Opinion ID: 870822
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: traffic studies

Text: The plaintiffs enlisted the services of Tom Brohard, a professional engineer, and submitted his declaration, as well as his October 2006 review of traffic studies for the Turtle Bay resort expansion project on the North Shore of O'ahu. In his review, Brohard asserted that [a]n appropriate traffic impact analysis of the [project] has not been conducted as of this date. Acknowledging the existence of various documented traffic studies for the project areaincluding those prepared in 1985, 1991, and 2005, discussed supra, Brohard opined that such reports do not match the EIS project description and contain fundamental errors in methodology. He stated that [t]he 1985 Report is outdated[,] and there are numerous errors, conflicts, and omissions throughout the 1991 Report and the 2005 Report[.] Brohard explained: The traffic analyses for the [project] have used a lessening annual background growth rate from 4% in 1985 to 3.5% in 1991 to 2.7% in 2005. Reducing the background growth rate is contrary to a number of factors including the significant increase in the number of vehicle registrations on O'ahu and increased visitor trips to the North Shore created by factors such as the increasing popularity of observing basking sea turtles and the proliferation of surfing schools catering to tourists. Each of these has contributed to the increase in traffic at Turtle Bay, with half of the overnight Waikiki visitors in 2005 traveling to the North Shore during their O'ahu stay. None of the traffic analyses have quantified vehicle trips generated by pipeline development in the study area. Certainly, a number of projects have been approved but not yet constructed or fully occupied. There are also others that are reasonably foreseeable in the next 15 to 25 years. Trips to and from pipeline development must be included in the base traffic volumes before trips for the [project] are added and analyzed. The flawed approach used in each traffic study significantly underestimates future base volumes. The revised evaluation must include vehicle trips from pipeline development that come on line as the major phases of the [project] are occupied. All planned and funded road improvements assumed to be in place at each project phase must also be identified. Failing to identify the proper baseline traffic volumes could certainly result in the failure to disclose significant traffic impacts when project traffic is added to the [project]. The future baseline traffic forecasts must be corrected and each of the resulting significant project traffic impacts must be identified, analyzed[,] and mitigated.