Pat Nave is a strong opponent of Bob Bisno's current plans. He has been informed, That Bob is going to come out with a new proposal on June 18 and he wishes this post be published at this time.
Pat created this post using a turkish charactered keyboard while on vacation with his wife, Diana, who is the President of the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council.
Here is Mr. Nave's post, translated by me to be much more easily read:
PROPOSAL FOR PEAK HOUR COUNT
I have a proposal that will give a better picture of what we can expect in the way of peak hour trip generation based on what we already know about driver behavior.
It appears that the City may have thrown in the towel on that absurd High Rise Condominium classification that Bisno has been using and the City told him to use. That alone increases his average daily traffic from 9212 cars to over 13000 cars. The average now is about 37000.
What remains now is to get an accurate peak hour count because that is what tells what mitigation is needed.
Peak hour count is fact based. It tells us both number and direction. Unfortunately the City does no thinking of its own. Instead it adopts the average peak hour number submitted by the developer rather than look at the RANGE of numbers in the ITE handbook.
Right now Bisno and the City are trying to pass off a Playa Vista post-construction count as an accurate predictor for San Pedro. It says a lot about DOT that they are going along with this.
Instead why don’t we do something else?
My proposal is based on the following premises:
Premise No. 1. Peak hour numbers are what determine mitigation.
Premise No. 2. There are two components to peak hour numbers,
(a) amounts, i.e. numbers. This has to do with the configuration of the project etc.
(b) direction, are the cars going north or south when they come or go from the project?
This is a behavior question. In the case of Ponte Vista, they estimate that the split will be 1/3 southbound in the AM peak and 2/3 northbound.
Premise No 3. The ITE Guidelines say to develop a local trip generation number, but Bisno is trying to get the City to use post-construction numbers from Playa Vista as a local data count. [By the way, without circulating them for comment, yet another CEQA violation] That is inappropriate for a bunch of reasons but the City is buying it for some reasons. Perhaps they are overworked.
Premise No. 4. The City uses ITE peak rate AVERAGE numbers rather than evaluate where in the range of peak gen numbers the project being considered should fall.
Premise No. 5. City Planning already issued a memo showing that project residents would NOT be filling local job needs, meaning that they will be on the freeway just like most of the workers are now.
Based on these premises, it seems to me that all of San Pedro can be used as a local data count project. We are unique. Everyone going or coming home from work either leaves town or works in town. We know how many work from Census numbers. We also know how many leave or come back into town by looking at the numbers at just six locations:
a) Harbor Blvd. onto the 47 or the 110
b) Gibson Blvd. on ramp
c) Channel Street on and off ramp
d) Gaffey St at Five Points
e) Western Avenue at PV Drive North
f) Gaffey Street 110 on and off ramp
By comparing the number of cars and number of occupants in them during peak hours with the number of people working, we should be able to tell how many are going north or east to work and what hours they are going. We should from that, be able to predict what people in Ponte Vista will do. After all, they won’t be working on site like they can at Playa Vista because Bob isn’t providing any offices etc. at his project, like they have at Playa Vista. We also know that people will have to drive to work because there isn’t really any mass transit to speak of.
Lastly, watch out for the peak hour numbers in the ITE classifications. There is a range because facts matter. Just remember the characteristics of this project, i.e. no mass transit, high cost, high household income meaning multiple wage earner households, and the need to drive to everything due to lack of on-site amenities. There are only four data samples for high rise condos but several thousand for regular condo classifications. The peak hour data range is broader for that classification so the City should take into account those factors when deciding where in the peak hour range their EIR analysis should fall. If they don't do some analysis of it, it is difficult to see how they could sustain a finding of adequacy when it comes time to adopt it.
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Publisher's opinion:
I would like everyone, including Mr. Nave to remember that the vast majority of "owner-occupied" condominium developments have as least some percentage of units housing renters or leasees. This is confirmed by my inquiries and by Mr. Tom Field's comments that, as an investment, he owned condominuim units that were eventually rented or leased out by him.
It is my belief, for a project that may contain as many as 1,700 condominium units, it would be more prudent to use ITE trip generation tables based on apartment complexes of a similar size as a "worst case" scenario for predicted trip generation.
Rental units have heavier traffic loads and tend to lower property values in the nearby area. For Bob Bisno to continue to contend that his development will utilize only "owner-occupied" units during the period the units are standing, is at best dillusional, in my opinion. If fact, I believe he is intelligent enough to know that some, if not many of the units any non-age restricted condominium development, will become rentals or leased out, especially if some of the first units sold are bought by investors, or turned around after the minimum ownership time has passed.
Gerry Gaines, along with the other members of the CAC are doing lots and lots of work on trip generation numbers that probably have absolutely no bearing on reality, I feel. Using exclusively owner-occupied numbers is probably accounting for much too low of probable traffic counts than what I think will become true, no matter what number of units Bob comes up with in his new proposal.
O.K., I'm done with this post. I hope I have made my points and published Pat's comments correctly.
4 comments:
anybody who uses western ave. regularly knows how much more aggressive drivers have become at intersections; i.e., turning left ahead of straight oncoming traffic as soon as the light changes. just try to even get out of park plaza near b of a or the chinese restraunt. i haven't heard this problem mentioned yet. what happens when these cars from ponte vista go to turn left into albertsons? there is only room for about 6 cars in the left turn lane then they spill out into the #1 of western, turning western into a single lane. this already happens with frequency heading north on western, turning into the terraces.
regarding light timing so everybody can just fly down western, how many more minutes will be added to the wait for everyone who has to get onto western from say trudie?
Howdy anonymous 9:47,
Thank you for bringing up you EXCELLANT comment about folks trying to turn into the Alberton's parking lot, while heading south along Western.
The Western Avenue Task Force did a great study of turning lanes and has many recommendations about all the turning lanes that need to be though of on Western Avenue.
Of course the Ponte Vista DEIR commented nowhere concerning these types of turning lanes and cut-outs anywhere away from their property.
The DEIR does mention adding a third land along Western, It will be for the northbound traffic and only be as long as the property line along Western Avenue in front of Ponte Vista. It will be for easy ingress northbound, easy egress northbound, away from shopping areas in San Pedro and R.P.V. and to heck with everybody else, appearently according to the current DEIR. A benefit most primarily for the ease of Ponte Vista residents and the rest of us get to sit and wait.
Of course that new lane will cause drivers to speed around slower moving traffic in attempts to take cuts in the lines of cars slowly moving north on Western, but does Bob really care, we think not!
In metioning Mr. Gaines in the post, I need to mention that he was the chair of the Western Avenue Task Force and he knows Western Avenue like no other. Everyone should look at the WATF and pay special attention to the recommendations Mr. Gaines and others came up with. They are all so much better than what is found and omitted from Bob's DEIR.
MW
tell me, does anyone know what is the maximun carrying capacity of western and when will it be reached? what happens when it does?
bob says that he can build 2300 units because up to that point there will be no negative impact on traffic. even if that was the case, what about any other development along western ave., or anywhere alongside either end of it
which will increase traffic? why does bob feel that he has the right to max out western all by himself now? does this mean he supports no other development which will further impact western?is this not a fair question? western is going to look like the road near dapplegray only with two lanes instead of one.
i have never believed that someone making 140,000.00 a year is going to live a large closet. they will buy them and rent them out. by the way, there's not many people at all living in san pedro making this much money a year. I mean, do you? how many people do you even know who make that kind of money? personally, i know very few. these people will have to commute. if these 4,000 residents are going to spend 101 million dollars a year, they'er going to have to get it somewhere, and i'm sorry to say, I doubt there is that much money in this town. I don;t even know how much 101 million dollars divided by 4,000 is. subtract fixed-income seniors and dependant children and that's one big number.
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