I wrote this letter to the Woodstock Planning Board, delivered March 1, 2010.
Re: Playhouse Lane – Route 212 Intersection Safety Hazard
Dear Planning Board Members:
I have learned some alarming information about RUPCO’s proposed Woodstock Commons development and want to share it with all of you since of course you are in the process of deliberating the question of whether to approve the project.
The issue I am writing about in this letter is the error committed by Creighton Manning in their traffic study, specifically their car count, at the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212. CME counted this intersection as a T intersection, and claim that it has only three legs, as in the letter “T.” They also claim that the intersection of Route 212 and Route 375 is a T intersection, but that it has a fourth leg, namely the parking lot entrance at Cucina restaurant.
CME counted the cars entering and exiting the Cucina lot because that lot has a single lane entrance/exit, whereas the parking lot at Playhouse Plaza, which has a multiple lanes-wide entrance/exit. CME’s Kenneth Wersted claims that the Playhouse Plaza parking lot could not accommodate their standard methodology and blamed the reason on the configuration of the parking lot. Wersted writes:
“Because there is no formal driveway to the plaza, like the Cucina restaurant to Route 212, the standard analysis methods are not applicable.”(The letter is in the Planning Board’s file of received correspondences, stamped Received Feb. 2, 2010.)
I include the page of CME’s car count study from June 6, 2006. This page is found in Appendix C-14, “Traffic Impact Study/Woodstock Commons.”
As you can see, there is plenty of space in this schematic for figures in the bottom segment of the intersection, which represents the Playhouse Plaza parking lot, and which contains all zeros.
Failing the counting of those cars, for whatever reason, CME could have provided a note explaining that some of the cars entering or exiting this part of the intersection were backing into or out of the intersection’s functional area. Such a note would have enhanced the relevance of the numbers in the tables.
Instead of a special notation, CME has stated that instead of describe the actual movement of the cars into and out of Playhouse Lane, they DID count those cars, as they slowed down, turned, parked, backed up across one or two lanes of traffic, turned in the traffic lane, and accelerated through the intersection or away from it. However, they counted those cars as though they were driving straight through the intersection:
“All traffic to the plaza that traveled along Route 212 through the Playhouse Lane intersection or the Route 375 intersection was counted and included in the analysis.”
As you can see from this statement, CME made no effort whatsoever to inform RUPCO, its client, that the car movements were not represented realistically by the standard methodology.
It is a well-known and accepted fact that in empirical research, methodology is a slave of truth. If your methodology cannot describe the truth, get a new methodology.
Creighton Manning has been incompetent in representing the true movement of cars in the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212. If they were concerned with safety in this study, they would have noticed and noted the unsafe conditions and at least made note of them at some place in their report. If CME did so, RUPCO omitted those notes.
Either way, the RUPCO team is extremely careless and shows an alarming indifference to the safety of drivers in Woodstock. At the end of this letter, Wersted writes:
“Neither RUPCO, the Town, or the engineers are interested in creating an undue safety problem in the town. Hence the detailed review conducted for the Woodstock Commons project and the recommendations prepared to improve conditions.”
As you can now see, the “detailed review” completely ignored the most dangerous movements of cars into and out of the parking lot at Playhouse Plaza. And, in suit, no recommendations were made for mitigating of those conditions, since those conditions were entirely ignored, and I would go as far as to say denied by Creighton Manning. Just look at the attached car count. See all those zeros in the bottom section? They could have at least been counts of cars entering and exiting Playhouse Plaza.
The only conclusion is that Creighton Manning’s “standard methodology” is insufficient to capture the nature of the safety hazard in this intersection. As a result, the Planning Board needs to instruct RUPCO to find another company to first of all actually acknowledge the existence of cars moving into and out of the parking lot, describe their movement, analyze the patterns they describe, and then interpret the meaning of those patterns, given the added traffic brought about by Woodstock Commons extra hundreds of trips per day.
Creighton Manning’s description of the present car movements is a lie. They must not be believed when they claim to predict the future of this intersection based on this lie.
Thank you for your most serious consideration in this matter.
Yours truly,
Robin Segal
Enc: Appendix C-14 (excerpt)
Dear Planning Board Members:
I have learned some alarming information about RUPCO’s proposed Woodstock Commons development and want to share it with all of you since of course you are in the process of deliberating the question of whether to approve the project.
The issue I am writing about in this letter is the error committed by Creighton Manning in their traffic study, specifically their car count, at the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212. CME counted this intersection as a T intersection, and claim that it has only three legs, as in the letter “T.” They also claim that the intersection of Route 212 and Route 375 is a T intersection, but that it has a fourth leg, namely the parking lot entrance at Cucina restaurant.
CME counted the cars entering and exiting the Cucina lot because that lot has a single lane entrance/exit, whereas the parking lot at Playhouse Plaza, which has a multiple lanes-wide entrance/exit. CME’s Kenneth Wersted claims that the Playhouse Plaza parking lot could not accommodate their standard methodology and blamed the reason on the configuration of the parking lot. Wersted writes:
“Because there is no formal driveway to the plaza, like the Cucina restaurant to Route 212, the standard analysis methods are not applicable.”(The letter is in the Planning Board’s file of received correspondences, stamped Received Feb. 2, 2010.)
I include the page of CME’s car count study from June 6, 2006. This page is found in Appendix C-14, “Traffic Impact Study/Woodstock Commons.”
As you can see, there is plenty of space in this schematic for figures in the bottom segment of the intersection, which represents the Playhouse Plaza parking lot, and which contains all zeros.
Failing the counting of those cars, for whatever reason, CME could have provided a note explaining that some of the cars entering or exiting this part of the intersection were backing into or out of the intersection’s functional area. Such a note would have enhanced the relevance of the numbers in the tables.
Instead of a special notation, CME has stated that instead of describe the actual movement of the cars into and out of Playhouse Lane, they DID count those cars, as they slowed down, turned, parked, backed up across one or two lanes of traffic, turned in the traffic lane, and accelerated through the intersection or away from it. However, they counted those cars as though they were driving straight through the intersection:
“All traffic to the plaza that traveled along Route 212 through the Playhouse Lane intersection or the Route 375 intersection was counted and included in the analysis.”
As you can see from this statement, CME made no effort whatsoever to inform RUPCO, its client, that the car movements were not represented realistically by the standard methodology.
It is a well-known and accepted fact that in empirical research, methodology is a slave of truth. If your methodology cannot describe the truth, get a new methodology.
Creighton Manning has been incompetent in representing the true movement of cars in the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212. If they were concerned with safety in this study, they would have noticed and noted the unsafe conditions and at least made note of them at some place in their report. If CME did so, RUPCO omitted those notes.
Either way, the RUPCO team is extremely careless and shows an alarming indifference to the safety of drivers in Woodstock. At the end of this letter, Wersted writes:
“Neither RUPCO, the Town, or the engineers are interested in creating an undue safety problem in the town. Hence the detailed review conducted for the Woodstock Commons project and the recommendations prepared to improve conditions.”
As you can now see, the “detailed review” completely ignored the most dangerous movements of cars into and out of the parking lot at Playhouse Plaza. And, in suit, no recommendations were made for mitigating of those conditions, since those conditions were entirely ignored, and I would go as far as to say denied by Creighton Manning. Just look at the attached car count. See all those zeros in the bottom section? They could have at least been counts of cars entering and exiting Playhouse Plaza.
The only conclusion is that Creighton Manning’s “standard methodology” is insufficient to capture the nature of the safety hazard in this intersection. As a result, the Planning Board needs to instruct RUPCO to find another company to first of all actually acknowledge the existence of cars moving into and out of the parking lot, describe their movement, analyze the patterns they describe, and then interpret the meaning of those patterns, given the added traffic brought about by Woodstock Commons extra hundreds of trips per day.
Creighton Manning’s description of the present car movements is a lie. They must not be believed when they claim to predict the future of this intersection based on this lie.
Thank you for your most serious consideration in this matter.
Yours truly,
Robin Segal
Enc: Appendix C-14 (excerpt)
In the following video, the planning board is treated to a lecture from Guy Kempe. Kempe explains how the State of New York, not Playhouse Plaza, owns Playhouse Plaza parking lot, or enough of it to make parking in front illegal.
He also falsely accuses any of the project opponents (I think he meant me,) of equating project approval with a taking of private property. I never said that. I said that condemning the parking lot, which is private, is a taking, not that approving the project is a taking.
Enjoy the video:
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