Where Are The Cars?
Willets Point Foes, City EDC Square Off Over Ramp Data By Joseph Orovic The battle over Willets Point’s redevelopment reached its highest technical peak at a public hearing regarding the plan’s oft-lambasted ramps leading to and from the Van Wyck Expressway. The roadway additions have driven the case against the project for more than a year. The hearing, held last Wednesday, was most notable for what it lacked: attendance was sparse, about 50 people in total; passions were tempered; and a somewhat subdued tone overtook most of the project’s adamant opponents. It was a far cry from last winter’s hearing regarding Phase 1 of the redevelopment, which brought out workers and landowners opposing the project with red-faced anger, damning the New York City Economic Development Corp. and its planned use of eminent domain. Last weeks’ hearing, held in the Flushing Library, offered a second chance at more salvos against the NYCEDC and its plans. Yet most involved have seemingly resigned themselves to letting courtrooms, agency approvals and legal filings be the stage for the battle. The fate of Willets Point may ultimately, and without much fanfare, rest in the hands of number-crunching traffic gurus.
Attorney Michael Gerrard speaks as opponents of the Willets Point Redevelopment Plan’s ramps rally before a public hearing. march to redevelopment without the ramps’ approval, while also questioning the legality of the project as a whole. WPU’s plans took a second hit when t h e r a m p s m a d e i t p a s t t h e D OT. Though lacking the state agency’s final endorsement, the plan was sent out for public review. EDC welcomed the move as a signal of the ramps’ imminent approval. WPU contended the DOT’s new commissioner and former EDC Transpor tation Vice President Joan McDonald was returning favors to her former employer. Part of the pending approval process requires an environmental assessment, a draft of which EDC put together in March. The repor t addresses the impact on surrounding highways. It concludes, “The proposed access modification project would be necessary to prevent significant congestion on these freeway segments within the study area.” That draft EA, held alongside the FGEIS, provided a morphing depiction of the ramps’ impact, according to WPU. The group enlisted Brian Ketcham, a Brooklyn-based transportation engineer with a history of being a pain in the City’s bac kside (he effectively killed Westway, the Koch era’s massive West Side Highway proposal). Ketcham’s number crunching and colorful assertions have become the dogma behind WPU’s opposition. His reports, the most recent a 286-page rebuttal of the draft EA, amount to the group’s sacred text.
Same Math, Different Results Should the redevelopment of Willets Point go through as planned, all roads within a two-mile radius would become a hellhole of steady brake lights, honking horns and an incapacitated mass transit system, according to Ketcham.
Ace Up Their Sleeve Ketcham’s latest rebuttal to a Cityproduced report will play a major role in any lawsuits challenging the planned ramps, including a case returning to Judge Madden’s court. “If the court rules [it] does have jurisdiction and that we should litigate the merits of the traffic impact, Ketcham’s report would definitely be integral,” said Michael Gerrard, WPU’s attorney for the case. Gerrard also hopes Ketcham’s findings will encourage the Federal Highway Administration to undertake a Federal Environmental Impact Statement, which would most closely mirror WPU’s desire for a non-partisan third party to assess the traffic impact of the plan. Meanwhile, the EDC is currently gathering responses to its recent Request For Proposals for Phase 1. It has consistently reiterated its belief that the ramps’ approval is coming. The next move in the ongoing chess match appears to be the July 20 oral arguments both parties will present, once again, to Judge Madden. Reach Deputy Editor Joseph Orovic at jorovic@queenstribune.com or (718) 357-7400, Ext. 127.
www.queenstribune.com • June 16-22, 2011 Tribune Page 17
the ramp plan was fully approved, marrying the controversial land acquisition technique to the State Dept. of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration’s OK. It was as good an The Road To The Ramps The lead-up to Wednesday’s hearing outcome as WPU could hope for. The provides an abject lesson in the density, group steadfastly believed the ramps scope and epic mountain of red tape were a fool’s errand, the EDC’s figures required to slap new ramps around were flawed at best, and no state agency Flushing Bay. It’s a three-year odyssey would ever approve the plan. Initially, the gambit appeared to work. of competing reports, varying math formulas and legal gamesmanship. What Emails acquired by WPU through freeemerges is a veritable chess match, with dom of information requests showed leading opposition group Willets Point State DOT’s engineers were skeptical United and the EDC playing an exhaust- about the ramps’ traffic-saving ability. ing series of countermoves based on the WPU felt assured the ramps’ lack of approval could keep the ramps. project tied up in agency As the plan to redevelop offices and red tape, effecWillets Point wound its way “These folks tively leaving eminent dothrough the Uniform Land main off the table for the Use Review Procedure in are playing foreseeable future. But 2008, the City Council’s games with EDC screwed their hopes ultimate stamp of approval cross-eyed when it segincluded the plan’s Final the numbers.” Generic Environmental —Brian Ketcham mented the project into phases. Impact Statement (FGEIS). The first chunk to be The report mapped out the potential traffic impact of the project, as redeveloped fell outside the auspices of well as the ramps’ role in easing any con- the proposed ramps, the agency argued, and therefore did not require DOT apgestion. At the outset, WPU latched onto the proval. The 22-acre chunk of land, with ramps as the potential linchpin to any nine landowners still not selling to the challenges of the project. The interchange City, began a public review process rebetween the Grand Central Parkway and quired for the use of eminent domain. WPU contended the fragmented apthe Whitestone and Van Wyck Expressways already presented a nightmare of proach was meant to sidestep EDC’s congestion at peak rush hours. The City promises to Judge Madden while lendpresented a bleak picture of the ramps’ ing the redevelopment an air of inevitaability to ease traffic in the surrounding bility. The agency said the switch was a local roads, WPU argued, with the added byproduct of a rough financial climate, congestion of a planned monolithic making a singular developer undertakmixed-use redevelopment of the 62-acre ing the entire mammoth project difficult, Iron Triangle. The City Council approved despite receiving 29 responses to its initial Request for Qualifications for the the plan regardless. A subsequent legal challenge initi- project. The initiation of the public review proated by WPU lived a short life in court but still achieved some success. The cess opened a door for legal challenges, EDC promised Judge Joan Madden it and WPU charged through it, with two would not employ eminent domain until lawsuits aimed at halting the EDC’s
“They’re essentially proposing the largest shopping mall in the city,” he said. “The impact on the surrounding local access roads is so horrendous. They lowballed the traffic, they have overstated the impact of transit. These folks are playing games with the numbers.” Ketcham’s point lies in the differences between gridlocked hell depicted in 2008’s FGEIS and smooth driving portrayed in the draft EA, both prepared by engineering firm AKRF. According to Ketcham’s submission, the latter hides many of the flaws laid bare in the FGEIS, underreporting the estimated car trips by as much as 100 percent. The gulf between the FGEIS and draft EA can easily be explained by competing formulas, according to the EDC’s dense, three-paragraph response to Ketcham’s assertions “[The draft EA], which is more regional in its approach, and focused on highway systems, uses different modeling procedures for forecasting future traffic volumes,” the agency said. “In contrast, the FGEIS analysis conservatively assigned vehicles according to the most direct route between their origins and destinations. Both approaches are appropriate and represent industry-standard protocol for evaluating traffic.” While the FGEIS states half of the Iron Triangle’s auto traffic would use the Van Wyck Expressway, the latest EA lowers the figure to one third. An estimated 2,000 cars were not reassigned to local roads in the report, according to Ketcham, showing “operating conditions on local roads that are better than reported in the FGEIS despite carrying 26 percent more Willets Point trips. More trips, lower impacts: it is mysterious why EDC thinks anyone will believe this.” Ketcham claims the EDC’s repor ts willfully ignore the ongoing development within Downtown Flushing, with the likes of Flushing Commons, the RKO Keith’s, Skyview Parc and other big ticket projects adding to traffic congestion. “They just don’t complete all the calculations,” he said. “My analysis does. The frustration for someone like me is where is the planning? Where is the upfront analysis? They will build it and nobody will come because they can’t get into or out of it. Or the whole area will be gridlocked.”