Data centers. We all make use of them, but collectively we wonder where this is all heading. As transportation engineers and designers, we have always been focused on assisting developers and regulatory agencies with navigating the physical aspects of economic development, and this is true for data center developments.
A number of trends are emerging when it comes to data center approvals and development. Here are a few of them.
More Detailed Traffic Impact Analyses
Transportation reviewers within local jurisdictions, in response to community concerns, are increasingly looking beyond weekday peak-hour employee traffic when it comes to traffic studies for data centers. Traffic analyses now must often address issues such as construction traffic (sometimes lasting a number of years), truck deliveries to the site, oversized equipment transport, emergency vehicle access, and the cumulative impacts from multiple nearby data centers.
In these cases, traffic design improvements can involve a wide variety of design features, including the creation of turn lanes and acceleration/deceleration lanes, signal modifications, site access and entrance improvements, intersection widening, and frontage improvements, including landscape architecture solutions.
Traffic analyses now must often address issues such as construction traffic (sometimes lasting a number of years), truck deliveries to the site, oversized equipment transport, emergency vehicle access, and the cumulative impacts from multiple nearby data centers.
Construction Traffic Management Plans
Most construction projects require a maintenance of traffic (MOT) plan (sometimes called a traffic control plan (TCP) or temporary traffic control plan). These plans show how vehicular and pedestrian traffic will be maintained during construction.
The fact is that the transportation needs for infrastructure facilities such as data centers during construction are much different than when these facilities are under actual operation. Rather than a couple dozen full-time employees during operation, construction phases may require hundreds of workers on site, daily.
In these scenarios, solutions to alleviate the transportation system can include temporary parking lots, shuttle systems, construction parking management, off-site worker parking, and restrictions against neighborhood parking.
Construction phases also involve heavy machinery such as trucks, cranes, and the equipment to be installed within the new facility. Traffic plans address this by focusing on solutions such as assigning designated truck routes, creating haul road plans and worker parking plans, requiring construction vehicle staging and flagging operations, and designing temporary signal timing modifications.
Utility–Transportation Coordination
By their nature, data centers are part of an overall network. Communities are naturally concerned about how infrastructure works within their own built environment. For example, data centers can require new transmission lines, substations, underground duct banks, and utility crossings. A key issue to address with transportation agencies and reviewers is how to coordinate roadway improvements with utility work to minimize repeated road disruptions.
Roadway Improvements Negotiated as Community Benefits
When development occurs, communities are concerned with how it fits into the overall quality of life. In our own work in urbanizing communities where density is on the increase, localities negotiate to make sure that park land, community centers, libraries, and other facilities are included in new plans.
When it comes to data centers, localities are investigating ways to improve the local scene as a whole. When it comes to roadway improvements, these can include intersection upgrades, new traffic signals, road widening, shared-use paths, transit stop improvements, and regional trail segments.