Clearance and obstructions (including sign removals), road widths, traffic management, and timing strategy.

• Clearance concerns, including sign removals: I physically measured each horizontal obstruction element along the route and studied fit in some detail wherever it appeared it might be questionable, using a tape measure and dodging the very light traffic from time to time. Oddly enough, the results indicate that there are no substantial horizontal obstruction concerns in Hillsboro, but there are concerns on Highway 219, Bald Peak Road, and Holly Hill Road.
  
  
  • The Hillsboro portion of the route appears to provide full clearance throughout the route without having to remove any signs or other objects, except that the trees on First Avenue just south of Walnut Street have some limbs which are low and will need to be watched. (However, I did not attempt to measure the height of any overhead lines. But others have done this.) The railroad stanchions on First Avenue did not need to be moved, but the arms were rotated 90 degrees to provide more clearance and then returned to original position, a simple and quick job. (The north pair of crossings gates offered a bit more clearance than the south pair.)
    
    
  • There were no sign removal requirements until the aircraft reached Highway 219. The northbound 40 mph sign on a 6"x4" wooden post at the north end of Highway 219 was removed by crane nondestructively for clearance and replaced. However, the original hole completely caved in, so it was necessary to dig a replacement hole in very difficult rocky material, and the results are insufficient for the long term - the sign needs to be pushed down about a foot to get it to its original depth. There were no further sign clearance problems, except that some steel post signs were leaned a bit nondestructively and then repositioned and tamped to restabilize.
    
    
  • There was a tight but barely passable section at the east end of Bald Peak Road (the first 200 to 300 feet after the turnoff from Highway 219). The wing stubs just touched the embankments on both sides of the road through this area. There was another tight fit on Holly Hill Road, within only 200 to 300 feet of our destination (the turnoff into the Denfeld's property) due to a power pole very close the right side of the road. But since the main dollies were positioned to minimum width the problem was not significant - shading to the left side of the road and planking the shoulder to insure adequate support was sufficient to clear the pole.
    
    
    
• Road widths and dolly positioning: The roads are only 25 to 26 feet wide on the south end of First Avenue, essentially all of Highway 219, Bald Peak Road, and Campbell Road South. The roads are only 20 feet wide on Holly Hill Road. The main dollies under the wing stubs are positioned so as to provide a minimum total width initially (outer edge of left dolly to outer edge of right dolly). See the transport configuration drawing.
  
  
  
• Traffic management. The following proposal is now obsolete, replaced by a new detailed strategy developed on 29 January 1999 by Hillsboro Police and Washington County Sheriff Officers:
  
  The aircraft blocks the entire road essentially from edge to edge on Baseline Street and from the south portion of First Avenue for the entire remaining route. But on Cornell Road there is room for two bypass lanes. On the north portion of First Avenue there's room for one bypass lane, but I'm inclined to think that we shouldn't allow traffic to use it. Just to get the discussion started, my first guess for a traffic (and press) control strategy is as follows, assisted by at least two and as many as many as six patrol cruisers:
  
  
  • North on 34th Avenue: Place two patrol cruisers, one across 34th Avenue just south of the aircraft staging site and one across 34th Avenue adjacent to Cornell Road. The south end officer should direct traffic to wait until the aircraft clears the intersection at 34th and Cornell Road. The north officer should direct traffic attempting to turn onto 34th Avenue to also wait until the aircraft clears the intersection at 34th and Cornell Road.
    
    
  • West on Cornell Road, then south on 10th Avenue: Two or perhaps four patrol cruisers should block the west and then south bound lanes, half in front of the aircraft, and the balance behind it, directing traffic in both directions to pass the aircraft using the two clear lanes to its left as a two lane road, or, using just the far left lane, alternate time slots for opposing traffic to pass the aircraft. The patrol cruisers should reposition themselves as follows:
    
    
    • Initially: The front cruiser at Cornell Road and 25th Street. The rear cruiser at Cornell Road and 34th Avenue.
      
      
    • When the aircraft passes into the Cornell Road and 25th Street intersection: The front cruiser repositions to the Cornell Road and Arrington Road intersection (where Cornell Road turns south), and the rear cruiser repositions to the Cornell Road and 25th Street intersection.
      
      
    • When the aircraft passes into the Cornell Road and Arrington Road intersection: The front cruiser repositions to the 10th Avenue and Baseline Street intersection (or optionally the 10th Avenue and E Main Street intersection, then as the aircraft approaches to the 10th Avenue and Baseline Street intersection), and the rear cruiser repositions to the Cornell Road and Arrington Road intersection.
      
      
  • West on Baseline Street (a one way street), up to 2nd Avenue: The front cruiser drives slowly, leading the aircraft. The rear cruiser follows, stopping at the west side of each intersection and directing traffic to detour, until the aircraft clears the next intersection, repositioning at each intersection along the Baseline Street leg.
    
    
  • West on Baseline Street, passing 2nd Street: As the aircraft passes 2nd Avenue, the front cruiser should position itself on the north side of the intersection of 1st Avenue and Oak Street, directing traffic to detour. Another cruiser should position itself on the south side of the intersection of 1st Avenue and Washington Street, directing traffic to detour away from 1st Avenue. The rear cruiser should continue to block the intersection at Baseline Street and 2nd Avenue until the aircraft clears the intersection at 1st Avenue and Baseline Street.
    
    
  • South on 1st Avenue: As the aircraft approaches 1st Avenue, the... No further personal planning - refer to the caption.
    
    
    
• Personal recommendations regarding a night move, and weekday choice (obsolete in that schedule choices are now finalized):
  
  I approached my night review outing with a bias - I harbored a mild impression beforehand that a night move would be better overall than a day move. Now I feel quite strongly that a night move would be best. In the Hillsboro urban area, the street lights and other sources of illumination provide reasonably good visibility of the route's potential obstructions, including what seems to me to be sufficient visibility of overhead lines. I think we should have a light stanchion on a pickup truck as well, but even without that I think the urban area is well lit enough to support the move.
  
  The huge benefit of a night move is that traffic is profoundly less dense in the predawn hours of a Sunday morning. And traffic management strikes me as a very serious concern. The Aircraft will completely block all connecting roadways at each intersection where it must turn, and will completely block Baseline Street, and every road from Walnut Street (near the south end of Hillsboro) all the way to our destination. In other words, the only time we don't entirely block the roadway - in both directions - is on Cornell Road and for a short distance on First Avenue.
  
  People need to get to their destinations, and my feeling is that this move will be so intrusive to traffic that it would be very hard to justify its execution at any time other than the lightest possible traffic window, unless there were a compelling argument otherwise. If there is such an argument, I'm not aware of it yet, and I couldn't sense it during my late night route study. In addition, we could avoid disruption to the Max line by arriving at the tracks near or during their 2:00 AM to 3:30 AM down time window. There is no such window during the day of course.
  
  For those willing to invest in a late night outing, I highly recommend checking out the route during similar predawn hours, and on a Saturday night / Sunday morning if possible (or Friday evening / Saturday morning). Tape measuring any road width areas I wanted was easy during my late night outing. During normal day traffic, such measurements are all but impossible. To me, that speaks volumes about the timing and traffic issue, and I suspect that anyone who explores the route with a late night outing will understand my impressions.
  
  Except as follows, I'd also recommend a Saturday night / Sunday morning day of week slot too, so that the later stages of the move will impact the lighter Sunday morning traffic rather than the much heavier traffic that would be encountered on a weekday morning. This is especially important for the Highway 219 leg of the route. That highway will be completely blocked in both directions by the aircraft, and that leg of the route will occur later in the move. Also, detour routes are quite long and will substantially delay motorists. So we need to choose a minimum traffic window for that leg to minimize the serious traffic disruption that will occur. However, if we can't expect to complete the entire move in a single very roughly 13 hour period with very high confidence, we may want to select a Friday evening / Saturday morning starting time so that the move can be completed during the Saturday night / Sunday morning slot rather than a weekday slot, which could cause a terrible traffic disruption problem.
  
  Mine is just one vote, but at this time I'd cast that vote emphatically for a night move, starting, just as my study did, by rolling off the Fair Complex grounds at midnight Saturday night / Sunday morning, or perhaps a bit earlier, at about 11:00 PM Saturday evening. Or similarly but starting Friday evening / Saturday morning.

Copyright 2002, Howard Bruce Campbell, AirplaneHome.com.

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