23- CRASH - The Sequel

I know, usually sequels come out a year or two after the original feature, but not this one. This next accident (that I was told about, that is, there could have been more...) occurred only a week after the one first featured in this blog (Dec. 19). It was December 26, that is, two days ago.

I was out of town, but I received a detailed email from my good neighbor, along with the photo included here. (Thank you Mike.) The driver was a young man driving east. Another car hit his car. See photo. That's about all I know. The accident was reported. If you want details, see the police department.

As far as I am concerned, all that matters is that there was another accident at the corner of Playhouse Lane and Route 212, one week after the first one I wrote about. That's just too many.

Since I started this blog two months ago, people have been talking about this intersection. Bushes have been razed, no parking signs have gone up in the wrong places, no parking signs have been moved, the county planning board has stated its concern about the traffic at this particular point in Ulster County, and RUPCO has engaged the State Department of Transportation to study its (weak) study showing that all is right with the world.

But all is not right down at the corner. What IS right is that people are opening their eyes, recording photographs, taking statements, and writing letters. People are calculating how many MORE cars RUPCO's project will inject into an already horribly unsafe intersection, and imagining how much more hazardous this place will be, and they do not like what they imagine.

Yes, accidents happen. But no, a housing development that will surely increase danger in an already dangerous intersection is an accident that we do not have to let happen to our town.

......

Have a safe and happy new year's eve.

(and a little safety tip: stay away from you know where.)

22- Interesting Accident Angle

It used to be that when a car backed out of the Playhouse Plaza parking lot, across two lanes of traffic and into a car parked along the opposite (westbound) side of Route 212 (and yes, this HAS happened before...) the fault lay entirely with the driver backing up the car.

Yesterday, although I did not hear it firsthand, the neighbor who called dispatch and called me to the scene told me that there was a dispute over who was at fault: the driver of the stationary car claims it was the fault of the driver who backed into a stationary car. But the driver of the car who backed up into the other car argues that the parked car was there illegally, mitigating the fault of the driver who backed up.

Because of the no parking signs, this dispute now exists where there used to be no dispute. It seems as though this dispute is what resulted in the police officer entering the accident into the system.

So, as we make the intersection ever safer, the activity and the danger at the intersection become more transparent, and it becomes clear how dangerous an intersection this really is.

By the way, right after my arrival, another driver parked his (dented) vehicle right behind the two vehicles involved in the accident. He crossed the street on foot, and as he passed me, I told him that he was parked illegally. He looked at me like I was nuts. I told him that an accident had just occurred and that it was no longer legal to park there. I also told him that there was a police officer on the scene, currently in his cruiser, writing up the accident. His response?

"Who the hell are YOU?!"

"I live here," I told him, not really wanting to give my name.

"Oh, you LIVE here," he mocked me. "I have lived here for twenty years! You LIVE here," he mocked me again. "Leave me the hell alone," he snapped, and walked into Lori's for something easily sweeter than his disposition.

With that kind of attitude among local citizens, we need enforcement at that corner. We need to ticket people who park on the north side of Route 212.

I went to the police officer, who was busy entering the information of the parties involved in the accidents. I told him that somebody had told me off when I told him that it was illegal to park in the no parking area, even after I pointed out that there had been an accident and that there was a police officer on the scene. He said he'd take care of it after he finished with the accident.

I pulled my car around the block, and parked (legally) so that I could watch what happened next. The rude man who parked illegally drove away before the police officer was finished with the accident.

21- CRASH

There was a collision at the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane this morning, Saturday, December 19, 2009.

(No, I didn't cause it to attract attention. My neighbor was there and called me after she called the town's dispatch. I was nearby, and happened to drive by before I even got her message. She saw my car and waved me down and I took some photos with the camera on my phone.)

What happened: One large black vehicle was parked illegally along the north side of Route 212, where the bushes came down and the no parking signs went up. Another large vehicle backed into the first vehicle's back door panel, denting it. The offending vehicle broke its tail light and scratched its bumper. There may have been a dent too, I don't remember.

This means that the collision involved one illegally parked car, which was stationary, and one moving car, which backed straight across two lanes of traffic to a point where there should not have been a car, but there was.

....

The police officer at the scene took both parties' registrations and other paperwork and seemed to be checking them, if not reporting the accident on his computer system in his car.

I heard him saying the words "if it's less than one thousand dollars," which we know to be the definition of a non-reportable accident. Whether the accident is reported or "non-reported" and simply filed under that heading (which, face it, is in a way also reported,) it happened. It happened on a Saturday, which is a day that sees a lot of noontime traffic in that intersection.

Today we witnessed confusion, danger, a collision and damage at the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane. There is no debating WHETHER this may or may not happen. It DID happen. Too many cars, not enough vigilance, and a poorly configured intersection cannot tolerate another 400+ trips into that intersection.

.......

To the Woodstock Planning Board, the Woodstock Town Board, the Ulster County Planning Board, and the New York State Department of Transportation: please take this seriously before somebody innocent gets hurt.

20- That Other Intersection: Violates County Guidelines

The Planning Board will reopen its hearing on the site plan and special use permit on January 14, at 5 PM, and close it at 7 PM, according to its latest plan. Since the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane is not considered part of the site plan, I thought we could look at something that IS strictly in the site plan, and that also violates the county's access management guidelines. (For a definition of access management, see the end of this post.)

The engineering firm of Creighton Manning prepared access management guidelines for Ulster County, more specifically "for use by municipalities in enhancing the safety and quality of their access management and roadway environments" That's you, Woodstock Planning Board! Hey, isn't that the same Creighton Manning that is responsible for the traffic study for the RUPCO project? Yes, one and the same. I am shocked and dismayed to report that the traffic study Creighton Manning did for RUPCO ignores the recommendations they made in the access management study for the county. Let's look:

Creighton Manning wrote, in the access management study, several safety principles and recommendations concerning the spacing and location of driveways with regard to intersections. In the case of the RUPCO project, it is not a driveway being proposed, but a road. It is not a driveway infringing unsafely on an intersection, but a new intersection infringing on two existing driveways.

I think this diagram will make it clear:

The solid pink street on the left is Playhouse Lane. Playhouse Lane stops and Whites Lane begins at the corner. While this is a meeting of two streets, it is not an intersection. It is simply a name change and a continuation of a single street. There is one driveway for a single house that goes off the page on the bottom. There is another driveway for three houses that goes off the page on the right side. In the case of both these driveways, the town does not clear snow from them, and mailboxes are on the main road. The longer one for the three houses is not paved. They are driveways, not streets. The current configuration of this area is one street that turns about 90 degrees, and two driveways emptying onto it either at or within about 10 feet of the corner.

RUPCO is proposing to build a project of 53 residences, with over 120 parking spaces, along a road that will be a town road, which the town will maintain, and along which delivery and mail trucks will drive. This new road will be a street, and will create an intersection where now there is only a corner with two driveways.

Would you like to know what Creighton Manning has to say about driveways IN intersections?

"Adequate separation from intersections and other driveways are key safety considerations."

What is "adequate"? That information is supplied in the document as well, in an example of Canandaigua and Farmington. Adequate, there, is defined as 220 feet between driveways. In any case, the key here is "separation from intersections," and if we test the RUPCO project against this standard, it simply fails.

"Driveways near intersections create increased conflicts between vehicles waiting at traffic signals or stop signs and vehicles turning into and out of the driveways."

Here again we see an argument against putting a driveway NEAR an intersection. Of course the hazard is greater if the driveway is AT the intersection.

"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." [bold type is in original document.]

Now, you might be asking why I bring this up, since the RUPCO project is going to add a street, not a driveway. Well, whether you add a street and create an intersection where there are existing driveways, or add a driveway where there is an existing intersection, the result is the same: driveways AT an intersection. Creighton Manning is very clear that this is not a safe practice.

The intersection of Playhouse Lane and the proposed road was, previously, about 300 feet closer to Route 212, but I hear that the problem with that site was environmental in nature. Whatever the reason, it was rejected and the one sketched in my little diagram is currently the one on the table. Perhaps the safety aspect of this new location was overlooked because the intersection site is a new one? In any case, now I am highlighting it for all to see. It is simply an unsafe design and should be rejected. Thanks, Creighton Manning, for these excellent access management guidelines!!!

The Federal Highway Administration defines access management as: 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. It attempts to balance the need to provide good mobility for through traffic with the requirements for reasonable access to adjacent land uses.

19- Left Turn Lane not Right

A memo from the Ulster County Planning Board came to the Woodstock Planning Board on December 14, 2009. The memo stated that the UCPB has reviewed the application for RUPCO's project, and has the following concerns about the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane:

Access from NYS Route 212

The UCPB has concerns with respect to left-hand turning movement onto Playhouse Lane from NYS Route 212.

Advisory Comment

The applicant should coordinate with NYSDOT to determine whether the increased intensity of use off Playhouse Lane would require a left-hand turning lane.

Earlier this evening, this being Thursday, December 17, 2009, a representative from RUPCO explained this memo. He said that the county planning board probably had not read the traffic study done for RUPCO (remember the traffic study that ignored the 67 cars per hour that entered and left the parking lot across from Playhouse Lane on Route 212.) He said further that he asked the State Department of Transportation to look at this traffic study, and it seemed that he was confident that when the DOT looked at the study, it would see the minimal traffic and absence of need for a left hand turn lane. All in all, this person representing RUPCO seemed confident that when the State DOT sees the traffic study, the concern will be allayed.

Not by a longlonglongshot. There are three main problems with this whole picture.

The first problem is with RUPCO's picture. In RUPCO's view, there is no need for a left turn lane, since there is very little traffic at the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane. The problem here is that the traffic study in question does not represent reality, so it should be thrown out altogether and redone. The State DOT certainly will get wind of the problems in the study that they have been asked to rely on. : - )

The second problem with this whole picture is that even if the project produces enough additional traffic traveling in and out of Playhouse to warrant a dedicated left turn lane only on eastbound Route 212, where would such a lane be located? It would be located where the current through lane is now. This means that the new through lane would be to the south, or, IN the parking lot at Playhouse Plaza. What does THAT mean? THAT means that the State would have to claim its right of way and destroy the parking lot in front of all of the stores in Playhouse Plaza. It would mean that there would be nowhere for customers to park. The lane would also have to start, safely, before the stream to the west of Playhouse Lane, which means the widening of a bridge. It would also probably mean protest by the businesses IN Playhouse Plaza, who might contest that the state even has the proper right to develop its 50 foot (25 foot from the mid line) right of way by digging and building for an additional road, which would be dangerously close to buildings on private property. The whole thing would probably end up in court, a battle over eminent domain. It could take years, and it wouldn't even matter, because...

The third, and bestest problem with this whole picture is that a left turn lane on eastbound Route 212 at Playhouse Lane would solve nothing, since MOST of the traffic at that intersection drives into and out of the parking lot at Playhouse Plaza, not into and out of Playhouse Lane. Very few cars would use the turn lane, even if the whole road shifted laterally to the north and used some of the playhouse's land and there was enough room for cars to park in front of Playhouse Plaza. Even then, the fast lane, meaning the lane from which nobody could turn left, would be the very lane that the parked cars would back into in order to leave the parking lot. Seriously. What a confused mess. And the traffic problem is bad too...

18 - Pointing Fingers

I have stated and I will state again that I am neither generally pro or con the RUPCO project in Woodstock. I will insist on the safety of the project, if it will be built for other reasons, and if it cannot be safe, then I will try as hard as I possibly can to make sure it is not built.

In any development, there are a number of environmental externalities, meaning elements that are very difficult, and therefore "external" to the cost-benefit analysis. Wetlands have their advocates. The neighborhood character preservation effort has its advocates. Prevention of light pollution has its advocates. Who advocates for safety? I do. To my knowledge, there is nobody else who is thoroughly and consistently clearing all of the other issues away, in the interest of safety, not simply the safety of people living in the houses, or even up Playhouse lane, but the safety of everybody, residents and visitors alike, who drive into our town.

I have been told to point fingers at some people for their roles in this project, and to not point fingers at others. I will point fingers at nobody. I will only point to information, where it is germane, where it helps and where it hurts, where it is distracting and where it is absent but needed, and, where it is false. Whoever puts out that information will be, naturally, part of the discussion.

To date, here is how the handling of safety has worked out: the opposition to the project has done great work in raising a lot of issues. They cannot be blamed for not having the resources also to handle the safety concerns in this project. The parties that have issued irresponsible, outright false, and negligent safety-related comments and claims are: RUPCO's traffic engineering consultants: Crieghton Manning; RUPCO itself, and the consultants hired by the planning board to verify what these two parties submit to the planning board. It is also shameful that the planning board does not seem to be aware that safety is being treated like the wretched stepchild of the project. And, whoever made the bushes disappear and moved the parking signs after I brought these things up in conversation and in writing, I can only applaud their response.

The bushes and the signs were easy fixes. Next comes dealing with blatant misinformation in and false claims in expert reports. How will the parties deal with them? I don't care how, as long as the result is safety for the drivers and pedestrians at the intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane. I will be here, ready to point my finger, not at a person, but at the words that compromise the pricelessness of safety.

17- Lessons from Sight Line Improvements

Summary of events:

The sight line at Playhouse Lane and Route 212 was horrible, for years. Nobody did anything about it. I blogged about it and told Jeff Moran when he came to my house to campaign for reelection. Days later (cause and effect? who knows...) the bushes came down. But the signs put up in front of the bare berm created parking spaces that blocked the new, otherwise perfect sight line. Oops.

I blogged about that, but I guess nobody read it or cared, for about a month. Then, hours after I appeared on Cathy Magarelli's local access show (Thurs. Dec. 10) and explained why the "fixed" sight line was still blocked by the newly planted no parking signs on westbound Route 212, East of Playhouse Lane, the signs were moved. They were moved to the very edges of the stretch of road in question, so that the two legal parking spaces that were created by the signs are now gone. Hooray! (Cause and effect? Who knows.)

(The signs indicate that there is no parking between the signs. For that formula to work, the signs need to be at the very ends of the no parking stretch. If they are not, then parking outside the stretch between the signs appears, at least to me, to be legal.)

Discussion: Let us discuss this string of events in a more qualitative way than we have thus far:

While the town, or whoever moved the bushes and the signs is perhaps showing responsiveness to clear, factual analysis and direct suggestion (= good), it is frightening that the bushes were not moved earlier (=bad). It is even more frightening that in moving the bushes, the people in charge of this could not figure out that they were creating parking spaces that would defeat the purpose of the bushes removal (= scary bad).

What we must conclude from this is that the people handling these issues are not very observant, not very thoughtful, and not all that interested in safety (= scary bad x 3). If they were interested, they would pay closer attention, and not have to take their cues from neighborhood bloggers who appear on local access TV talk shows.

"Scary bad times 3" on safety issues is not a good grade for a group of people who are going to meddle with a key intersection in an already otherwise crowded town.

16- Curious Timing... and a New Challenge!!

I posted the first entry of this blog on Saturday, October 24th. On the afternoon of Sunday, October 25th, Jeff Moran rang the bell. He was campaigning. He did not know me. I told him about this blog, which I said would be going live during the next few days. I also told him that I had already voted absentee, since I would be away the entire week of the election, Nov. 2-6.

After YEARS of inaction, with the playhouse itself in more dire financial health, on the morning of Nov. 2, moments after I departed on a business trip, the bushes in front of the playhouse came down. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. I'd like to think so.

When I returned, I saw the bare berm and the no parking signs, which were placed such that cars could now legally park to block the sight line along Route 212. I wrote about that in my blog. Nothing happened. Then, on Thursday evening, I appeared on Cathy Mararelli's TV show, and within HOURS, the no parking signs were moved to prohibit parking along the north side of Route 212, east of Playhouse lane. Coincidence? Maybe, but this time, I really don't think so.

(see next blog post, #17, to see how the powers that be, whoever they are, moved the signs, and we'll discuss why it took them two attempts to get it right. )

So, let me ask the town supervisor's office, and the planning board, and the Department of Transportation and Ulster County, and RUPCO: why is it that the RUPCO study reports a speed limit of 30 MPH at the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212 when any person over the age of about 4 could figure out, by reading the ENORMOUS digits on the speed limit sign, that the speed limit is 35 MPH? (see photos below) But that's not the challenge. The challenge here, Saturday December 12, 2009, is this: how long will it take for this discrepancy to be addressed, explained away, justified, or quietly changed? Let's all pay attention and see how much of a coincidence the timing is this time around.

This photo shows the speed limit increasing (from 30 MPH) to 35 MPH west of (before) Playhouse Lane.

This photo is taken from the parking lot at Violette, which is just to the west of Playhouse Lane. As you can see, the speed limit DEcreases (from 35 MPH) to 30 MPH after the bridge to the west of Playhouse Lane.

For dramatic effect, here is a photograph of the actual Draft Environmental Impact Study, which tells us that the speed limit increases from 30 to 35 MPH to the east of Route 375. This is false, as I indicated with lavender magic marker on my paper copy.

15- RUPCO's Traffic Analysis is Full of Factual Errors

1- The first work of fiction in the traffic analysis is that there were zero "non-reportable accidents" in the analyzed roadways from 2003 to 2005. The logical question is: if the accidents were non-reportable, how do they know they did not happen? Answer: They DON'T know. FALSE CLAIM: throw out the study and do it properly.

2- The speed limit on Route 212 is reported to be 30 MPH throughout the hamlet of Woodstock, increasing to 35 MPH east of Route 375. This is false. There is a 35 MPH sign on Route 212 west of Playhouse Plaza. Precisely, the speed limit signs in both directions are on either side of the small bridge over the creek running under Route 212, just WEST of Playhouse Plaza and Playhouse Lane. This means that the required sight distances have been reported for the wrong speeds. As speed limit increases, so does sight distance. The sight distances of the intersection at Playhouse Lane is based on a 30 MPH speed limit, yet the speed limit is 35 MPH. REDO the sight distance study.

3- The Intersection of Route 212 and Playhouse Lane is represented in the study as a "T" intersection. The 180 foot opening into the Playhouse Plaza parking lot is ignored. However, the intersection of Route 212 and Route 375, just about 400 feet to the east, is ALSO defined as a "T" intersection. This intersection, also includes a (much narrower) entrance to a parking lot.

Both intersections are reported as "T" intersections, and both have parking lot entrances where the fourth "leg" of the intersection WOULD be. So, you would think that they would be treated the same, or, if not, that the parking lot with four times as much traffic as the other parking lot would have its traffic counted. Right? One would think...

However, in a completely arbitrary (this is being kind) decision, the study POINTS OUT that the intersection of Route 375 and Route 212 HAS a parking lot, creating a "fourth leg" of the "T" intersection. So, I guess that makes it a LOWER CASE "t" ??? The study completely ignores the parking lot at Playhouse Lane and Route 212, even though it has more traffic (we'll get to that in a minute) AND has a wider opening, thereby allowing for more cars to simultaneously enter or exit the parking lot.

The study goes on to show the car counts during a number of hours of the day and times of the year. It does count the traffic going into and out of the parking lot at 375 and 212, but does not count the traffic going into and out of the parking lot at 212 and Playhouse Lane.

Now let us compare the numbers of cars traveling into and out of both parking lots. My own traffic count videotaped 67 cars entering or leaving the parking lot at Playhouse Plaza, which is at Route 212 and Playhouse Lane. The project's study showed a total of 15 cars entering or exiting the parking lot at 375 and 212. This means that the parking lot that the traffic study ignores has 4.5 times more traffic in it than the parking lot they chose to include. In addition, and this is very important, the parking lot at Playhouse Lane and Route 212 features a whopping 24 cars BACKING OUT into and in many cases across two lanes of traffic. The parking lot at 375 and 212 is configured so that no cars ever have to back out of it, making it infinitely safer.

There is a lack of consistency, a lack of factual representation, and either a willful concealment of the traffic safety problem in the parking lot at Route 212 and Playhouse Lane, or a simple incompetence in the accepted traffic study in the DEIS. Whatever the problem is: The Traffic study is no good. Do it over.

Nobody on the planning board, or in the opposition to the project, or hired by the planning board, or by RUPCO has observed or at leas stated the existence of these errors of fact. The FACT is that any conclusions derived from a "zero accident" figure OR from a traffic simulation at Route 212 and Playhouse Lane should be simply tossed out due to the methodological errors and clearly random, inaccurate, or even perhaps biased representation of what does or does not constitute a place where traffic occurs and affects safety, in the RUPCO project area. It is my intention to have this ridiculous analysis thrown out, and done over, this time properly.

14- DANGER: DEFINING SAFETY IS A SLIPPERY SLOPE.

The problem with a "safety analysis" is that "safety" is defined in so many different ways. Safety is also only one aspect of so many different elements of a housing development. In this post, we will look at the way RUPCO and the Woodstock Planning Board define and promise to analyze the safety of the project's increased vehicular traffic. We will start with the "EIS Scoping Document" and the proceed to the Draft EIS. The reason we do not then look at the Final EIS concerning safety is because the interested parties all seem to agree that all of the safety concerns have been or are on their way to being allayed.

As we proceed from one document to the next, we will see how the word "safety" comes to be defined as the narrowest possible concept, and then is confirmed to exist as defined only by one unreliable and I would say intentionally misleading statistic.

A- Safety Defined in the Scoping Document:
Chapter III discusses the "existing conditions, potential environmental impact, and proposed mitigation measures" of the following three man-made environmental sections: transportation, land use, zoning and visual character. We are concerned here only with transportation. The sub-categories of transportation include:
- sight distance
- accident data
- (several) traffic volume indicators
- qualitative discussion of the additional traffic that will be experienced at each of the studied intersections (and on adjacent roadway sections)
- needed traffic safety (or other desirable) improvements regarding any of the above traffic considerations
- describe pedestrian movements on adjacent roadways (present and built conditions)

Please note that all of these categories are supposed to be analyzed for all three of these states:
- existing conditions
- potential environmental impacts
- proposed mitigation measures

B- Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS):
So, how did all of these safety-related elements do in the DEIS? Let us look at them one at a time.

- Sight distance was called inadequate. It has since been addressed, but an earlier blog post discusses how this has been mishandled and continues to be unsafe: http://thetroublewithrupco.blogspot.com/2009/11/10-sight-distance-update.html

- Accident data: The DEIS claims that there were zero non-reportable accidents in the studied road sections, THEREFORE there is "no pattern" of accidents. QUESTION to all those who appreciate the simple elegance of pure logic: If the accident category is "non-reportable," then how does the analyst know whether they happened? In their wisdom, the powers that be in the traffic world have decided that "non-reportable" means damage of less than $1000 and no bodily injury. To claim that this category contains zero incidents is a statement of pure fiction. Did the engineers studying the traffic numbers speak to any of the personnel in the stores in Playhouse Plaza, or in Violette, the restaurant across the street, asking if they had witnessed any accidents outside their windows? If they had, they could have added that information to their report. Did they talk to any residents who must travel through that intersection each time they leave and return home? I am one of them, and nobody I know in the area was contacted about accidents that may not have been reported. It is clear that the analysts on the job did not try all that hard to uncover any accidents.

The problem with claiming that an event that is "non-reportable" did not happen is that the burden of proof is on the person who makes that statement. By claiming zero non-reportable accidents, with NO supporting research, the report authors are in fact lying about the extent of their knowledge, and therefore, the actual number of accidents (which they simply do not know.)

Everybody in Woodstock knows that cars back out of the parking lot at Playhouse Plaza, on Route 212, opposite Playhouse Lane. I personally have been told about two low-speed collisions right there, one by a direct participant in the accident. Somebody backed a car across two lanes of traffic, right into her side panel. With that kind of thing going on, what is to stop a driver like that from backing into a much smaller incidental object, like, say, a person?

I was told, also, that somebody who works early hours in a store in Playhouse Plaza witnessed three accidents in front of its parking lot, in one year. Of course this is hearsay, for now, but by the time it matters, it will be legitimate testimony, strong enough to throw out this laughable traffic "analysis."

Everybody in Woodstock knows that this stretch of Route 212 is unsafe. What if we measure the number of times a car swerves, or skids, or a horn honks to keep another driver from ploughing into a car, or a person? Aren't these necessary metrics in the assessment of what is an unsafe road? Or, do we wait for accidents WITH bodily injury and damage OVER $1000 to say I told you so?

In conclusion, since "accident data" in all categories is either explained away or zero, no further general safety analysis occurs in the Final EIS. That is worth repeating: because of the way the analysts explain away any danger at all (using the non-reportable accidents statistic,) they NEVER address general safety of the roads again. They are done.

IS THAT OK WITH YOU?
Me neither.

- Traffic Volume-Related indicators: I group several together here because I have no problem with the way they were derived, although it is hard to actually agree with their numbers without repeating all of the car counts and periods of car idling at intersections. In any case, car waiting time/delay is not a direct threat to safety.

The real problem with the traffic volume-related indicators is that the engineering company that drew up the street diagram misrepresented the streets and therefore the moving traffic. So, the problem is not the count and timing of the cars on the diagram, but the diagram itself. The next blog post will discuss, in detail, these and other errors of fact in the DEIS.

- Qualitative discussion of the additional traffic that will be experienced at each of the studied intersections (and on adjacent roadways): I could not find this in the DEIS. Nor could I find anything pertaining to the next topic:

- Needed traffic safety (or other desirable) improvements regarding any of the above traffic considerations: Nuthin'.

- In terms of pedestrian movements on adjacent roadways: only five pedestrians were reported during the analysis period, as I recall. Perhaps the others were walking parallel to Route 212, behind the row of parked cars in the Playhouse Plaza parking lot, where there actually is a sidewalk, and also an area that the study so conveniently ignored.

Speaking of ignoring the Playhouse Plaza parking lot, please read the next blog post. It's all about how RUPCO does not notice that the Playhouse Plaza parking lot is actually THERE at all. Amazing.

13- Musical Workshops

Guess what. Remember how the Woodstock Planning Board was supposed to have two workshops for its members to discuss the findings of the Final Environmental Impact Statement? ( I remember.) They were announced, with dates. Then the dates changed. The "workshop" covering the impact of traffic was supposed to be held Nov. 5, but it was not. Something else happened that night. I and others waited for it to happen. There was a "special" workshop two days before Thanksgiving, which covered the Woodstock planner's, the Planning Board's attorney's and a consultant's comments on traffic (and safety, I guess...) None of the Planning Board members brought up comments of their own. I found out this morning that that Tuesday Nov. 24 workshop was NOT the awaited workshop about traffic. Turns out the workshop I have been waiting for was the one I attended on October 29th. Other RUPCO followers and I were there and did not notice ANY discussion about traffic, which leads me to these conclusions:

i- the planning board failed to give the public notice of its workshop at which it (would have) discussed traffic impacts (if anybody had anything to discuss, that is.) See the agenda for the October 29th meeting: it does not include traffic. http://woodstockny.org/content/Calendars/View/1/2009/10;/content/CalendarEntries/View/1644 The agenda includes these items: STORMWATER, WETLANDS, STREAM CROSSING, SEWER & WATER. With traffic not even ON the agenda, what chance is there for the planning board to address it? The answer is zero. Zero chance. I think this is a violation of procedure as outlined in the scoping document.

ii- The planning board left the reading and analysis of the FEIS traffic section ENTIRELY to the town's professional planner, the planning board's attorney, and the consultant. It was not supposed to happen that way.

It is, obviously, extremely difficult to glean any information from the planning board about what they are going to do and when. Even for somebody paying close attention and willing to ask for clarification as many times as necessary, it is next to impossible to find out what is going on and when.

It's OK though. Read on to the next posts. They make this episode of dupe the locals look like a game of peekaboo.