3.0 Responses to Comments
city streets. Based on the evaluation below, it has been determined that counts collected prior to 2007 adequately represent traffic conditions in the year 2009, because they have the same or more levels of traffic as the 2009 or 2011 counts. Use of traffic volumes that are higher result in a worse level of service. The City of Los Angeles’ traffic impact criteria become more stringent as level of service worsens. Thus, intersections that operate at LOS D can increase volume to capacity (V/C) by 0.04 before a traffic impact would be considered, whereas at LOS F, a V/C increase of 0.01 would be considered significant. Thus, the use of the particular set of counts collected prior to 2007, as shown in the comparison table, would results in a more conservative and stricter assessment of the potential for Project impacts, than if 2009 counts were used for the particular intersections indicated in the comment. While the comparison count for Intersection 35 showed higher traffic volumes for the PM peak hour than in the Original DEIR, this would not affect the conclusions of the study, as the intersection has already been identified as having a significant traffic impact. Therefore, no revisions to the analysis are necessary.
Intersection
35. Mission Road & Daly Street/Marengo Street 39. Hope Street/SR 110 & US 101 Southbound OffRamps & Temple Street 42. Hill Street & Alpine Avenue
Ratio of DEIR Volumes/ Verification Volumes
DEIR Existing Volumes
Verification Counts
AM PH
PM PH
AM PH
PM PH
Count Date
AM PH
PM PH
4,500
4,219
3,651
4,391
3/17/09
1.23
0.96
3,451
3,719
2,623
3,097
5/7/09
1.32
1.20
2,757
3,385
N/A
2,998
3/15/11
N/A
1.13
27a-8 The comment states that, “three counts in particular, taken on 01/20/05, should be disregarded and updated due to having fallen on the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is a designated national holiday.” See Response 27a-7. Counts collected in 2005 during the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, have been reviewed at Intersection 39, and have been determined to be higher than the verification count collected in 2009 during a non-holiday week. It is anticipated that similar patterns would prevail at Intersection 40 and 41 given their proximity to Intersection 39. 27a-9 The comment states that, “The results of the traffic study are substantiated by supporting data of the consultant’s model runs and a comprehensive validation/calibration effort conducted in cooperation with LADOT, as documented in the attached Appendix. With the exception of intersection capacity analyses which should be reanalyzed to reflect corrections to peak traffic volumes and/or intersection lane geometries as described in the above sections of this review, the methodology used in the traffic analysis and impact significance assessment is considered appropriate.” 3-94
Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan FEIR