2006-02-24 TKona_REZ05026 - Laserfiche WebLink

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GRAHAM:Any other Commissioner questions? Actually I could make a question of Mr. Yamamoto if you want to come forward again for a second. This is only somewhat related to this application but its sort of a general issue I run into with Traffic Analysis Reports that we get before us all the time on larger application for rezonings. And it relates to the way you folks typically classify category A, B, C, D of whatever level of service. We typically, the Traffic Impact Analysis Reports are sort of long and tedious to try to read through for us and understand and all and so you tend to jump to conclusions and try to get a sense of the whole thing before you go into detail. And then we always see in the conclusions sort of to the effect that well currently levels of service is at D at some intersection and you add this project its still level D so theres no adverse impact. To me that kind of reads like you classify a poor man as a guy who has less than $20 in his pocket, a middle class man who has 20 to 100 and a rich man as over a 100 and you say well I now had 80 and they stole 40 but hes still middle class so theres no adverse impact. Well obviously there is adverse impact and for me when theres less traffic on the roads whether its still in category C or not theres adverse impact. The adverse impact may beveryminimallikeyouonlyhavetowait3secondsormaybeyouhavetowaitanextra20 seconds. And I would really appreciate it if you would make a little more specific thing saying the level of the wait during rush hour will extend from so and so and so and so rather than just saying theres no adverse impact which we all know doesnt make common sense. So Im opening it up just for you to comment on that rather than me just put forth my gripe. Please do. YAMAMOTO:Okay and in the United States of America the Federal Government, U.S. Department of Transportation through its various research agencies has developed standards for highway performance. And the Traffic, Transportation Research Board, which is one of the research arms, has developed different levels of standards for different types of roadways. For signalized intersections they develop one standard and like you say you go from say for signalized you go from 40 seconds to 41 seconds you change a level of service. And if you want to be die hard about it that, you had a change of level of service. And that is just the definitions that are set forth in the United States. Other countries do not use level of service they just use say delay, which is whats the definition of (inaudible) based on. In our reports we also get besides the level of service we do give the delay alongside so you can compare that it went from 34 to 37 seconds. So you can see that there was a 3 second increase in delay and again that may be when you say that may not be an-. Thats the magnitude of change and thats not really considered an adverse impact. Do I? GRAHAM:But theres nothing in the Department of Transportation or theres nothing in the United States Rules that say as long as you stay within a certain level theres no adverse impact is there? Is that not your own, your own value judgement? YAMAMOTO:Every jurisdiction can make their own you might say call on level of service what they want. And, in some places that Ive worked in say in California cities they have different acceptable standards for a urban say a heavy urban area like a downtown area. You may have level of service E as being acceptable. But in residential areas, level C you know this is in the same town that then you define level C as acceptable in a residential area but if you come downtown level of service E is acceptable. And the reason that they may not want to say, give too high a level of service for places they know that should be you know always congestions associated with say downtown areas is that if they said level, you have to have level EXHIBIT E 11