31- The Power of Observation

I have been asked by what standard I am qualified to make an assessment of a traffic study for RUPCO. There are many answers, but I want to tell you how I discovered it. I want to show you how simple it is, broken down, step by step.

When I first learned about RUPCO's plans, and all the cars that were going to come through the intersection of Playhouse Plaza and Route 212, it seemed to me that surely somebody would have already taken the project traffic numbers and done a simulation of car travel, meaning, send cars through the intersection according to the study numbers, to physically show how there would be too much traffic.

I was quite surprised to learn that project opponents had spent full days counting cars, but not actually SHOWING anybody, themselves included, what 400 extra cars, per day, LOOKS like, in that intersection.

So, my first idea was to round up some neighbors, pick an hour of the day that RUPCO's consultant, Creighton Manning, told us there would be a lot of traffic, and make that traffic happen, with real cars.

I figured out how to produce around 30 trips through the intersection using only 5 cars, by asking them to drive through the intersection in various directions at various points during the hour.

I videotaped the hour, and my conclusion was that the additional cars, on their own, were not the problem. This hour was between 5 and 6 PM, when Lori's restaurant business is winding down, and before dinner at Violette restaurant, also right at the intersection, picks up.

I take research very seriously, and I do not want to make any uninformed decisions. At that point, however, I believed that the cars resulting from RUPCO's presence, would not, as my one hour experiment had revealed, pose a traffic volume problem at the intersection, or anywhere else.

After that, some neighbors told me that when they take their kids to school, there is a lot more traffic, and lots of business at Lori's restaurant. Furthermore, the "rush" at the intersection is not defined by the rush hour of 9-5 commuters, but rather by the business at Playhouse Plaza. Some of the stores there do not open until well past 9 AM.

That is when I decided to videotape a morning hour. First I chose the morning of Yom Kippur. Oops. School was closed, and all Jews observing any holidays were probably fasting that day. Then I chose the first day of the Woodstock Film Festival. Oops again. There was SO much traffic in the parking lot, the study was just not fair, in the other direction. Finally, I chose a regular Tuesday in October, from 8:42 to 9:42 AM. There was no reason for this morning other than that my mother was visiting and was nice enough to offer to keep me company in the car during the hour.

The result of that hour's videotape was nothing less than stunning. I counted all the cars, and at first, I didn't even count the cars going into and out of the parking lot. But the longer I watched, the less sense it made for the parking lot traffic to be excluded, since THAT traffic was clearly causing all of the danger and confusion and delays in the intersection.

At that point, I went to look at the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, because my sketched notes did not show any car counts into or out of the parking lot, and I wanted to verify that the parking lot had been omitted from the study. I have to mention, here, that I expected this omission since I already knew that there were other omissions in the study.

I live on Evergreen Lane, and Creighton Manning left my entire street off its map. Yes, that's right. According to Creighton Manning, there will be NO additional traffic on my street, so why bother even to draw in the street. Even though Evergreen Lane is parallel to Playhouse Lane and Plochmann Lane, and could be used to travel from Plochmann and 212 to the entrance to the RUPCO project. Right now, there is no reason for any car to drive up my street, unless it is coming TO my street, or to the five houses beyond the end of my street. The effect that this project will have on through-traffic on my street will be the difference between occasional traffic to those five houses, and occasional traffice to 58 houses (five plus 53 new ones.) That means that although traffic now is next to nothing, it will increase by ten times. That is significant.

However, I was told by somebody at the Planning Board office that my street was irrelevant to the project traffic study. What is interesting about that is that I receive letters from the Planning board, notices of meetings and so forth, addressed to me as a "contiguous neighbor" of the proposed project. I had already been disgusted with my street's omission from the traffic movement study, so it was not difficult for me to believe that Creighton Manning had also excluded the very important car movement into and out of the Playhouse Plaza parking lot.

As you can now see, anybody with a questioning mind and patience could have discovered Creighton Manning's omissions. I did, as a combination of having my home and street excluded, and the study's negation of my direct observations.

I am also an experienced policy analyst, which means that it has been my JOB to question and question and challenge and discover things that are missing from what look like the work of competent, professional "experts," but are in fact much much less than perfect. And, I know from history that terrible omissions in "comprehensive" studies have cost cities and nations millions and billions of dollars, and many lives. And I know that one individual citizen, who focuses, and thinks, and asks, and asks some more, and tests, and documents, and reasons, can add valuable information to a debate.

Never let anybody tell you that things are too complicated for you to understand, or that something that feels wrong to you is going to be for your own good if you just leave it alone and trust the authorities. Trust your gut, do your homework, see for yourself, and share your experience. We will ALL be better off for it.