Wednesday, November 25, 2009

EDC hiding impact of traffic ramps

From the Neighborhood Retail Alliance:

Central to this unethical-and perhaps illegal-end run, is the withholding of the Access Modification Report (AMR); and all of the data that has been generated to come up with the report that is the key to getting both state and federal approval for the ramps. While the report itself may still be considered, "work product," the traffic information that has been utilized to make it up, certainly isn't.

What exactly is the city trying to hide? Huge costs and unmitigatible local and highway traffic. As Brian Ketcham, WPU's traffic expert points out: "...the project will generate 80,000 vehicle trips on an average weekday (of which 2,500 are truck trips) and about the same number of trips for weekend days, with peak hour impacts of between 6,000 and 7,000 vehicle trips."

And nowhere in the original environmental review is the impact of the ramps ever actually analyzed.

This is a massive cover up. Although NYCEDC may be entitled to withhold records that are inter-agency/intra-agency communications, the portions of those records that consist purely of statistical or factual tabulations or data (such as traffic statistics) must be disclosed. FOIL explicitly says so. Therefore, NYCEDC has erroneously applied a claimed blanket exemption from disclosure to every element of the AMR, when no such blanket exemption is available. NYCEDC's denial is discretionary, not mandatory, and NYCEDC should not choose to deny access under the present circumstances.

Of course, the less the public knows about what kind of traffic the Willets Point development will generate, the less the hue and cry from local civic groups and elected officials. In addition, the greater the traffic mess, the greater the concomitant need to create extensive road infrastructure to mitigate-something that will be inordinately expensive for the city's strapped tax payers.

It's past time for this conspiracy of silence to be put to an end. This project's potential to damage local community quality of life is simply too great to allow a review process to be, not only advanced in the dark, but under conditions that suggest that the fix is in. Open the books up EDC-what are you afraid the public will find out?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

EDC likes to tell stories ... were they not the laughing stock when a story broke on another one of their stunts during the past week, eh?

Anonymous said...

10 lbs of crap in a 5 lb. bag!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Bovine Shulman needs to pay for her crimes. FBI, are you paying attention?

back in black said...

traffic will be slowed to 1mph on northern blvd in flushing....you listening mr liu-koo?

Anonymous said...

I guess the judge is on the take too.

More than likely troll...or should we say Evan?

Anonymous said...

"More than likely troll...or should we say Evan?"

You are so dumb it is painful to watch. I guess it just sucks to be you... Yes, of course, a Federal judge is in the bag for the city. I'd tell you to grow up and get a life but it is painfully obvious that you are way beyond that stage...

Anonymous said...

"You are so dumb it is painful to watch. I guess it just sucks to be you... Yes, of course, a Federal judge is in the bag for the city. I'd tell you to grow up and get a life but it is painfully obvious that you are way beyond that stage..."

I smell asshole!

Anonymous said...

I smell asshole!


Ya think? I guess Evan is getting very paranoid these days. His world might collapse at any minute and he may not be able to hide behind Mommy's apron strings, no matter how large they are! Evan is PaTROLLING Queens Crap again! Imagine calling someone dumb without looking in the mirror first.

Anonymous said...

I smell Biggie.

WTF? said...

"You are so dumb it is painful to watch. I guess it just sucks to be you... Yes, of course, a Federal judge is in the bag for the city. I'd tell you to grow up and get a life but it is painfully obvious that you are way beyond that stage..."

I can't leave you folks alone, can I? Could someone offer a reasonable explanation for this attack? I think some posters need to take an IQ test before publishing comments.

Queens Crapper said...

Please pay no attention to the troll. Let me clue you all in. He goes by the handle "Biggie Smalls" on other forums where a name is required. When he wants more support for his insane rantings, he changes his name to Raffie or a multitude of other names. The comments on the Iron Triangle Tracker blog were shut off because he started attacking the people who own property by calling them drug dealers, etc. He doesn't live in the city, but up in Rockland County. When I called him out on that, he started using an IP mask. This dude is beyond obsessed with this project. He knows information before it is made public as well. This is his M.O. Just ignore him.