Did you render any opinion regarding whether the addition of these 15 additional parking spaces would cause any adverse impact on the public?
I did render an opinion, and my opinion was it would not cause adverse impact, and that's based on the low volumes we're talking about in terms of the residential activity for these 15 spaces and also the existing traffic on West Pastoria Street itself, as well as the other things I cited.
The site distance is available, the turns can be made in one movement sufficiently.
So those are the factors that led to my conclusion that there's no adverse impact.
And you see on my screen here, is this the streets department approval that you were referencing in your letter?
I believe it is, yes.
And I just want to clarify here, because I do see that this shows what appears to be three stacked parking spaces here. Is it your understanding that no stacked parking spaces are being proposed as part of this application?
Yeah, that's my understanding. On this plan, there were 18 parking spaces, 15 of those in the front along the frontage of Pasteur.
15 of those in the front along the frontage of Pastore Street, the other three, the ones you had pointed to, essentially behind three other spaces, those three, as far as I understand it, are no longer part of the proposal.
Correct. And I'll just reference that the 15 we're talking about are four plus three plus three plus four.
And then we have the one right over here to that adjacent now.
So are you aware of the curb cuts that are proposed there in terms of providing access directly to these off-site parking spaces?
Well, they exist currently, if that's what the question is.
right um did you see uh do you perceive or view any issues with um the location of these parking
spaces um relative to the uh the property okay could you um repeat yeah do you uh you know what
i'll take a step back because i where i'm trying to get is you also made some recommendations of
best practices that you think could improve or should at least be taken into consideration
for this plan. Is that right? That is correct. Yes. Okay. Can you advise the board what some
of those considerations were that you thought could be taken into account? Yes. And they are
also provided within my report. One consideration is that the 15 barking spaces could be restricted
to back-in only use, just an enhancement of the safety of having them be able to pull
out of those spaces forward as opposed to backwards. So that is a consideration and a
recommendation I provided to the applicant. Another consideration, which certainly is beyond
the applicant's control, would be that West Pastoria Street could be signed to be one way,
and the recommendation would be from Wayne Avenue to Green Street. The reason for that is simply
that the cartway with suggests that that's appropriate. And given the ability for vehicles
using Pastorius Street to circulate around as necessary beyond, you know, once they get to
Green Street or come in from Wayne, I think it certainly would not cause a hardship to either
the existing use of Pastorius or the subject site. And the other consideration that I provided
to the applicant was given the fact that the Tulpa-Hawken Street access, which is narrow,
the access itself is narrow, and has some site distance limitations for traffic pulling out onto
a higher volume road that either eliminate the internal connection that links the two accesses
or more desirably perhaps change or restrict Tall Pahawken Street access to one-way entering.
Just because I believe that Pastoria Street access is far safer condition and if all the
exiting traffic is oriented to Pastoria Street, that would be a better situation from a traffic
perspective. Interesting. So, we will hear at some point, you know, the objector's position that
all traffic should be diverted and utilized on Tulpa-Hawkins Street, but what you're saying is
that in your professional opinion, West Pastoria Street is a far safer place for ingress and egress?
Yes, it is.
Okay. Now, those recommendations that you made, are any of those vital to your opinion that the addition of these 15 parking spaces would not cause or detrimentally impact the public transportation system or public safety?
No, they're not vital. My opinion, it was made without those considerations in place. And if none of those considerations were implemented, my conclusion remains the same, that it is a safe proposal and no adverse impact for all the reasons I stated previously.
Okay. And is everything that you've stated here today true and accurate to the best
uh true and accurate to the best of your professional opinion yes it is i have no
of your professional opinion? Yes, it is.
further questions for mr horner
the ministers um yes you probably want to know that my share
excuse me do you want me to stop my share oh yeah that'd be great
Good afternoon, Mr. Horner.
Good afternoon.
I'm going to walk through a lot of your report and ask you questions about it, but I just
wanted to start out by asking you, could you restate again how many days you did your traffic
study? The traffic counts were conducted over the course of four days, actually three and a half
days. It was three full days, June 1st to June 3rd. Right. My calculation of June 1st to June 3rd
is three days. So was that a mistake in your report or did you make a mistake by saying it
was four days? It was conducted over three and a half days, three full days, which was June 1st
to June 3rd. So that's where the reference came from. I wasn't really counting the half day in
terms of the traffic numbers. So when I stated four days, I was referring to the four days that
we were present but it was really three days full three full days of count so i apologize for any
confusion okay so you rounded up a bit but it's i didn't round up i i we were there for four days
but there's three full days of data so that's okay all right so you described both pastoria
street and top walken street and i got a bit confused um at one point you said that uh you
You thought that traffic on Pastorius was better than traffic on Topohockin because you said that Topohockin only has 12 feet for cars to travel, whereas there's 22 feet to travel on Pastorius Street.
Isn't that completely false, though, Mr. Horner?
I mean, Topohockin Street is...
Objection to the compound question.
You just asked the question.
You should allow the witness to answer.
All right.
What is the 12 feet on Top of Hocken you're referring to compared to 22 feet on Pastorius?
Yeah, perhaps I wasn't clear in what I was referring to.
So the width of Top of Hocken Street, which I did testify to, is 36 feet.
That's the street itself.
And that includes the on-street parking on both sides.
The width of Pastorius Street is 14 and a half feet.
That's the actual cartway.
When I referred to the 12-foot and the 22-feet that I had mentioned, the 12-feet is the actual access width of the site's driveway on the Topohockin.
So not Topohockin Street itself, but the access driveway width, that's the 12-feet.
Okay, so we're talking the curb cut on Topohockin versus Topohockin.
The curb cut, yes, that's correct.
Is there any reason why the curb cut on Topohockin couldn't be enlarged?
I did not study that issue, whether it could or couldn't be.
I know it's been there quite a while in its current form.
So I just looked at it as what it is currently at 12 feet.
Right. I get that.
But we know that you were told that the curb cuts were,
there were many additional curb cuts being added to Pastorea Street.
Is that true?
I'm not sure I understand that question.
Are you aware that before this property owner had his application in 2017, that there were only two curb cuts along Pastoria Street? Are you aware of that fact?
I am not. I don't know how many curb cuts there were in 2017.
Got it. And when you did your inspection, you saw quite a few curb cuts along Pastoria Street on this property line. Would that be correct?
uh quite a few on pastoria street between green and wayne that's correct
no i'm talking about the boundaries of this property of mr ability this property
uh yes the the 15 spaces which are currently and they have curb cuts uh i believe because it was
approved previously by streets department well that's actually not true but yeah but mr horner
There's curb cuts, basically the entire the entire boundary on Pastoria Street from the from the corner of the property through the driveway.
there's curb cuts basically the entire the entire boundary on pastoria street
Would that be would that be fair? Every every one of those in that case, you're talking about 14 spaces.
Every one of those spaces has a curb cut in order to access Pastoria Street. That's correct. Yes.
Right. And those are all constructed by Mr. Bilby in the last few years. But perhaps you don't know that.
I would believe that's the case. Yes.
Okay. So what would be, what would be, is there anything that you know in your professional opinion to stop the expansion of the curb cut on Tubble-Hawkins Street? Is there anything in the streets code, in your study of professional engineering that would require that the curb cut on Tubble-Hawkins Street be limited to 12 feet?
No, nothing in the code that would limit it. I don't know if there are physical features that
would limit it. That I can't say. Well, weren't you there, Mr. Horner?
Objection. I'm there. Did you notice any physical features
when you did your inspection and you studied this property?
Well, I know there's a wall that supports the gate. I don't know exactly where the property
boundaries are to know whether that could be widened. I don't know if there's any elevation
or grade issues. I didn't observe it because that wasn't what I was looking to advise the client on.
So did the client in fact give you kind of a direction as to what they were looking for in
your report? No, the client asked me to look at the safety and ability for the 15 spaces and the
two-way access onto Pistorius Street and to reach a conclusion as to that. That's what my direction
was. Okay. Why did you choose the dates between June 1st and the middle of June 4th for your study?
Well, we wanted to include a weekday and a weekend. And we were authorized to do counts. So once we were authorized, we scheduled them and we wanted to make sure we did not schedule them over the Memorial Day weekend. So we did not. So that's why we did the counts when we did.
Have you done traffic studies where you've done longer periods of time than these three and a half days?
Sometimes, but usually, as long as we have reason to believe the days are representative, studying it for one weekday, one weekend day is sufficient.
Are you aware that there are times where there are differences in traffic along streets, depending on the time of the year and other seasonal variations?
There can be, yes.
Okay. It sounded from reading your report and listening to you today that you were focused on vehicles. Your traffic count basically was focused on vehicles. Is that fair to say?
That's correct, yes.
Are you familiar with the Complete Streets protocols for the city of Philadelphia?
Are you familiar with the Vision Zero project for Philadelphia?
you on? I'm familiar with it, but not really enough to opine about its contents. Okay. Are you aware
that there are non-vehicles that use pastoria streets, such as pedestrians and bicycles and
other vulnerable users of the street? There are pedestrians and bicyclists that use it. That's
correct. Did you monitor or count those at all? Well, our video counts do include that
activity. I didn't document it in the report, but yes, there was some of that activity, absolutely.
When you're talking about the safety of the surrounding community,
do you have specific findings around bicyclists and pedestrians?
brands? Well, when we're looking at safety, what we're looking at is volume of vehicles is
important because that can dictate how many conflicts there would be with pedestrians and
bicyclists. Yes, but I'm asking you just specifically, did you make any specific
findings around safety for bicyclists and pedestrians? Yeah, I was getting to that
in my response. But most importantly, it's the site distance. If a driveway, in this case,
or a parking space, a curb cut, or an intersection, if there's sufficient site distance
If there's sufficient sight distance to allow for both pedestrians and bicycles to see vehicles approaching or entering into the roadway, and the vehicles to see the bicyclists and pedestrians, and the combination of the volumes is low, as is the case here,
to allow for both pedestrians.
then my opinion is that there is no issue with that conflict um and that was so so when we're
talking about sightways um one example uh would you agree is the fact that when people are backing
up their cars they have much less sight way in in terms of where they're where they're um how
they're navigating their vehicle than when they're moving forward in a vehicle um yes and that's one
reason why I said consideration in order just to enhance it would be to require vehicles to pull
out forward on from those curb cuts. Right. I understand that that was a recommendation. And I
think that, you know, if that was to be the if we are to have parking there, then then that that's
a clearly important example. But you're you're testifying that even if you don't have back in
only parking along pastoria street that you're not you're not increasing danger to pedestrians
and bicyclists by people backing up without being able to see little children who are walking to and
from the school for example well my my conclusion was no adverse impact um there's conflicts between
pedestrians and vehicles uh exiting and entering driveways currently uh not to mention around
many, many streets within the city. So it's really not a matter of, is there ever any conflict
between the two? It's really a matter of, is there proper sight lines, proper design for the curb
cuts, and low volumes and activity in order that that's not an adverse situation? And my conclusion
was it was not an adverse situation. So you're saying with your license on the line that you
say that it's safe for people to back up
onto Pastoria Street and potentially
not see small
children or other vulnerable
users of the street.
I mean, on the one hand, you're saying
objections that you should
back in. And on the other hand, you're saying
that if people back out, everything
is fine. And I'm not really sure how to reconcile
I'm saying
that, yes, in
this situation, backing
backing out onto Pastoria Street, in my opinion, is a safe condition.
I recommend that it be considered that it be a pull-out forward because that's still preferred.
It doesn't mean the other is unsafe, but it's still preferred.
Are you aware that there are elementary schools within a near vicinity of the property on Pastoria Street?
period? Yes, I remember seeing elementary schools in the area. I don't know the walking patterns of
those students as it may affect Pastoria Street. Right, because you did your study in June when
they don't go to school as opposed to during the school year, and you couldn't have seen the school,
the students walking on Pastoria Street to school because you didn't go during the school year. Is
that true? I believe that the school year was still in session, but I'd have to confirm that
fact, but... Oh, might it be right at the end of the school year? We did the counts when we did,
yes, June 1st to June 3rd. Did you notice any sidewalks on Pastoria Street?
um no not not per se no not that I recall right so we're talking about um you said
pastoria street is how wide 14 and a half feet approximately and it's two ways so that means
that cars can pass each other on that on that street correct correct and if one or more people
are pedestrians on that street with a stroller with a wheelchair or just or just with their legs
they all have to share that 14 and a half foot width is that correct they do i mean unless a
consideration is to ban pedestrians which is certainly an option but that's not what i'm
recommending uh but sure yeah they'd all be sharing the width uh-huh correct so on top of
hawkins street are there sidewalks i can't recall um should we show you a photo then
if you need to. Okay.
Steve, why don't you show a photo of the sidewalks on Pastoreas while you're at it?
Steve, why don't you show
a photo of the sidewalks on Pastorious
while you're at it?
We have testimony that there are no sidewalks on Pastoreas.
You just showed all the...
I'll deal with it on redirect.
No, the testimony is from Mr. Montanez in our last hearing that he showed that there's no sidewalks.
Okay, I'll deal with it on redirect.
All right. I'm looking in your binder, so I don't know where the...
So, both of you know, we gave this an hour, we're five minutes away from an hour.