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.