Opinion ID: 3012414
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Traffic Safety Concerns

Text: The municipal defendants flag several different concerns regarding traffic safety issues that they say show that the site plan that Lapid proposed was unreasonable. Several of the criticisms that the Board's experts presented on the traffic safety issues center on potential hazards at the point of ingress and egress from the Facility's proposed parking lot, particularly the fact that the entrance to the parking lot requires a 180 degree turn for cars turning right and a sharp turn across oncoming cars for cars turning left. Both Harold Maltz, the Board's traffic consultant, and Paul Ferriero, the Board's engineer, opined that the turns into the parking lot were too sharp and would force cars to make multiple-point K turns that would disrupt the flow of traffic into and out of the Facility's parking lot and would increase the likelihood of an accident. Maltz stated that a vehicle coming south on Martine [Avenue] making a right, [would] essentially [be required to make] a hundred and eighty degree turn to turn into the site, . . . [and the vehicle would have] to be able to make another hundred and eighty degree turn to drop off a passenger at the main entrance. Ferriero commented that in order to make the two sharp turns that a car must make in order to reach the passenger drop off area, a driver would have to be very familiar with the site or have planned in advance. Similarly, Maltz predicted in his written report that a car attempting to make a right turn after entering the parking lot would tend to stray into the lane of oncoming traffic (due to the tight 180 degree turn that is required), thereby increasing the likelihood of an accident. The Board's experts also predicted that the defects in the point of ingress/egress would increase the risk of an accident happening on Martine Avenue. Sergeant James Rau, the police department's director of traffic safety, predicted that the difficult turn-in site and its closeness to the intersection of Martine Avenue and West Broad Street would cause cars turning into the Facility to pause for longer than normal. He concluded that this would increase the likelihood of accidents. Rau also stated in his report that drivers seeking to go south on Martine Avenue through 33 a green light at the intersection of Martine and West Broad could be forced into the right lane (to go around cars waiting to turn left) and would be forced immediately to switch back into the right lane (to avoid cars turning in to the Facility's parking lot). This, he concluded, would also increase the likelihood of accidents. Lapid's engineer agreed at the March 4 meeting that redesigning the area of ingress/egress was a good suggestion, but failed to submit a redesigned plan dealing with the traffic safety criticisms regarding ingress/egress. Lapid also did not point to any information in the record that contradicts the Board's experts' opinions that the design of the entrance to the Facility's parking lot posed traffic safety hazards. The Board's experts also raised concerns about internal traffic safety, i.e., within the Facility's parking lot, especially with respect to delivery trucks that would be forced to go around to the loading dock at the south side of the building and would then be unlikely to be able to turn around without backing up a long distance. Both Ferriero and Maltz testified that the parking lot's layout would require delivery trucks to back a long way out of the driveway into the parking area in order to turn around and that this would create a situation that was hazardous to public safety. Ferriero commented that to leave the[loading area] would require a fairly long backing maneuver across the pedestrian access to the site. Similarly, Maltz observed in his written report to the Board that [t]here is no K-turn ability for trucks readily available from the loading zone or dumpster area, except after backing up about 200 feet around a curve and across a painted crosswalk. Lapid has not pointed to any place in the record where it countered these criticisms. And, although Szalay, Lapid's civil engineer, agreed at the March 4 hearing that it would be a good suggestion to create a turn-around area for trucks, Lapid did not alter its site plan to account for the problems that the Board's experts flagged.