And, again, is the Saturday existing peak current traffic, is it higher than the Friday?
Well, those are the numbers that, I think, are important.
Yeah, I think this is very informative but useless in a way because it really doesn't tell you what presently is in existence and what you would be adding to it.
I didn't plan to go through all of those graphics. If you'd like me to, I can. 184 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028
That's one of the questions -- the layman's question is: How many more cars are we going to add to the current number of vehicles that are on Columbus Boulevard at any given hour today? You're showing us what you anticipate at the site.
Well, we're showing you what we're adding to Columbus Boulevard. And the number changes block by block because traffic turns off and traffic enters at different places.
Jeff, would it help you to have your materials over there rather than over here? This way, you --
'Cause I think most of this is in your report. It's just not in the graphic.
All right. And 185 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 what they're saying is -- just go to your report. The graphic was meant to be an aid to you, but if they have a question that's in your report, they have the report at their desk; just let them know which page it is, and then you can refer to that. I think they're trying to say, What is the current load? and then what's the factor by which you anticipate you'll be adding to it?
And these materials were delivered, I guess, last week with a separate cover letter.
It's Figure 8 and 186 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 it follows . That's it, that's it. Those are hourly numbers. And you can see the streets and pick the locations. Between Dickson and Reed, you would add 116, plus 17, plus 1,014, plus 19. And on the other side, it would be 1872. So we're talking about, let's see, about 3,000 vehicles. That's how you would read that graphic and you would do the same for each block up and down Columbus Boulevard. Shall I go on?
(Inaudible, off-mic.) Councilman, you -- 187 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028
You're saying 3,000 cars, but currently, there are 2800 cars in that peak hour. And if you add 760, we're at 3560 cars.
And then if you take Saturday, which goes up by a couple of hundred, you're up to over 4,000 --
But you just said it's 3,000 cars. What happened to the other thousand?
It's about 3,000 on a Saturday peak you asked me about, and then you would add -- 188 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028
Add those -- okay. Then we're up over 4,000, 4200, whatever, okay.
Is that -- are the current numbers the average over a 365-day period of time, or were they taken just on certain Saturdays in general?
Holidays, Christmas holidays, I guess, weren't taken into consideration. Or were they?
All right. You could probably put another 3,000 cars on that one, but go ahead. I'm sorry.
Jeff, just let's talk about the protocol. How was 189 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 the protocol arrived at for your traffic-impact analysis, you know, and who was involved and what was involved? just so that they understand the protocols and the accepted techniques that were involved here.
Basically, it's counting cars. The field of work is going out and counting the number of vehicles on the street making each turning movement. We also counted pedestrians and we also counted -- well, basically anything that moves. And we've provided all of that --
Well, in the report, as the Council President pointed out, this was done on -- (Indiscernible; parties talking over each other.)
And everyone knows -- and I'm not trying to 190 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 create an argument here, but everyone knows that January and February, are the slower retail months. And when the City's Streets Department did a survey of the off-ramp of 95, I believe it was February of either '06 or '05, and it was 1100 cars per hour coming off that ramp. But, again, these are really downtimes in terms of traffic on Columbus Boulevard.
In 2007, we repeated the counts a little bit later, February and March, at the same intersections and made adjustments.
Well, February is not a good -- I don't think is a good month to use as a -- and I'm not a traffic engineer, but I'm just a regular guy who goes up and down Columbus Boulevard, and I can tell you, from my experience in the retail business, that February is the slowest month of the year. 191 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028
All right. Are you finished, Frank? The Chair recognizes Councilman Greenlee.
Thank you, Madam President. I just had a question still on the trip-generation issue, but I guess kind of from the other angle. I'm sorry, you may said this and I missed it. How do you get these figures for where -- how you project Foxwoods will be?
We did a number of things. First, we got a lot of information from the Foxwoods people. They know at their Connecticut facility how much traffic goes out and comes in, how long they're there.
And we were able to do an accumulation of people in the building. And knowing how many people 192 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 are in a car on average, how many people would be on a bus, we were able to deduce the number of vehicle trips, car trips, in and out, which is what these number represent, but we didn't stop there.
We checked all five applicants for licenses in Philadelphia, their traffic studies, one of which was the one Stantec did for Trump, and our traffic was higher than that study. We also looked at literature about casinos in Las Vegas to make sure that we were in concert with the suburban-ring casinos, and we were. We also looked at -- there were articles published in the Institute of Transportation Engineers as part of its effort to identify the trip-generation rates for casinos. And we found it to be consistent with that. 193 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 We also did actual studies by counting traffic at Delaware Park over in Newark, Delaware.
How about the two casinos that are closer here? I'm just wondering --
Mm-hmm, okay. 'Cause I'm just thinking, you know, they're closing closer to Philadelphia, they're closer to the -- what the folks might do.
I wish we had them at the time, and it would have been a good model.
Mm-hmm. Okay, all right. Thank you. 194 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028
I keep interrupting you because you say some things, obviously, that come to mind -- I have questions that come to mind. You say you looked at the Connecticut numbers.
Isn't that a totally different environment than Delaware Avenue? I mean, Connecticut is a -- the largest casino in the world, what have you. It's out in the country, it's a destination point, it's where people stay. Most -- I would think a lot of people stay, and I'm sure it has day commuters as well. But isn't it apples versus oranges here?
You're looking at numbers of people who come in and out, but the environment itself.
Actually, we used it only for people trips and time of 195 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 arrival. I wasn't interested in the number of vehicle trips in and out because your point's well taken. What we did then is use the literature to determine the number of people per vehicle and, you know, the rate that they would arrive to make our comparisons, and we were able to get some convergence with that data, and that's how we know that we're have good with our -- and very strong with our trip-generation estimates.
And just so I -- I want to -- if I may, just one question. You said that your trip generation was greater than what Stantec did for Trump, and Trump is probably the biggest name in the world in gaming. So you actually have more numbers for your trip generation, even though today, Stantec came in and perhaps criticized your trip generation. It was larger than what they had anticipated when they were the 196 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 consultants for Trump.
Is that to suggest that the name Trump would have generated more --
Well, Trump is the biggest name to me, and I'm just saying that if we're projecting more trip generation for our site than Stantec projected for Trump, I think if you do a show of hands anywhere, Trump is the name, at least in this marketplace.
I think Trump's been Trumped by Borgata lately, 197 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 but that's beside the point.
Well, I don't think Foxwoods is as well known as Trump in this market. Now, when we're up and running, we will be 'cause we'll be state-of-the-art. But I think that -- to show that we really balanced the numbers aggressively in favor of trying to be the most forthcoming with our trip generation. We didn't try to show the numbers in a way that was beneficial to us because, as you remember Jeff saying last time, there's an engineering science we're bringing to this, and the facts and the numbers work in a way that makes it better for everybody. We don't want to, in effect, build in something that's not going to be accurate. All right, Jeff, if you want to proceed.
We'll try, we'll try. We're trying, Carl. 198 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028
Okay. And last time we were here, I talked about the daily-trip numbers, and I thought I would like to expand on it a little bit. The number that everybody asked me about was Saturday, which is the highest. And the way to read this line for Saturday is: In-trips would be 14,200 per day, exiting would be 14,200 per day, for a total of 28,400. So we have 14,000 in and 14,000 vehicles coming out. And that's the way to read it. And I didn't say that. I only quoted the one number last time. And that's how you would read all of the numbers for the trip generation. Another question from last time was: Does all of this traffic happen at one time during the day? And the answer is it's not. And these squiggly lines are an attempt to describe that. 199 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 What I would like to do is describe how traffic patterns go throughout a Friday, a Saturday, and a Sunday. And you can see that the numbers that I used in the last graphic of trip generation kind of parallel where the squiggly lines are. For example, on Friday, during the early-morning hours, they were fairly low. And then throughout the day, we tend to go upward, to a peak at 8 p.m. at night and then drop off. On Saturday we have a lot of late-evening people, and this explains the unbalance in the numbers for, you know, the ins and outs that I showed you, down to a low, which is first- thing-in-the-morning Saturday. And then it kind of creeps up as the day goes forward to its highs. On Sunday, similarly, there's the late owls that stay around. And we have, again, our lull at 7 in the morning. And then it kind of creeps 200 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 up to a peak at 1 in the afternoon. And then it kind of stays constant or decreases as the day goes forward. So there are different peaks. This is the sum total of ins plus outs for every hour of the day. This graphic represents direction of approach and departure. We believe that some 60 percent of our traffic is going to arrive via the expressway network. Now, by some estimates it might be higher, but we believe that it's going to be 60, a minimum of 60 percent. Further to the north of us -- and this would include traffic to the residential districts, to Center City, and maybe even to SugarHouse -- would be about 15 percent. And traffic south of Columbus Boulevard, south of us, including some 95 traffic, is either 15 or 24 percent, depending on your direction. 25 And then we believe that into 201 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 Pennsport, Queen Village, into that area, there would be percent, most 4 it using Washington Avenue, and the 5 rest of it on the local streets; Reed, 6 Tasker would be primary streets to 7 carry that traffic. 8
Of cars that are going to be in Queen Village and those neighborhood, what the 10 percent represents. Or 15, whatever the numbers you --
You mentioned something about neighborhoods increasing 10 percent, some traffic. 202 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 What is that in terms of raw numbers?
We believe that 4 percent of our traffic is going to the 5 neighborhood. 6 Let me go back to my 7 trip-generation graphic. Friday, 8 early p.m., 4:15 to 5:15, if 10 9 percent goes into the neighborhoods, 10 that's 76 vehicles. At the high peak on Friday, it's 108. At our highest peak, it's 175 in one hour.
Thank you, Madam President. Along the same line of that question I asked before, how did you come up, say, with the percentages? How -- was there -- how did you determine that?
Okay. 203 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028
We did what's called -- I guess "a sector study" is the best word, much like a marketer would do to locate a business, a retail business. We started with census data, looking at the number of gambling-aged people. You can get that from the census data, and you can get it by municipality, which is a little finer grain than zip code -- census block data. And we plotted it out for, my gosh, going out to the edge of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission area. And then what you can do is, using the Google maps or, you know, the Map Quest, you can actually find, by doing it enough, what the dividing lines are as to which would be the quickest route to the site. And we did that and we came up with a distribution. Then, because all of us live 204 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 in the Philadelphia area, we tested it among the members of our firm. And we said to ourselves, for instance, if you live in New Jersey, certain points in New Jersey like Marlton or Evesham Township, you have a choice of bridges, and the choice of bridges might be different during different times of the day. If you lived in the western suburbs, for example, and -- take Lansdale, not quite the western suburbs, but the northwestern suburbs, how would you go? Well, you have two choices: You can come down the turnpike I-476, you can either come in the Schuylkill Expressway to Vine Street to the site, which is the way the mapping programs tell you. Or go down 476 and come past the airport and come back up from the south. And, again, different hours of the different days would have different routes. And it's very tough 205 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 because -- I know I would listen to the traffic report and make that decision. So we made some adjustments based upon that. Pretty much, if you're in the I-95 corridor, that was the easy one, but everything else was based upon our knowledge of the area and the mapping programs and the census data to where the customers, the potential customers, would live.
Okay. You've heard a lot of talk about our improvement plan, and I was gratified to hear that the first one I'm going to talk about, at least the first element of the first part of it is going to be implemented by the City. We have provided our data to the City, to the Streets Department, so that they could generate new re-timing plans for Columbus Boulevard. 206 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 They recognized, as we recognized, that re-timing the signals would be a major benefit right now, and repairing the existing system would be a major benefit right now. And I'm happy to hear that they're on target with doing that work. We still think that the traffic system needs to be replaced with new technology, and we have been designing that traffic-signal system. The first part of it is a big communication system. " One of the points of coordination with us and SugarHouse is a single fiber optics cable to go the length of Columbus Boulevard. Our responsibility is to take it up to Market Street. However, we're going to end up taking it a little further. There is a hub at Spring Garden that both the City and the state share. We'll be connecting to 207 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 it. And right there at the hub is a direct connection into the City's operation center as well as PennDOT's traffic operations center. They want to know what's going on. Now, that cable will actually communicate traffic volume information as well as it has the ability to do cameras, video links. And we expect that they'll be asking us to put cameras up on Columbus Boulevard so that they can see real-time traffic, and we will do that as part of the system. Also as part of the system is going to be -- and this is at PennDOT's request -- programs that will cover when there's an incident on I-95 that remotely the City can direct a new traffic-signal timing plan to accommodate the added traffic from '95 on Columbus Boulevard when they have to when there's an incident. And we're designing those traffic plans as 208 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 well. There's another part to the signal program, and that's the railroad preemption. Right now, there isn't any. We're also -- so we have to add railroad preemption to the system. And what that does is, because of the type of detection we're using, we're able to make it very efficient by following a train. Rather than blocking all of the crossings of Columbus Boulevard at once we can actually roll -- you know, have the preemption follow the train as it goes up and it goes down Columbus Boulevard. It's a very high-tech system, and we're-looking working with Conrail Shared Assets and Norfolk Southern to come up with a way to do it. It's a kind of state-of-the-art. So it's a very high-tech traffic-signal system, and I might add it has detection for pedestrians, 209 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 detection for left-turn lanes, and detection for cross streets. One of the things that we're concerned about is pedestrian crossing. And what we're building into the system is increased time to cross the street and pedestrian-refuge islands where we can fit them in so that if somebody does get caught halfway across the street, they'll have a place to stop until the walk signal occurs. And we're also providing, like you see in a growing number of places around Philadelphia, walk/don't walk countdown, you know, where you go 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. And we think that that's a major improvement. So all 15 intersections -- and now 16, because we're going to have to design the traffic signal at Water Street and Morris Street -- will have all of those provisions as part of it. And those signal systems typically are 210 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 expandable as time and finances see fit. So that's the first. I'm not going to read the revised signal timing everywhere, because that's basically what I just described.
But at I-95 and Lombard Circle,we're building a pedestrian- refuge island. That's a big one because there's a lot of pedestrians at that location At the I-95 double-slide under-ramps, we're building a double left-turn lane, as you heard earlier, as well as a pedestrian-refuge island, again, for the number of folks there. At Christian Street, we're restriping the Christian Street approach to provide a separate turn lane. At Washington Avenue, we're providing a double left-turn lane to go into Washington Avenue in the northbound direction. And a lot of 211 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 people now on Washington kind of make it a double left-turn lane. It's not striped as such, it's not phased for that for the traffic signals. We'll do that, we'll provide that so that it is a true, safe double left-turn lane. In front of our site, we're providing -- and this was important to your Planning Commission. We're providing three lanes in each direction as well as continuing the bike lane At Reed Street, in the block between Reed and Water Street, one of the reasons that traffic kind of backs up in the southbound direction a lot -- there's two basic reasons. One is, the driveway at Staple's is pretty small. The other is that when someone wants to turn in on Reed Street into the movie theater parking lot, traffic tends to back up around the corner, particularly at change of showtimes A lot of people that make that turn want to go under I-95 to park or on into the 212 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 neighborhood. We can fix that by -- if we can just take half a block of parking on each side off, what we can do is --
We've already removed that traffic; it's no 11 longer there. The parking, I should say.
Okay. Well, we'd like to stripe it as five lanes. That was the last thing. So that we have two incoming lanes and three outgoing lanes. And it will make a big difference. I'm sure the parking removal has made a big difference as well. At Dickinson Street, our driveway is the big feature there, but we're going to signalize that intersection. We'll be providing a left-turn lane in, three through-lanes 213 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 south, three through-lanes north. And as the southbound left turn and the right turns go in, they go into two lanes; one lanes goes up to the port cochere, and the other lane goes into the self-parking garage. Just immediately to the south of that interchange, we're going to take left turns on Tasker that want to go westbound to go southbound to 95, and we're going to bring them up along the front of the parking garage and then bring them into the Dickson intersection and turn them. And that movement will go at the same time the entering lefts will go, so that we're taking advantage of that green period of time. It's a very efficient use of the space and the time. At Reed Street, what we're providing is a left-turn lane in the southbound direction by taking a lane across the tracks just south of 214 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 Dickinson. Currently, the northbound lanes are wide enough to provide this lane. So we can provide three through-lanes up north and one left-turn lane south. We can also provide something that the community asked us for. And I remember, Councilman DiCicco, when we were at Washington School, they asked us for this one: To provide a northbound left-turn lane at Tasker Avenue. And with this design, we have a way to provide it. At Morris, this is an interesting mitigation. Right now, anybody who's south of Morris Street and wants to go up to 95-South, what they have to do is go up to Dickinson street and make a U-turn or to Reed Street and make a U-turn -- usually it's Dickinson Street -- and then they can go over to Morris and turn right and go onto 95. By regrading the railroad 215 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 tracks and adjusting the curbs, we can provide a crossing of the railroad there so that people can go directly to I-95 if they're traveling north on Columbus Boulevard. That gets to be a lot of traffic at sometimes during the day, and it really takes away from the operation -- the smooth operation of Columbus Boulevard, so we want to fix that. So those are basically the civil engineering of the highway-type improvements. Now --
And, Jeff, just for the record, you need a highway occupancy permit which will be jointly administered by the City and PennDOT, and before they would give you that permit, they would have to, in effect, ratify this mitigation plan, which is what Mr. Denny said was hopefully going to be decided by the end of this month; is that correct? 216 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028
That is correct. We've made our submission jointly to both PennDOT and the City's Streets Department as well as other City agencies who have asked us for it, and they are in the process of reviewing it; I was hoping to have their letter for today.
And as a follow-up question that was asked previously to PennDOT and the City: Was there anything that PennDOT or the City have asked you to do that you've refused to do or you're not willing to do?
And, presumably, whatever they ask you to do you'll do because you need that highway occupancy permit to build.
Yes. Now, I tried to work with the levels of service and show them in a very easy-to-understand manner. We 217 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 made, actually, 1500 calculations, level-of-service calculations, for all of the nine peak hours. And what this shows is the overall level of service today in the first block, and in the second block is the overall intersection level of service for 2009 after the casino opens. And what we're showing in this graphic is that in green is level of service D; in yellow, level of service E; and in F [sic], level of service F. As I mentioned before, our goal is to try and make traffic flow better than today, and part of it is improve the level of service. As you can see, at Washington Avenue, we have some peaks where today we're in the yellow and we're also in the red. We can improve all but two to green, and those two are in the yellow, so we've made an improvement at Washington with our improvement 218 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 program. At Christian Street, one of -- the Saturday peak hour, the shopping peak, is in the red -- or in the yellow. We can improve that to the green. The I-76 I-95 ramps -- 676, I-95 ramps is a real issue where we have most of the peak hours how a poor level of service; and, again, with our double left-turn lane, we can make a major improvement such that we can get into the green range. Now, that doesn't mean, like the folks from Stantec said, that every single movement is acceptable. In a city, it's very difficult to make all movements acceptable. So you look at overall level of service; in fact, that's the PennDOT regulation when they look at whether you have to have a level of service waiver or a mitigation. They look at the overall level of service, and then once they 219 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 identify that there is a mitigation needed, then you look at each move the and try and mitigate it so. Our mitigations actually make traffic flow better than today, and let me talk to you about how it's done. The overall level of service and delay figure for each intersection, each of our 12 intersections. And when you add up 13 the overall level of service for 14 intersection and delay, you can see -- 15 this is the -- each of peak hours is shown, all nine peak hours. The middle column in the white area is the number of seconds of delay that we're reducing. Now, granted, it isn't much when you're thinking about, you know, driving down Columbus Boulevard, but don't forget, we took it -- we took responsibility for all of the background growth and the existing problems and made a 220 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 comparison against traffic signals that have been working together in a system -- not as they do today, all independent. So we're showing some modest improvements -- as little as ten seconds but as great as in excess of a minute and a half. Our percent improvements range from 3 percent all the way up to 24 percent during the various times of the day. If I make an average, it's 13 is percent improvement. Now, that is based strictly on the analysis, as we've submitted it, for our 30 percent plans; that doesn't reflect any comments that were made by Stantec and it doesn't reflect any comments I haven't seen yet like the PennDOT comments that PennDOT and the City are working on. But as it stands now, based on our analysis, which I believe is correct -- and I believe in this 221 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 analysis I've made -- we've met our mandate.
And, also, there was a question by the committee last time about the port delays, and I think you said that you would look at that and report back. Could you tell us what you did on that?
I did. I wish Councilman Kenney was here to hear it. He's the one that asked me the question.
Okay. We took a look at where the piers are in relation to I-95. The first part of his question was: All of the truck traffic on Columbus Boulevard is going to be affected by Foxwoods, so -- and 222 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 particularly the ramps that we're going to put most of our traffic on, or that most of our traffic will use, I think, is a more correct way of saying it. This graphic shows the port all the way from Pattison Avenue, with Ameriport and the Packer Avenue Terminal, the Walt Whitman Bridge, and on up Christopher Columbus through the numbered piers of 98 through 78, past Pier 70 retail, Foxwoods, on up to 40 and 38, and then on past to the 95 and 676 ramps. Looking at, again, the distance to the ports from 95 and the access ramps to and from 95, it's very clear to us that somewhere between Pier 80 and 82 is the boundary between trucks that would use the Walt Whitman Bridge as opposed to the Penn's Landing interchange. Pier 82 and south would most likely use the Walt Whitman Bridge interchange, which we impact very 223 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 little. Pier 80, 78, 40, and 38 would use the Penn's Landing interchange, all of those four ramps that we will be impacting. But then, again, they will have the benefit of the reduced delays that our mitigations will bring to bear. Let me talk about that for a second because he asked me very pointedly: If a truck is late to, say, Wal-Mart or Home Depot, that's okay, but if a truck is late to be loaded or unloaded at a port, that's not okay because the boat leaves. And we took a look at that. From the analysis that we did, we know how many trucks are on Columbus Boulevard during each of our periods, peak periods, and depending on the day of the week, PennDOT reports that the number of trucks is anywhere from 800 to 1500. But these are each of the peak hours, and it doesn't cover the 24-hour, you know, 224 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 period of the day. So if you look at our delays that I've projected for all traffic at our intersections, we can come up with a cost per hour of delay for the trucks. Now, what research tells us is that -- and this is from the Federal Highway Administration, United States Department of Transportation -- that it costs about anywhere from $25 to $250 per hour to operate a truck. I'm not sure what the cost is to operate a truck on Columbus Boulevard, so we've assumed something in the middle; we took $100 as a cost per hour. It may be more, it may be less, but I think the conclusion would be the same. Basically, if you look at the total number of trucks and the decrease per trucks, multiply it out, and then the cost for the delay, these numbers here are the reduction in 225 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 dollars for trucks during each of the peak hours. No, it's not a lot of cost reduction: $254 weekday morning, 251 Friday morning, 339 in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, which is the high. But on the other hand, it is a reduction. So our mitigation is actually saving money for the trucking industry in general. And we're not -- and we're not adding to the cost or adding to the delays for the trucks destined to the cargo ships. And that's the conclusion of our analysis. That's my direct testimony.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think I have more than a couple questions now. The first one came from 226 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 someone out in the audience. You described a -- the analysis for where the customers would be coming from and what routes they would be taking. Is that -- would that be a public document that you can share?
We have a pretty large spreadsheet that I can make available.
-- make it available to the Chair? The next question I have is about the -- what you described, and this is not to be -- meant to be sarcastic 'cause I guess it would apply even to the Stantec. It's a perfect environment: Traffic moving, no accidents, no 23 disruption of construction going on on the City street -- on Columbus Boulevard in this particular instance 227 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 -- no accidents on I-95. Anyone who's been familiar -- is familiar with I-95, especially south of maybe Allegheny, understands that in addition to the heavy volume of traffic on Columbus/Delaware Avenue, when there's an accident on I-95, Columbus Boulevard becomes the alternate route, in addition to it already being an alternate route for people who have figured an easier way of going north or south up and down the Delaware River. Has any of that be taken into consideration? And has any consideration been given to game days, be it the Sixers, be it the Flyers, be it the Eagles, and special events that are part of what we do and promote in the Penn's Landing Central Delaware Waterfront corridor? Have any of those things been taken into consideration? I mean, logic would tell you 228 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 that it's going to change these numbers. Has there any consideration been given to those things?
Because these are things, by the way, but for special events when we know when they're coming, accidents we can't predict, and they happen almost on a regular basis. I mean, just turn into KYW any morning or afternoon, and you'll always hear about backups on I-95; it's just a natural, everday occurrence.
Councilman DiCicco, the answer is yes, we have. I talked earlier about the traffic-signal system and the capabilities that we're designing into it and that the programs -- and, again, we're doing exactly what PennDOT and the City want on this because they control how the traffic is diverted. They've asked us to 229 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 design a traffic-signal program to cover the diversion of traffic onto Columbus Boulevard, and we intend to do that as part of our next submission.
It -- it -- you're right, it is a reality. And what we need to do there is, again, look at the number -- look at our traffic-signal programs, and it's going to make an adjustment to either the cycle length or the apportionment of the green time. So that's how we intend to handle that situation, so the answer is yes to your question.
Pedestrian bridges, tunnels, have they ever been taken into consideration? 230 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028
'Cause someone mentioned Las Vegas -- I don't know if it was in your testimony or in someone else's testimony. And I happened to be out in Vegas a couple of years ago, which was the first time in years, and even though it's a 10 destination place when there's hotels 11 and most people go there and wind up 12 staying there, the vehicular traffic is 13 so much that they had to create 14 pedestrian bridges almost at after 15 every single intersection. 16
I have an office 17 in Las Vegas, and my partner was the 18 one that got -- Steve Wynn and Sherman 19 Addleson (sp?), I think, were banging 20 their heads, and I think I told you the story. And they built a pedestrian bridge between the two after a lot of consternation. We looked at the possibility here in South Philadelphia. We can 231 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 certainly do something on our side but we have nothing to connect it to on the other side that would be -- that would allow us to have a good design that's ADA-compliant, so we did look at it. As a part of our design -- and you heard a lot of talk from our review team about pedestrians and how to accommodate the pedestrians -- we are providing sufficient green time to cross in accordance with the manual and uniform traffic-control devices, and this is something that your own Planning Commission is very insistent upon, and it's something that we want to do because it's a part of a good design. So as Mr. Denny testified earlier, the increased cycle length, a lot of that time is going to increase the cross street green time to provide for pedestrians.
Sidewalks 232 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 will be maintained adequately in terms of size?
And I'm -- this came from somewhere else; I'm not sure if it was my legislative assistant or not but I want to follow up. You mentioned about the train tracks.
Where you in terms of discussions with the owners of the tracks; are they agreeing to modify the tracks, relocate? Where are we with those discussions?
We are coordinating with the railroads. We're in the middle of that process right now. We know we have to be successful with that coordination, and we believe we have three alternatives right now to achieve that success. And the 233 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 railroads are looking at the three potential alternatives.
Are they potential alternatives in the event that they refuse, or are they alternatives to what you've currently presented to them?
I don't think the state legislature thought that there'd be any opposition to the casinos on the Delaware waterfront as well, but here we are. (Applause.)
I mean, we really -- we really need to look at this because my experience with railroads during the twelve years or so that I've been here, in addition to 234 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 taking about two years to find out -- to get somebody to talk to, because it's like a secret society, they are not very cooperative in most cases that I've had a dealing with them. And I'm not suggesting that they won't be here, but what if? It's the what-if again. If they refuse, what happens; is there another plan?
I'd rather talk about the motives of the railroad to start my dialogue here.
Yeah. Well, I know their motives. I did legislation that gave them Ikea, which gave them 16 million bucks when I did the legislation to change the classification for the Ikea site with CSX, 16-and-a-half million dollars extra.
We were told by the railroads that they would like to move their switching operations to the south, to somewhere other than in front 235 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 of our site.
I'll give you an example. Swanson Street in that little shopping area -- Staple's or Office Max was there. I would assume it's maybe where McKean Street intersects with Swanson. There's a set of tracks there.
I've been working for three years with a private developer who manages that shopping mall to correct a very dangerous situation, that there's the crash barrier, if you will, that's been there probably for 50 years that is a very dangerous situation. I've been working for three years with the railroads to try to get them to give the developer, who's willing to pay for the improvements, the permission to go there and make that a safe intersection. Three years and counting. 236 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 Again, railroads, my experience with railroads have been very difficult -- but for the Ikea deal because they got 16-and-a-half million dollars by virtue of that legislation in additional, you know, revenues. So I can't sit here and in good conscience agree on the -- you're saying that "we believe we're going to get there." We always have to keep in mind that that may not happen. And then where would we be?
Well, let me talk about what we believe will happen, and then I'll talk about our Plan B. As I said earlier, the railroads don't want to do their switching operations in the increased traffic that is coming to the area where they do their switching operations today, centered around Dickinson. They would like to move it somewhere else, and we've identified 237 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 three alternative ways to do it to the south, and they're looking at it to make a determination as to which one is best. If they can do that, then we can go from two tracks to one track from Morris Street up to just south of Washington, and that would be a part of our plan to reduce to one track. Whether we go to no tracks has everything to do with the PennPraxis plan and the proposed light-rail system because those tracks could be used for the light rail. It also has everything to do with Pier 38 and 40; there's a viable paper company there that does -- they get maybe one or two cars, railroad cars, a month, but it needs to be served so that unless they can -- we can work out an arrangement where they, you know, get their goods in and out some other way, either by trucks, they're going to need rail service. 238 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 So we believe that the end-game is going to be one track for the long-term reasons that you Harris Steinberg talk about this morning to the short-term reasons that something -- you know, service has to be provided to Penn Paper, I believe it is, at Pier 38 and 40. The other part is Inolex, which is the problem that, Councilman, you're working on. They have service from two railroads -- Norfolk Southern and Conrail. And I believe when Conrail serves them, they have to bring the train up in front of our site and then back it in. They don't need a lot of rail cars, unlike the Pier 78, Pier 80, Pier 82, that complex. They get a lot of cars a month, and that's really the switching operation that has to be accommodated. So for the few cars a month that the paper company gets and that Inolex gets, there's going to be 239 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 a train that comes up and goes back. Now, if your initiative is successful, we won't have the Inolex train coming up and going back; but if it's not, we will have it. So we believe that there will have to be a railroad track, a single track, in front of our site. We believe that there's going to have to be a double track somewhere to the south to make up the difference. And we've presented a series of alternatives to the railroad companies, and we're waiting to hear back from them. Now, if it's not successful, where are we? And that's really the question that you asked me, and I'd like to answer that. And we have two tracks in front of us. We've, again, presented our traffic data to the railroads. Most of their switching operations can be moved to the morning, so they can 240 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 control, to a degree, when they have to come up Columbus Boulevard. And you saw from my graphic earlier that we don't have a lot of traffic in the morning. You also heard my dialogue about the preemption system. Unlike most preemption systems where you pull up to a grade crossing, the gates are down, the signals are going crazy, and you're wondering where the train is, this one's different. The preemption system that we have is -- will be high-tech. And the way that it will work is that the signals up and down Columbus Boulevard will be forced to green for north and southbound Columbus Boulevard as the train goes across the crossings. And there's appropriate clearances and safety zones and things like that that are a part of it. But when that occurs, traffic on Columbus Boulevard will keep 241 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 moving, and traffic coming out of the side streets on our site can be able to turn right full-time.
The only movements that will not be able to occur would be left turns and cross traffic. Today, without preemption, the trains go at walking speed, and there's supposed to be a flagger. I know sometimes it's not there, but there's supposed to be a flagger. And it's a very difficult operation; we've watched it occur. So the railroad wants to eliminate that operation. There's something in this for them, and that's why they're cooperating with us. They finally get a system that's much safer than it is today. And that's why we're working together, to try and find what the best preemption system is and the best way that they can use the need for a "runaround track," as they call it. 242 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 So that's the answer is as to where we stand today.
Well, I think you got close to answering the what-if, but I don't think you've answered it entirely because, again, dealing with the railroads and the time that it takes and the time that I've been -- like I said, I've experienced a number of projects in my district. They can be very difficult. And I still don't think you've answered entirely the question. I know you took a good shot at it, but --
The preemption system that we're designing will make things a lot better if the double track must remain, but I don't believe it will remain.
Then the preemption system, when the trains are 243 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 there in the earlier parts of the day --
It -- well, we're not generating a lot of traffic, so it would be much as it is today except better and safer because traffic will be directed when it's safe to move for each of the movements -- not today, when folks simply just go in front of the engine, which is not safe at all. So it will be a lot safer than it is today.
But your mitigation requires that one of those tracks be removed.
No. We've assumed in all of our calculations that the two tracks remain, and if you look at it, 244 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 the trains come at different times of the day, so it's very difficult to make those calculations, but as we've looked at it from our modeling with the preemption system, because the north and southbound Columbus Boulevard traffic continues to move, there's very little increase in delay to Columbus Boulevard. That traffic just keeps moving.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Greenlee.
Thank you, Madam President. And, again, Mr. Greene, you may have addressed this, I may have missed it: As far as accidents, did you look at the accident rate now? And do you think some of the things you're suggesting, was that taken into 245 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 consideration? And, also, I guess along the same lines, with the increased traffic, did you look at the accident potential at all? Where did that factor in?
It's not a -- not a requirement, and we haven't been asked to do it by the review team.
Hmm. Let me just jump to another thing, and I know this was done back -- your report was done now, I guess, like 20 months ago or whatever, but you talk about 246 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 coordination with SEPTA and tour bus operators on of your study.
And Mr. Rush earlier had said about tour buses or buses generally, where would they sit? And the last sentence here, it says: "It is intended that buses would drop off customers, exit the site to lay over at some offsite location, then return to pick up patrons."
Over this period of time, have you gotten any more specific where you're looking at with that or --
We haven't identified where our charter buses would lay over, we have not done that yet.
Mm-hmm. I mean, obviously, there would be a concern if --
We'll -- we'll 247 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 have to do that.
Wouldn't -- again, I'm not trying to be critical, but wouldn't that have been something that would be pretty -- I mean, again, if you're trying to bring in people through the buses, I mean, wouldn't the layover issue be a pretty --
But we have to go and either by land or lease land or do something, and since we're not far enough along in the process to make that kind of a commitment, we haven't done it yet but we sure will. We have to do that because it's a part of the 248 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 operation.
Okay. And how about SEPTA; has there been any more conversation with SEPTA as far as what improvement could be done for buses or if it's increasing the routes that there are there now or other routes, anything like that? Does anybody know?
One of the things on my to-do list is to meet with SEPTA again to present our plan for their buses. We're providing a place for four buses right outside our bus entrance --
-- to the casino on the Tasker Avenue side -- the Tasker Street side. One of the issues with them is the route, as they go through the Pier 70 shopping center and come around, we need to make some changes, which, at our first meeting them, they indicated 249 3/10/08 - RULES COMMITTEE - 080027, 080028 a willingness to make -- in fact, they suggested it.
What we need to do now is get down into the details and talk with them about it. They are planning -- they have on their wish list two more bus routes that would terminate in the Foxwoods Pier 70 area.
But they haven't made any plans yet, and I think they're waiting for us to come back. And it also depends upon, you know, the -- well, they'll probably make the decision closer to either the opening or after the -- you know, after we open. They also, I guess, have to go a little bit further with the light-rail idea that's been put forward.