Travel Characteristics Related to Incomes
ATTACHMENT 6: WHY THE ASSUMPTIONS FOR RESIDENTIAL TRAVEL BEHAVIOR IN THE ATLANTIC YARDS DEIS IS OBSOLETE
The Atlantic Yards DEIS depends on data collected decades ago for travel for virtually all land usetypes. For example, trip generation rates for new residential units—actually multi-million luxury condominium units—is based on data collected in the early 1970’s for Manhattan, in locations in close proximity to transit. Times have changed. The most recent report on nationwide travel behavior, the USDOT’s “Summary of Travel Trends, 2001 National Household Travel Survey,” December 2004, reports:
Daily vehicle trips increased by 43% from 1977 to 2001
Annual person trips per household increased by 36% between 1983 and 2001
VMT per household increased by 80% between 1983 and 2001
Average annual vehicle trips per household increased by 46% between 1983 and 2001
For cities with a population greater than 3 million (most of data from NYC) the number of passenger car trips increased by 72% between 1983 and 2001
Travel by all modes in cities greater than 3 million population grew by 54% between 1983 and 2001
Person trips made by households with incomes greater than $80,000 were 38% greater than those made by all households
For households with incomes greater than $80,000 (the highest recorded) 46% more trips were made in 2001 than in 1983
Daily person trip rates grew by 42% from 1983 to 2001; however, the number of work related trips changed very little; all other trip purposes (recreational, school, personal business—84% of the total) grew by 50%.
8.5% of the waking hours of a person 35-44 years of age is spent behind the wheel of a car
In cities with a population greater than 3 million, the proportion of households without a car dropped from 25.4% in 1983 to 11.9% in 2001
The number of person trips made by people with an automobile was 39% greater than those without a car in 2001
In other words, people are traveling more; they own more cars and use those more frequently, the rich travel a lot more than median income people. The bottom line is that trip generation rates from the early 1970’s are simply obsolete and need replacing. Billions of dollars of land use decisions are made each year in New York City based on obsolete data that drastically under report project impacts. It is time for NYC to collect data representative of today’s population, not that of the early 1970’s when the City’s wealth and standard of living and their travel behavior were very different from today. Until this is done projects will continue to be approved that under report their impacts on communities. And the resulting impacts from new developments will not begin to be mitigated.
Because the City and State ignored this request for earlier projects, we should start with the Atlantic Yards. Stop the process until we have an honest and representative data base from which to derive realistic travel behavior.
Brian T. Ketcham, P.E.
Executive Director, Community Consulting Services
August 12, 2006
(Originally submitted to ESDC and their consultants, the same as for the Atlantic Yards, in comments on the Brooklyn Bridge Park DEIS, Sept. 7, 2005).