Planning board presses for traffic fixes, continues review of 35-home subdivision on Procter Hill Road

The Hollis Planning Board on April 21 pressed the developer of a proposed 35-home subdivision on Procter Hill Road to address traffic and safety concerns and voted to continue the application to the board’s May meeting.

Rebecca Brown, a traffic reviewer from Greenman Peterson (GPI), told the board the project’s updated traffic analysis generally showed adequate capacity at study intersections but identified one left-turn movement operating at level of service F and noted that about 40% of reported crashes near the site were run-off-road events, with roughly two-thirds of crashes occurring in winter. "There is a high number of run-off-the-road crashes in the wintertime," Brown said, a pattern she said supports supplemental traffic calming and vegetation clearing near the driveway approaches.

The findings prompted detailed questioning from board members about sight distance, winter driving conditions and whether drivers would illegally make left turns at the proposed site driveway. The applicant’s engineer said New Hampshire DOT has permitted the driveway as a right-in/right-out condition because the required sight distance did not meet AASHTO standards for full access. "DOT said right out of the gate, this intersection will need to meet AASHTO standards," the applicant’s representative said.

Board members and staff discussed possible mitigations: more restrictive channelization at the driveway (to make a left turn difficult), curve-warning signage, chevrons, intersection-ahead signs showing a curve, and clearing to improve stopping sight distance. The board asked staff to prepare a specific, itemized list of signage and traffic-calming requests that it could send to the applicant and DOT for plan revisions.

Kevin Anderson, the town planner, said staff and the peer reviewer will draft that list and return with recommendations so the board can be specific in any request to DOT or in conditions for approval. The board voted to continue consideration of the application to its May meeting to allow the applicant time to respond and for staff to assemble required materials.

Next steps: staff will circulate a list of requested traffic-calming elements to the applicant; the applicant will provide any updated sight-distance and stopping-sight-distance diagrams and any additional turning-path analyses requested by the board or GPI. The board recorded the continuation motion and will revisit the application at its May hearing.

The board’s action was procedural—a continuation to allow follow-up—rather than a final approval or denial.