Vehicle traffic and visitor use of the Cadillac Mountain Summit Road 2015

Jacobi, Charles

From the executive summary: "The Cadillac Summit Road traffic data for 2013 - 2015 confirmed with numbers much of what we already knew intuitively and anecdotally about traffic and visitor numbers. Sunrise, sunset, holidays in the fall, and 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in July and August are the busiest times. Daily traffic count data were cross-checked with a traffic counter set up by consultants RSG on the Summit Road in 2015 and are reliable. Hourly counts are less reliable, perhaps because the internal counter clocks were offset. An estimated 259,000 vehicles and 777,000 visitors went to Cadillac Mountain between May 1, 2015 and October 30, 2015 (Table 1). Excluding May, when 2014 data was incomplete, the increase from 2014 was 9%. Strikingly, October use increased 35% from 2014. Visitation to Cadillac Mountain during the first two weeks of October 2015 was greater than the first two weeks of August, and there were slightly more visitors in October than in September. Daily traffic counts and visitation in July and August 2015 was about 1,600 - 2,000 vehicles and 4,800 - 6,000 visitors (Table 2). Weekends are a little busier than weekdays, though not usually in July and August. The busiest day of the year came on Saturday October 3, when an estimated 3,722 vehicles and 11,166 visitors went to Cadillac Mountain (Table 3). This is 1,000 visitors per hour for substantial time periods. Each month has peak traffic days in excess of 2,000 vehicles per day. There were five days in October with more than 3,000 vehicles ascending to the summit but August still has the most days with greater than 2,000 vehicles per day. On the weekend holidays, Sunday is usually the busiest day. Sunrise is consistently followed by a 3-hour lull in traffic. Ascending traffic following sunrise is often in the single digits per hour. In July and August, hourly traffic does not begin to consistently exceed 100 vehicles per hour until 10:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. respectively, and sometimes it reaches 200 vehicles per hour at these times. By monthly totals, the busiest hour of the day is consistently 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. While sunrise and sunset are weather dependent, the data show that if it is clear, holiday sunrises and sunsets are exceptionally busy times, especially in the fall. None of the road closures in 2015 came at sunrise or sunset. We do not know if closures may have been warranted at these times. Length of stay data from a 2009 visitor survey of Cadillac Mountain visitors conducted by the Park Studies Laboratory at the University of Vermont (2011) showed for summit visitors who found a place to park, the mean and median length of stay were 45 and 40 minutes respectively. That these numbers are under one hour suggests a reason why congestion on Cadillac Mountain is not worse-turnover is quick. But it would be good to know how much of this fast turnover on a day like October 3, 2015 is due to vehicles simply giving up on finding a parking space and driving back down within the hour. Anything increasing the length of stay at the summit will increase congestion. In spite of the road closures in 2015, we know that well over 3,000 vehicles were accommodated on October 3 and several other days without a closure, perhaps (a big perhaps) suggesting that if the number of vehicles and especially their rate of flow is managed (like cruise ship buses), closures can be avoided and many vehicles accommodated. This is not meant to imply that the number of visitors associated with this number of vehicles is acceptable based on either resource conditions or visitor experiences...."

Vehicle traffic and visitor use of the Cadillac Mountain Summit Road 2015

Collections