Cape Cod Commission planner says summer traffic counts guide Sandwich path planning

Dave Nolan, senior transportation planner at the Cape Cod Commission, said the agency's seasonal summer traffic-counting program collects data used to guide local safety and planning decisions and is supporting Sandwich as it prepares for a potential shared-use path.

Nolan said the program employs seasonal technicians who deploy pneumatic tubes on roadways to measure axle counts, speeds and vehicle volumes across the Cape. "We do really pride ourselves on data and data based decision making," he said, adding the commission's technicians assist all 15 member towns.

A staff member who described the day-to-day work said technicians "set up tubes" on roads to collect the counts that feed into intersection and turning-movement analyses. Another staff member said they had reviewed crash-report data from the past 10 years, specifically looking at incidents of hydroplaning as part of the commission's safety analysis.

Nolan said the program also serves as a workforce pipeline: "A lot of them go on to get into the data field, the planning transportation engineering field," he said, noting many seasonal technicians move into data, planning or engineering roles after the summer program.

The commission provided the description of how the counts are collected and how the resulting data are used; no formal vote or policy decision was recorded in this transcript. Sandwich officials are using the data to inform planning for a possible shared-use path, and Nolan said the commission requires data before proposing road changes intended to improve safety and reduce congestion for all roadway users.