Trip Generation Manual, 10th Edition. Table 1 provides a summary of the trip
generation potential for the site.
Table 1: Proposed Site Trip Generation Summary
Land Use
(ITE Code) Intensity Daily Traffic
(vpd)
AM Peak
Hour Trips
(vph)
PM Peak
Hour Trips
(vph)
Enter Exit Enter Exit
Variety Store (Dollar General)
(814)
9,100
s.f. 580 20 21 34 34
Single Family Detached Housing
(210)
3
Homes 28 2 5 3 1
Total 608 22 26 37 35
It is estimated that the proposed development will generate approximately 608 total site trips on the roadway
network during a typical 24-hour weekday period. Of the daily traffic volume, it is anticipated that 48 trips (22
entering and 26 exiting) will occur during the AM peak hour and 72 (37 entering and 35 exiting) will occur
during the PM peak hour. The anticipated trip generation is below the City’s threshold of 100 peak hour trips to
trigger a traffic study.
Per the ITE Trip Generation Manual, 10th Edition, the AM peak hour of the store begins at 11:30 AM and the
PM peak hour of the store begins at 4:45 PM. The neighboring site, the Myrtle Grove Middle School has office
hours between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM and students are in class between 8:25 AM and 3:30 PM. The peak hours
of the proposed site and the Myrtle Grove Middle School are not expected to overlap.
Trip Distribution
There are several similar retail uses to the west along College Road and at the Monkey Junction intersection.
Because of the location of these similar uses, it is expected that the majority of traffic that will be generated by
this development would originate in the neighborhoods along Piner Road to the east and south of the Monkey
Junction intersection. These trips would use Piner Road to access the development.