9- Conclusion: What's Next?

What do we do now?

The Woodstock Planning Board is in the process of meeting about the RUPCO Final Environmental Impact Statement. These workshops are open to the public, but only for listening. We can't participate. Next week is another workshop at which the Planning Board is expected to review the traffic-related part of the FEIS, however the schedule should be consulted prior to making a trip. See the Woodstock website, under Boards, click planning board, then schedule. I have a longstanding commitment during next week's meeting, and cannot be there... After you verify the schedule, why don't you go to the meeting and then let me and everybody else know what you think. Write your opinions in the comment section of this blog post. The more attention we give this problem, the better. The more ideas for problem solving, the greater the chance we will find a workable solution. Let me remind you: I am not opposed to the RUPCO project. I am opposed to unsafe development (and also opposed to unsafe existing road conditions.)

After the series of workshops, the Planning Board will have a ten day period during which the public may comment, in writing, but not at a public hearing. Let us take advantage of this ten day period. Let us write letters, have meetings, notify the Woodstock Playhouse and the NYS Department of Transportation, and Ulster County, of what is going on.

In general, let us not allow the very small group of people that comprise RUPCO's operating team, and the Woodstock Planning Board, make this project inevitable, unless and until they have committed to, and proven that the project will not pose any increase in driving danger in the town of Woodstock. Let us also not forget to alert the Town Board. Ultimately, if there is an accident at the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane, particularly after RUPCO builds housing and traffic there increases, The town of Woodstock will have had clear and plenty of warning to mitigate the dangerous conditions. Help me make this issue front and center; it deserves to be. The whole town uses Route 212. Anybody could be in danger at this intersection. This is not a neighborhood access problem, it is a town safety problem.

I believe that the two safety issues, the substandard sight distance and the heavily used parking lot directly across from the intersection, are the fatal flaw of the RUPCO development. What I mean by that is I believe that these problems will either kill the development in its current proposed location, or the many cars brought into this intersection as a result of the development will end up killing somebody. Maybe a dog, maybe a child. How about we put our heads together and see if we can either solve the traffic safety problems here that RUPCO will exacerbate, or tell RUPCO to move its traffic along to a safer location in Ulster County.

8- The Sight Distance Solution

Who DOES have the authority to improve the sight distance?

The road is a state road, so the NYS Department of Transportation is one interested party with some authority, since the state's right of way on the road extends several feet past the paved area. The other interested party with some authority to act in this matter is the nonprofit that owns the land adjacent to the intersection in question. That nonprofit is the Woodstock Playhouse. I do not know whether this organization is solvent, or in the process of transferring the land to another organization, bank or otherwise. But I do know that whoever owns that land can negotiate with the State Department of Transportation to improve the sight distance.

Years ago, during one of Jeremy Wilber's terms as Woodstock Town Supervisor, he wrote to the NYS Department of Transportation and asked them to look into improving the sight distance, specifically with the expectation that RUPCO would be developing land nearby, resulting in much heavier use of Playhouse Lane. I have heard that Thomas Storie, of the Department of Transportation, was not able to reach an agreement with the Playhouse, and that no improvements to the sight distance were ever made. There are more details here about which shrubs were going to be dug up and placed somewhere else, and how that would impact the Playhouse's use of their land, but the important thing, right now, is that the two parties met, and they did not reach an agreement. Of course I am not the first person ever to point out that the interested parties needs to sit down and talk, or that it already happened, and the process failed.

I will now share with you some of my own measurements, made with my trusty Lufkin measuring wheel ($31.97 at Home Depot.) You are invited to check my measurements.

Ten feet back from the pavement seam of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane is the edge of the stopping line. The diagrams show that ten feet is the measurement required for measuring sight distance, so I stood on the stop line and took photos and measured from there.

Looking left, I could see the first glimpse of a car approaching through the dense bushes only 111 feet from my position. The standard is to see the top of the car, and the standard for viewing is 3.5' off the ground. My eyes are about 5'3" off the ground, so this measurement is approximate. However, the sight distance to the left is certainly well under the 150 feet reported by RUPCO. I am not accusing RUPCO of mismeasuring. Maybe RUPCO measured the sight distance last year, and since then, the bushes have grown and grown, obscuring the oncoming traffic even more. Well, it's possible...

In any case, we move forward. AASHTO's recommended sight distance to the left is 360 feet. At the intersection in question, this 360 feet brings us all the way to the crosswalk just west of the intersection of Route 212 and Route 375.

(I stood there and shot a brief video. As you can see in the video below, it is not apparent that there is even a Playhouse Lane, let alone a car waiting to exit the intersection there. )



RUPCO estimates that the sight distance will be improved another 40 feet east of there, making it possible for cars coming out of Playhouse Lane and turning left to be able to see the cars turning onto Route 212 from Route 375.

Again, the problem is, who is going to improve this sight distance? Who is going to make this intersection safe?

I will quote again from the Ulster County Transportation Plan's Access Management Guidelines: "

"Municipalities can require that access management techniques be initiated for land use actions in developed areas. One way to accomplish this is to require a review of site plans and special permits when there is a change in ownership or land use. It is also important to understand the position of NYSDOT and Ulster County Highway Department in this process. These agencies often lack the authority to require improvements at these times but are highly desirous of implementing these techniques and more than willing to provide design assistance along with the necessary permits once they are required by the community. To facilitate this, communities should engage these agencies in a cooperative dialogue rather than have the applicant serve as a go between."

Seems to me that the State and County want everybody to work together, not pass the buck to the agency that technically has the ultimate authority on paper to make a change.

One thing I know: if RUPCO suggests that it cannot be forced to improve the sight distance at this intersection, and if the Town of Woodstock claims to not have the authority, and/or that "other" intersections also are in need of improvement and therefore cannot "fairly" only address this one, then the housing project has no right to move forward with the numbers that RUPCO includes in the DEIS, since these numbers are based on an improved sight distance. If neither party is willing to make the improvement, then the improvement will not be made, and the project will be built on fictitious, wishful assumptions. We should not allow that to happen. I am pointing this out now, so that the record will show that both the Town of Woodstock and RUPCO have been made fully aware of the hazardous and substandard conditions of this primary access point to the RUPCO development.

It would be one thing if RUPCO simply stated in the DEIS "150 feet is the sight distance, and it's not our problem." However, they cited "estimated improved conditions" without explaining how that improvement would be made, or who would make it.

In the Final Environmental Impact Statement, RUPCO cites case law in its defense of not being prohibited from building due to increased traffic. (It is more complicated than that of course, but the legal argument is valid, so I do not challenge it here.) However, the argument is not on point, since the problem here is not increased traffic, but increased danger. There is already danger at this intersection. It is already unsafe. RUPCO, without any plans to mitigate that danger, wants to send 53 households of residents through this intersection every day, knowing that they will not improve it, and absolutely passive in the effort to have the conditions improved so that the intersection becomes safe.

The Woodstock Planning Board needs to address when or how or even whether this intersection will become safe. We all know that if an intersection is unsafe, it will be even less safe if you send more cars through it. Allowing RUPCO to develop 53 units of housing with over 100 parking spaces for residents and "visitors" means that the Planning Board is going to increase danger in this intersection, unless it takes steps to mitigate the current dangerous conditions there.

In addition to the shorter sight distance present at the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane when no cars are parked on the northern shoulder of Route 212, the fact is that during the morning rush hour, that shoulder is host to between one and four cars. Cars park there and when the driver opens his or her door, the door necessarily opens INTO the traffic lane. During the video hour that I took, the shoulder was absent of any cars for about 8 minutes out of the entire hour. Even one car parked on the northern shoulder of Route 212 decreases the sight line of oncoming traffic to near zero. No effort has been made, and no plan has been mentioned to prohibit cars from stopping along that shoulder.

7- The Sight Distance Problem

What is a sight distance (or sight line) and why is it so important at the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212?


When a car pulls up to a stop sign, let's say the stop sign on Playhouse Lane, where it intersects with Route 212, the driver is supposed to be able to see to the left and to the right, in order to make a safe turn into moving traffic. In this blog post, we will explore the standards for various types of vehicles at various intersections.

According to the Ulster County Access Management Guidelines cited in the last post on this blog, the recommended minimum sight distance for a passenger car, entering a two lane major road (Route 212 is a major road,) on which the speed limit is 30 MPH, is 360 feet to the left, and 260 feet to the right. Please note that this guideline is for cars leaving driveways, not roads. But you might ask yourself whether a car at a stop sign is in any way different from a car leaving a driveway.

Also, you may ask exactly what these measurements mean. The cited guidelines show the front of the vehicle ten feet behind the edge of the pavement, where it meets the other street. This means that where the pavement of Route 212 intersects the pavement of Playhouse Lane, measure ten feet back on Playhouse Lane. It is this point that we must use for our "eye."

From our eye point, we measure:

• to the left, 360 feet in a straight line (which will cut across the unpaved land on the corner) to the center of the near traffic lane, which is the traffic lane on Route 212 moving west (from left to right).
  
• to the right, 260 feet in a straight line to the center of the far traffic lane, which is the traffic lane on Route 212 moving east (from right to left).

OK, so that covers the recommended minimum site distance guidelines for driveways, in Ulster County. How about for intersections with actual streets? I have no guidelines for that. What I did find were guidelines from AASHTO.

AASHTO is The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. AASHTO's guidelines for Intersection Sight Distance, in feet, are as follows:

On a road with design speed of 30 MPH, for a car turning left onto that road, sight distance must be 309 feet to the left, meaning that a car approaching from the left must be visible at 309 feet. And for the same left turn, a car approaching from the right must be visible at 380 feet.

Now let us look at the RUPCO intersection study, as it was presented in the Draft Environmental Impact Study. RUPCO claims that the current sight distance to the left, meaning to the center of the lane running from east to west, on Route 212, from ten feet back from the edge of the pavement joining Route 212 to Playhouse lane, is 150 feet, and that the recommended sight distance for a left turn and looking left is 390 feet. (see Table 12, RUPCO DEIS.)

I have measured this sight distance, and found it to be only 111 feet:

Here is a photo of a stick I placed in the road, exactly 150 feet to the east (left) of the point at which the center of Playhouse Lane intersects with the yellow lines in the center of Route 212:

Here is another photo, this one of an approaching car, approximately even with the stick on the yellow line. As you can see, the front of the car has not yet cleared the bushes. Also, the headlights, which were necessary due to the heavy rain, makes the car more visible. The standard for whether a car is "visible" is whether its roof can be seen. The roof of this car cannot be seen here, therefore this sight line comes in well below the 150 feet reported by RUPCO in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

RUPCO also includes the number 400 in parentheses and in a legend below the table:

"(X) = Estimated improved conditions."

This is the really big problem with this study. Who is authorized to improve this unsafe, 111 foot sight distance at all? The answer is: not RUPCO. So, why does RUPCO include the estimated improved conditions? I can't say for sure, but it seems that RUPCO would not be smart to include the distance of 150 when 390 is recommended. So, they suggest that the distance will increase, conveniently just ten feet more than the recommended minimum safe distance.

Herein lies the problem: the assumption that the sight distance will be increased. How will that happen? Who will make it happen? Please go to the next post to explore a solution.

6- What To Do About the Unsafe Parking Lot

There are dangerous traffic conditions at the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane. What are the options for minimizing these dangerous conditions? Are there any legal instruments available to us now? Since RUPCO will increase the traffic going home via this intersection by about 500%, is there any way to avoid the inevitable increase in danger at this intersection?

Well, for now, let us stick to the present situation. Let us look at the land use. Playhouse Plaza is a private parking lot. The parking lot is protected from seizure by government, until the land use changes. That means that for as long as Lori's sells coffee by the cups, people will be allowed to pull in to the parking lot, buy a cup, and then back their cars out across one or two lanes of traffic, and be on their merry way. That's just the way it is.

The real question is, can RUPCO ADD to all the cars at this intersection, thereby making the already hazardous conditions there ever more hazardous?

For guidance in this matter, we need look no further than Ulster County itself. The Ulster County Planning Board issued "Access Management Guidelines" in 2003. For those lucky enough to be uninitiated in transportation planning terminology, "access management" is "the process that provides access to land development while simultaneously preserving the flow of traffic on the surrounding road system in terms of safety, capacity, and speed." That definition thanks to the Federal Highway Administration.

The Ulster County document reports three basic transportation techniques for access management: limiting the number of conflict points experienced by a vehicle along the corridor; widen the distance between conflict points that cannot be removed; provide space outside through traffic lanes for slower or stopped vehicles. Now, since the intersection in question is not under construction or renovation, nor can it be, legally, none of these techniques are available to mitigate the dangerous conditions currently present there. So, onto the next set of options.

The report continues to explain that local governments bear the primary burden in access management's success: "Municipalities have substantial regulatory powers available, such as zoning and subdivision approval as well as site plan review to accomplish access management goals once articulated."

Aha, now we are getting somewhere. It is quite clear that municipalities are the places where various interest groups in any project collide, and that it is the municipality that has the power and the responsibility to make sure that access is optimally managed.

Here is an interesting quote from the report: "Access management is most efficient applied early in the planning process and adds little cost." I guess if the intersection in question had been analyzed for safety two or three or five years ago, finding that it is already quite unsafe and that there is no available legal remedy, it would not have evolved into the planning nightmare it appears it might be.

The report goes on to explain the elements of the access management toolbox: driveway control, roadway design, site layout. None of these is relevant to the RUPCO project, since the roadways are fixed, the driveways in question are old and already dangerous, and the site is far from the intersection.

A point of interest is this quote from page 7: "There are a number of typical standards that have been proposed for distances from the edge of an intersection to the first driveway. One principle is that there should be no driveways entering within an intersection's functional area." [boldface type is part of the report.]

Also on page 7 is a table of driveway spacing standards for Canandaigua and Farmington. The gist of this table is the following standard: if the roadway has less than 550 feet BETWEEN driveways, and there are over 301 peak hour trips on the road in question (which there are on Route 212,) then "Communities can and should restrict high traffic volume uses where they cannot be met." ["they" meaning the driveway spacing standards.]

At the intersection in question, there are over 800 peak hour trips, and not only is there not 550 feet between driveways, there is a 180 foot driveway directly across from Playhouse Lane.

It is clear from this directive that the town of Woodstock needs to restrict the high volume use of Route 212, but how, since it is already so heavily used? Hmm. How about limiting the use of Playhouse Lane to its existing users, and not multiplying the number of residents using it by a factor of about five?

How about that.

On the last page of the Access Management Guidelines for Ulster County, under Implementation Techniques, is the following:

"Municipalities can require that access management techniques be initiated for land use actions in developed areas. One way to accomplish this is to require a review of site plans and special permits when there is a change in ownership or land use. It is also important to understand the position of NYSDOT and Ulster County Highway Department in this process. These agencies often lack the authority to require improvements at these times but are highly desirous of implementing these techniques and more than willing to provide design assistance along with the necessary permits once they are required by the community. To facilitate this, communities should engage these agencies in a cooperative dialogue rather than have the applicant serve as a go between."

This says that the town needs to assess and take responsibility for coordinating the various levels of government involved in keeping the roads safe. They cannot and should not pass the buck simply because they do not have total authority to achieve a given end.

5- How Many Accidents Have There Really Been at 212 & Playhouse Lane?

We do not really know how many accidents there have been at the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane and the Playhouse Plaza parking lot. Let us find out now.

I have heard about only two collisions at the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane and the Playhouse Plaza parking lot. In both cases, the accidents occurred at very low speeds, resulting in only slight dents to one or both cars involved. That's the good news.

The bad news is that I have lived in Woodstock for only 7 months, and it's not like I have been asking people left and right if they had car accidents at that corner. In fact, I never asked anybody.

The other good news is that no people were injured in the two accidents I know about. The bad news is that this might not be the case in the future. If a driver fails to see an entire car, what are the prospects for pedestrians, especially the little ones on their way to the elementary school, which is very closeby?

This particular blog post exists so that you can leave your accident accounts. I would like to know about any accident at this intersection.

It is understood that insurance rates increase if you report an accident, so you do not have to sign your name. However, it would be helpful if you identified the accident by the general appearance of both cars, or the exact location in the intersection, or the approximate date, so that we do not count several accounts of one accident as several accidents. Please write about the accident in as much detail as possible, including where in the intersection it occurred, and including where both cars were coming from, whether one was stationary, etc.  Please include the north shoulder of Route 212, that is, the shoulder where people routinely park, across from the parking lot.

Thank you very much in advance for making sure that Woodstock remains a safe town for all who walk and drive here.

4- Cars Per Hour Is Not the Problem

RUPCO left a vital element out of its (Playhouse Lane & Route 212) intersection traffic analysis. It omitted the parking lot at Playhouse Plaza, (which is DIRECTLY across from Playhouse Lane in the intersection,) thereby completely misrepresenting the vehicular activity and safety concerns resulting from the proposed project.

In its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), RUPCO used standard vehicle trip generation numbers to project the number of vehicles entering and exiting Playhouse Lane, at Route 212. (Tables 15A and 15B.) Nobody seemed to have a problem with these figures. I don't have a problem with the figures used by RUPCO in the traffic diagram it chose; I have a problem with the diagram itself .

(Note that the numbers are for 63 units of housing, not the currently proposed 53 units. Also note that existing baseline traffic is not factored in to these numbers.)

RUPCO's morning peak hour, which I have to infer from the graph, is 8-9 AM, shows 7 cars entering and 28 cars exiting Playhouse Lane. The PM peak hour, which I must infer from the graph, is 5-6 PM, shows 34 cars entering and 18 cars leaving Playhouse Lane.

Here, in diagram form, are some other numbers for the evening peak hour, showing not 34 but 40 cars entering, and not 18 but 30 cars exiting Playhouse Lane. Perhaps these higher numbers reflect the addition of the existing traffic on these roads?

RUPCO has figured out that this increase in traffic will not cause more than an extra five seconds of waiting, on average, per trip, for cars entering or exiting Playhouse Lane. There appears to be no problem. But wait, there is a problem.

The problem is, the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane is not really a true "T" intersection. There is a very wide parking lot directly across from Playhouse Lane, the one serving Playhouse Plaza. By very wide, I mean 180 feet. Yes, that's right. There is a parking lot open for cars to pull in and out, front first or back first, that runs a full 180' along Route 212. If you know Woodstock, you know this place. Playhouse Plaza contains Lori's catering and coffee shop, the Woodstock Film Festival Office, a copy and printing store, and more. Except for less than 14' where a grassy island protects two poles and a hydrant from cars, a 180 foot stretch is open to cars, for parking. There are no lines delineating parking spaces. Many cars that pull into this parking lot either back out, across one or two lanes of traffic, or pull out front first. Note that this pulling in and often backing out of the parking lot happens on a State Highway. How many cars are we talking about here? Approximately three and a half times as many cars pull into and out of this parking lot as enter or exit Playhouse Lane.

RUPCO's traffic analysis error was an error of omission. The legal arguments used in the Final Environmental Impact Statement carry no weight because the cases cited did not involve a hazardous intersection that the proposed projects would make more hazardous. Instead, the cases dealt with increased traffic. The difference is that in Woodstock, at the intersection in question, the increased traffic is making a dangerous intersection not only more congested and slower moving, but a lot more dangerous. The case law is relevant only to the traffic volume and congestion that will increase as a result of the project.

Since RUPCO failed to characterize the intersection as a de facto four way intersection, their analysis holds little weight. The cases cited to prove that the intersection will be both fluid, in terms of traffic, and safe, cited cases that involved places where roads and access were not misrepresented or misdrawn on the map.

All you have to do is watch the videos below to see that there are three and a half times as many cars entering or exiting Playhouse Plaza parking log as there are cars entering or exiting Playhouse Lane.

For those of you willing to take my word for the numbers, or with something better to do than count cars in real time on my videos, the diagram below summarizes the number of cars making several different kinds of trips through this intersection, on October 22, from 8:42 AM to 9:42 AM.

Here are the highlights for the hour videotaped:

Number of cars entering or exiting Playhouse Lane: 19.
Number of cars entering or exiting Playhouse Plaza parking lot: 67.
Number of cars backing out of Playhouse Plaza parking lot into traffic: 24.

How can any analysis of this intersection that does not include car movement into and out of the parking lot be taken at all seriously? This is the question I put to the Planning Board.

In later posts, we will explore the seriousness of this unsafe parking lot, and also how we might solve this real safety problem.

3- Overview of Traffic Issues Addressed by the Planning Board and RUPCO

In this post, we will look at only a few comments made and questions raised on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The comments and questions chosen here are grouped into two problems, expressed here as sight distance and increased traffic (both issues occur at the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212.) For each of the two issues, we will look at RUPCO's response.

(1) Sight Distance.

Warren Replansky, the attorney for the group called SAGE, which opposes this housing project, writes a letter that addresses, among several other issues, sight distance at Playhouse Lane and Rt. 212. He writes:

"Although the applicant's Traffic Engineer outlined sight distance issues at Route 212 with Playhouse Lane and NYS Route 212 with Plochmann Lane (see attached photo A), the applicant has not committed to the mitigation. What letters of written assurances exist that the NYSDOT is committed to the improvements? Do the improvements require disturbances on private property? If so, does the private property owner consent to these disturbances"

And further, "Sight distance at the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Edgewood Lane must be addressed this intersection will be impacted by traffic accessing the new private road entering the Woodstock Commons site. "

From the Planning Board, Paul Shultis Jr. submitted this brief note: "Traffic: sight distance at Playhouse Lane & 212."

This first issue addresses the ability or inability of a driver leaving Playhouse Lane to see cars coming from the left on Route 212. At present, the sight line is very short. Additional traffic is thought to pose a safety problem, and the commenters asked RUPCO what they planned to do about this, when introducing much more traffic on Playhouse Lane.

RUPCO's response to the sight line problem is basically that RUPCO does not possess the power of condemnation. This means, among other things, that RUPCO cannot force either the State, which controls Route 212, or the owner of the land abutting the intersection, to remedy the limited sight line by cutting down trees or by any other measures.

In addition, RUPCO states "Although a Planning Board may consider the adequacy of existing off-site streets in analyzing a development proposal, it is submitted that a Planning Board may not require a developer to improve existing roads and/or sidewalks lying outside a proposed development." Case law is cited to support this. So, what this means is that although the proposed project will bring more cars to the intersection that features an inadequate sight line, the developer, RUPCO cannot be held responsible to improve the sight line at the intersection.

(2) Increased Traffic.

RUPCO argues, citing case law, "Specifically with respect to increased traffic posed by the project, a Planning Board may not deny a development proposal as a result of a traffic concerns unless the record substantiates that the purported hazard from the proposed use will be greater than that which results from uses permitted by right in the same zone." This means that if other houses were built where RUPCO wants to build, but without the special use permit that RUPCO has, the town cannot deny RUPCO its right to develop if the other houses would generate the same amount of traffic.

What this means is that if houses were built one by one on the land that RUPCO wants to build on, but without special use permits, for the town to deny RUPCO's right to develop, it must be shown that the development by individuals buying parcels of land and developing them would cause less hazard than the RUPCO development would cause.

In my opinion, and I'll get into this later, increased traffic in itself is not a problem. However, it should be easy to argue that without RUPCO's special use permit, many fewer households would be located at the end of Playhouse Lane. The area is zoned for much larger lots than multi-family housing, so it would be impossible to build as many as 53 households without a special use permit. While this argument proves that the traffic, absent a special use permit, would be greater with the RUPCO project built, it does not prove that the hazard at the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212 would be greater with the RUPCO project.

To address the hazard at the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212, it is necessary to analyze the the way the term "hazard" has been used, and also how the traffic patterns have been presented in the traffic study. This will be done in another blog post.

To summarize, there are two traffic issues raised in comments to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and RUPCO's response: The sight Distance at the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane, and the RUPCO project-generated increased traffic volume at that intersection.

2- RUPCO Project Approval Process; Where We Are Now

A little background is in order here, if you have not been sitting on top of the Woodstock Planning Board's every move for the last five years. Not that I am able to fill you in on everything, but I have a good grasp of the most recent rounds of approvals.

The Draft environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) was received by the Woodstock Planning Board (the Board) on Dec. 18, 2008. If you would like to read any part of it that is available on the Woodstock town website, you can access the table of contents on this pdf document "and click on the underlined entries to open the various sections, attachments and appendices":

http://woodstockny.org/content/Generic/View/1:field=documents;/content/Documents/File/27.pdf

If you want to skip that and read a summary of the safety-related concerns, read on in this blog.

A public hearing was held on Feb. 5 and then continued and concluded Feb. 12, 2009. Many groups and individuals spoke on both sides of the issue. A period for written comments extended from Feb. 18 to Feb. 27, 2009.

RUPCO addressed the concerns brought up in the oral and written comments, and issued a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), which was received by the Planning Board on Sept. 10, 2009.

Currently, meaning this October and November, the Woodstock Planning Board is reviewing this very large document in a series of workshops. The workshops will address the issues by topic. On the list of topics is "Traffic."

The workshops are open to the public, for listening, but not for participating. The public will have the opportunity to comment on the FEIS for what is expected to be a ten day period after the Planning Board has finished reviewing the FEIS in its workshops.

You may have heard that there was, last month, a public hearing at the Community Center, but this hearing was limited to comments and questions about the "Site Plan." The site plan is defined as the land that will developed by RUPCO. Since the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Rt. 212 lies outside that land, it is considered part of the "environment" that is "impacted" by the development. This is the case even though every car heading into the development under normal conditions will drive up Playhouse Lane.

At least that is my understanding of the process. If I have gotten any of this wrong, please do correct me in the comments section.

Now that the structure of the process has been prsented, let us go on to the next blog entry, the highlights of the traffic and safety related comments on the DEIS (Feb. 2009) , followed by RUPCO's responses in the FEIS (recieved by the Town Board Sept. 2009 and currently being reviewed in workshops by the Planning Board.)