49ers Stadium: Draft EIR, Pt. 1 - Traffic

Dear Santa Clarans,


The Draft EIR for a publicly-subsidized 49ers stadium was released on Thursday morning, and of course, it runs to many hundreds of pages. But it's certainly worth opening up the exhibits to see in detail the environmental degradation caused by an NFL stadium - especially a stadium our leaders intend to subsidize with hundreds of millions of dollars in public cash and in sums guaranteed by Santa Clara agencies:

http://santaclaraca.gov/index.aspx?page=1546

The traffic problems alone should give anyone, especially Santa Clarans living - and working - north of U.S. 101, reason for great concern. The main memo is a rather plump 373 pages, but it's worth it:

http://santaclaraca.gov/ftp/csc/pdf/49er-stadium-DEIR/49er-Stadium-DEIR-Text.pdf

I urge all of those interested to load it up anyway! Stop by the kitchen for a cup of joe, and then examine the charts, tables and conclusions you'll find in the document above. From here on, I'll reference page numbers at the bottom of each page plus the titles, which will make the city's own data easier to find:

Page 203, "4.8.4.6: Summary of Significant Traffic and Transportation Impacts" - An NFL stadium will cause significant adverse impacts at SEVENTEEN traffic intersections near the stadium.

Traffic control for this massive flood of cars will be provided by a multi-city police force of some 160 officers. "Adverse impact" is measured by intersection Level of Service, or LOS, which is measured in seconds of delay per vehicle. Those delay times will increase anywhere from two to five times as a direct result of 49ers traffic, with Level A being the fastest travel and Level F the slowest and most congested.

The 49ers traffic degrades all seventeen intersections to Levels E or F - and that's real traffic congestion.

Also, the authors try mightily to sever the impacts of Sunday NFL games from the impacts of weekday games - but 20,364 vehicular trips are 20,364, no matter what day of the week they're on. See Table 15 on page 176 for a very good summary.

As a result, I'm simply not buying the claim that NFL events will cause impacts that severe on a mere four days a year. It should be pretty clear that those days of congestion will be the rule for all NFL events and for all of the other major events which attempt to "fill" a stadium.

There's a word you're going to hear misused frequently when stadium supporters try to rationalize some of the real environmental problems caused by an NFL stadium, and that word is "mitigation". But note from report page 203, near the top, "The project does not, therefore, propose to implement any of the physical improvements described below."

Apparently, that means that we're going to "mitigate" the worst kind of traffic jams on Northside intersections by simply putting police officers in the middle of them - paid for by a Santa Clara Stadium Authority, yet to be formed.

In sum: From the standpoint of the traffic congestion alone, Santa Clarans are entitled to ask why we're settling for such degradation in the quality of life in our city's northern neighborhoods - and why we're paying $114 million in public funds for the privilege.



Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer

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