-against-

.METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY and HOME DEPOT, U.S.A. INC.

Respondents,

I, BRIAN KETCHAM. P.E., being duly sworn, deposes and says the following statement to be true:

1. That I am a licensed professional engineer with extensive experience as an environmental expert. Mv qualifications are summarized as follows: I am president of Brian Ketcham Engineering, P.C., a transportation engineering firm, and Executive Vice President and Technical Director of Konheim & Ketcham, Inc., an environmental planning firm. I have extensive experience in all transportation-related fields: traffic, transit, air quality, and noise impact analysis; truck routing, parking plans. pedestrian flow, and associated socio-economic analysis. I have more than 30 years of professional experience and have performed dozens of complex traffic. and mobile source air quality, studies, managed environmental assessments of large-scale transportation projects (highways, shopping, centers, residential developments, hospitals) and prepared several extensive truck route plans. As a New York City official in the early 70s, I authored the nation's first comprehensive transportation control plan to meet federal air quality standards, incorporating pioneering strategies that have come to be known as transportation systems management programs. I continue to help formulate regional transportation police as an active member of several advisory committees. The details of my work experience are contained in the attached resume.

2. I have reviewed the Environmental Assessment Form ("EAF") in the above entitled proceeding and I have determined that there may be significant environmental impacts that have been inadequately reviewed or completely omitted from the EAF. By virtue of respondent's failure to take a "hard took" at significant areas of environmental concern, particularly the complete failure of respondents to analyze such areas as noise and the clear understatement of traffic volumes and their consequences, it is my opinion that the SEQRA process utilized in this action is flawed. A full environmental Impact Statement is required to properly identify and mitigate full negative impacts and to fully assess alternatives to the project.

3. First, the issue of noise is completely absent in the EAF. Traffic noise is already significant in the area. This project will add more than 1,000 trips to or from the area on Saturdays (and probably more. See 6 and 7 below). Some proportional increase in reported traffic near and through residential communities is more than doubled from baseline levels in some areas, even the traffic levels reported in the EA.F could produce a net increase in noise greater than 3dBA Leq, a significant impact on the surrounding community. Noise in critical locations should be investigated, and negative impacts mitigated.

4. Secondly, the impact on air quality is inadequately analyzed. SEQRA criteria for a potential significant impact includes inducing "1,000 or more vehicle trips in any given hour." For Saturdays, the traffic study reports 967 (net), just under the standard. The analysis has likely underestimated trip generation (See 6 and 7 below), so has not given traffic- impacts a "hard look." Moreover, far too little information is provided in the EAF to determine if their analysis is correct or not. The most important of the missing information for the air quality analysis is travel speeds and any basis for determining whether or not they are reasonable. Vehicle emissions are heavily dependent on travel speeds. Given the size of the intersection analyzed, with four or five approach lanes, and the volumes of traffic processed with resulting long queues, speeds could make a significant difference.

5. Third, the traffic report fails completely to access effects on nearby highways, On page 27 of the, traffic analysis, the EAF states that "... the Interborough Parkway, Woodhaven Boulevard and Metropolitan Avenue would be the major travel corridors carrying the majority of project traffic in the immediate vicinity of the site. However, away from the vicinity of the site, project traffic en route to and from the farther areas of Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan would use other freeways and arterials including the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, Union Turnpike, Atlantic Avenue and Jamaica Avenue..." While the traffic report takes a look at (not a "hard look" at) Woodhaven Boulevard and Metropolitan Avenue, it ignores completely the Interborough Parkway, which has been assigned fully a quarter of the project traffic, let alone the other highways listed above. The problem is that all of these highways , including the Interborough, are at or near capacity during peak- hours- Adding 200 to 300 vehicles an hour to any of these major roads during peak hours could produce significant -impacts in the "...principal market area for the proposed Woodhaven Boulevard Home Depot..anticipated to ..."primarily serve" ...-western Queens and portions of Brooklyn".

6. The omission of local and regional effects are made, all the worse by the under reporting of project generated traffic. Trip generation for the subject Home Depot is based upon counts taken in low density locations in Suffolk County and in New Jersey locations where population densities are one-fifth to one-tenth those in Queens. When there are two Home Depots in Queens, these choices are entirely inappropriate. Clearly, within the market area of a Home Depot, a Queens location can draw upon upwards of ten times the population, attracting far more trips than in Suffolk County. The inappropriateness of the Suffolk County data is reinforced by the reference on pg. 27 of the traffic report to the ITE Trip Generation Manual. Were the ITE hardware store trip generation rates to be used for all but the garden supply section of Home Depot, and the closest ITE category, buildings supplies, used for its garden supply section, the number of trips generated would be 1,277 to 1.960 for an average of 34% greater than assumed for a Saturday peak hour.

7. The EAF reveals a second basis for concluding the Home Depot trips are under estimated. When one rolls back the projected 2% per year growth in traffic due to growth and nearby developments from the future no build and future build, one can see that a lower trip generation rate was used for Home Depot than for other retail development of the site. The 116,000 square feet of retail in the future no build condition is projected to generate a total of 483 trips in the Saturday peak- hour moving through the Metropolitan Avenue/Woodhaven Blvd. intersection. Home Depot is estimated to add just 354 trips to this intersection in the Saturday peak hour. Adjusting for the relative size of each project (137,000./116,000 times 483 = 570) suggests that the Home Depot should add 570 trips at this intersection, not 354, which is 38% lower than the future Seattle no build retail trip generation rates. Were uniform assumptions to be used for both conditions. and no reason is given for not doing so, then Home Depot generates 1,460 trips rather than the 1,069 reported- The higher, more probable numbers of trips would dramatically affect traffic levels of service and air quality.

8. The use of the unrepresentative locations for projecting trips from the proposed site is a key flaw, not just in terms of under reporting traffic impacts. but other effects on the community which can be severe. An accurate assessment of trip generation also determines whether or not this Home Depot project will provide sufficient parking, If it has not, cars will spill over, clogging nearby streets. Under reporting traffic volumes also results in over estimating travel speeds, which, in turn, results in significantly under estimating air quality impacts. The air quality analysis indicates that the impact of this project is at best border line, i.e., it is producing levels (8.6 ppm) just shy of exceeding the National Ambient Air Qualitv Standards of 9.0 ppm Carbon Monoxide for an 8-hour average. Use of proper volumes and speeds could produce a significant adverse impact. As the air quality report reveals, the proposed traffic mitigation has no effect on reducing air quality impacts. Therefore, the apparent deliberate underestimation of traffic volumes has led to an inaccurate conclusion about air quality impacts, which is a significant impact under SEQRA.

9. Another omission in the EAF is not accounting for the constraints of accessing this site. Even when adding a northbound traffic signal, at 73rd Avenue, access to the site is extremely circuitous, making it very difficult for 10,000 to 12,000 people a day to enter or leave the site. The difficulty of getting in and out, and the inevitable traffic tie ups will have a severely negative impact upon residents residing in close proximity to the project.

10. Pertaining to mitigation, the geometric changes at three intersections are appropriate. However, given existing traffic conditions, these should probably be done regardless of the Home Depot. Tinkering with signal timing may not be an option since traffic signals are optimized by a computer to serve chancing traffic demand along a corridor. The EAF, by assuming no-build signalization would continue in the existing un-optimized manner, and then proposing some optimization to facilitate project traffic, overstates the effectiveness of the mitigation.. The overstatement of the improvement attributed to the project masks its true increment and future no build conditions, thereby underestimating the project's true impact.

The failure of mitigation at Woodhaven Boulevard and Metropolitan Avenue is a telling example of the limitations of the proposed mitigation to effect a difference. Mitigation has no impact on air quality even when five years meteorological data was used in the analysis. At 8.6 ppm, Carbon Monoxide levels are very near the 9 ppm national 8-hour standard. A slight decrease in speed could produce a violation.

11. Finally, SEQRA mandates the preparation of an EIS, whereas in this case the project will produce a significant impact on noise, community character, traffic and air quality. As demonstrated above the EAF inadequately, or utterly fails to address these issues.

Brian Ketcham, P.E.

October, 1997

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