1. Notes for Transportation Presentation by James A. Garofalo,
November 13, 2010
SLIDE 1
James A. Garofalo, AICP [American Institute of
Certified Planners] PTP [Professional
Transportation Planner] has worked in the field of
transportation planning and engineering for about
30 years in public and private capacities in New
England and New York. James holds a BS in Civil
Engineering from Union College and a MS in
Transportation Planning and Engineering from
Polytechnic Institute of New York. He currently
works at Tim Miller Associates in Cold Spring as
Director of the Transportation Division.
SLIDE 2
Our objectives for this session are to cover a
sampling of common abbreviations in the field of
transportation, provide an overview of
transportation concepts that should lead to a better
understanding of transportation. Ultimately you
want to think transportation.
SLIDE 3
The field of transportation can seem very
mysterious with all the abbreviations that are
thrown at you. But really it’s more like alphabet
soup. And once you have deciphered what all those
letters mean, things just don’t seem so mysterious

2. SLIDE 4
SEQR stands for State Environmental Quality
Review. Here is where you identify and mitigate the
significant environmental impacts of the activity.
You can find out more by visiting
http://www.dec.ny.gov/permits/357.html
SLIDE 5
EAF stands for environmental assessment form. In
NYS This document is where most projects begin
and end. It is where technical aspects can be
satisfied without more detailed environmental
review.
SLIDE 6
DEIS stands for Draft Environment Impact
Statement. For larger projects the DEIS provides
the opportunity to notify the public of LEEDS
improvements. The DEIS follows a scope that
focuses the report on certain aspects. The DEIS
identifies potential impacts. Various improvements
or aspects of the project are often used to establish
why the project will not have an impact. The DEIS
although frequently written by the project sponsor
is ultimately the document of the lead agency
determining the matter.

3. SLIDE 7
The DEIS is the chance for the project sponsor to
blow the LEEDS horn and extol the virtues of the
project. Another way of looking at it is that the
DEIS gives you the opportunity to sell your project
to the public and explain all the environmental
improvements that will take place, kind of like free
advertising for the project.
SLIDE 8
For the next step (and also the next random
grouping of letters) we have the FEIS, also known
as the Final Environmental Impact Statement. Here
the project sponsor can highlight additional
environment improvements that are intended to
mitigate project impacts. The FEIS essentially is a
written response to significant comments on the
DEIS
SLIDE 9
MPO stands for Metropolitan Planning
Organization. MPOs are designated in urban areas
where more than 50,000 people reside. This
website lists the contact information on all the
MPOs in New York State--
http://www.nysmpos.org/about_us.html

4. SLIDE 10
TIP stands for Transportation Improvement
Program. A TIP is a list of transportation projects
that is developed by each MPO. These projects are
considered short-term.
SLIDE 10
The Regional Transportation Plan is the Long Range
Plan. For example, the Conversion of Route 17 to I-
86 is a long range element while individual projects
to improve exits or links are elements in the TIP.
SLIDE 12
DOT (not dot) stands for the Department of
Transportation. Every state has its own DOT. Their
websites contain vast amounts of information. New
York’s DOT is often called NYSDOT and its website
can be found at https://www.nysdot.gov/index
SLIDE 13
This slide lists some key NGO (non-governmental
organizations) that deal with transportation, just to
give you some familiarity with the acronyms. You
can read this so I won’t.
SLIDE 14
And here are the websites for the above groups.
Each contains documents relating to
transportation.

5. SLIDE 15
This might be what’s called thinking inside the box.
If there is a problem then there very well may be a
solution. But whether or not we can figure out a
solution will require taking our heads out of the
box and looking around.
SLIDE 16
Let’s get started.

6. SLIDE 17
So here we are at the heart of the issue--
Understanding Transportation. To understand it,
we have to comprehend the what, how, where,
who, why, and when.
In other words, if we plan to change things or
create things we best make sure we understand
what we are creating or changing.
SLIDE 18
So, what is the purpose of transportation?
SLIDE 19
One purpose is for moving people . . .
SLIDE 20
Another is for moving goods. This is a sugar cane
train in Australia.
SLIDE 21
Next comes how. How do we travel?

7. SLIDE 22
One way is to walk. Walking is the cheap and
healthy way to travel, but it is affected by weather
and has a high travel time component making
longer trips impractical. Walking for short trips can
reduce obesity and lead to lower blood pressure,
both positive health benefits.
SLIDE 23
Most of us drive when we need to go someplace.
We have to pay for fuel, tolls, and vehicle
maintenance. There is a movement towards more
efficient vehicles. How many of you have heard of
the BBC show Top Gear? They showed that how
you drive is as important as what you drive, no
matter how efficient or inefficient the vehicle is.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10467910-48.html
Now, this driver does not seem to be suffering from
road rage, but aggressive driving and road rage are
a very real issue for drivers today. Tailgating,
speeding, angry horn honking are just symptoms of
the bigger issue of aggressive driving. And
aggressive driving contributes to health issues such
as high blood pressure. Another driving health
concern not for drivers but for urban residents is
asthma, which today, according to the CDC, is
nearly double the rate of twenty years ago.

8. SLIDE 24
Flying is much safer than it was in the early 20th
century. Besides jet planes, in some remote areas
they use seaplanes and iceplanes to offer seasonal
access.
SLIDE 25
Let someone else do the driving—ride instead of
drive. Take a trolley, a subway, or a train; they are
all on a fixed route. Or take a bus, a vanpool, a taxi,
a limo, or a carpool—these are more flexible rides,
since they are not dependent on tracks and can
change the route they take from point A to point B.
SLIDE 26 In some places neither the trains nor
tracks have changed in a long time.
SLIDE 27
Where? Well, it’s not really where the wild things
are but rather ….
SLIDE 28
Where the infrastructure is. Here is a good example
of the link and node. This is the Monogahela Incline
in Pittsburgh. You can see the clear start and end
points, known as nodes, and the fixed link, the
actual track.

9. SLIDE 29
Ah, the lure of the open road. Roads are what
makes land so accessible to cars and trucks. Most
facilities have access to the road system either
directly or indirectly. But motorized vehicle
transportation over roads is the fastest growing
source of global warming, as well as a source of air
pollution, smog, particulates, and toxic chemicals in
our air. Building the roads leads to habitat
destruction. Road water runoff is a major source of
water pollution.
Driving in a car puts you in a bubble, isolated from
society. While you are driving your noisy, polluting,
environmentally-destructive car, you are negatively
impacting the community. And if you venture off
the roads in your car, you impact the environment.
The pervasiveness of the car in American society
has led to suburbanization and increased land
values in formerly rural areas.

10. SLIDE 30
But no one stays in their car forever. Eventually we
have to park the car, on or off the street. And so
parking is part of every development. How the
parking is used, and reserved and so on is a key
tool in efficient land use—parking consumes land
because people use their cars to get to a location
and need a place to leave them while they are
there. Automated parking facilities are one
innovative tool to address parking land
consumption, air pollution, and safety.
SLIDE 31
Bridges are a part of our transportation
infrastructure for walkways, roads, and rails.
Bridges are very expensive and are a long range
maintenance problem. To avoid wetland impacts
free span bridges are being used to cross wetlands.
There are abandoned bridges to consider, too,
although in some areas these are being turned into
pedestrian use. Right here in our area we have the
Walkway Over the Hudson, was an abandoned
railroad bridge converted for pedestrian use, at a
cost of nearly $40 million dollars. Even small road
bridges can cost over a million dollars to build.

11. SLIDE 32
If you’ve ever ridden a bus, you are familiar with
bus stops. Bus stops can have a fixed location.
There might be signs or shelters. In some areas
such as in Ulster County you can even call ahead on
some routes and flag a bus down.
More information is available at
http://www.co.ulster.ny.us/ucat/businfo.html.
SLIDE 33
Waterways are not only a commercial highway,
they are a recreational trail. Sometimes they are
also seen as an impediment. Providence, Rhode
Island moved two rivers that go through it to
rearrange the city’s road network. This is rarely
done.
SLIDE 34
In our little corner of the world large docks are
generally not going to be a concern. However,
smaller docks can become an issue. For instance,
SLIDE 32
Then there’s free air space. Well, even in the United
States air space is not so free. We have no fly zones
and air corridors for one-way travel.

12. SLIDE 33
The location of airports is fixed; you don’t see
mobile airports unless you’re on the ocean and then
they’re called aircraft carriers. There are
opportunities for a shift in the use, such as with
Stewart Airport moving to a more commercial
airport and being considered as a fourth New York
Metro area airport. In planning for projects,
building an airport is not going to be a concern. At
most you may have to deal with locating a new
helipad or an emergency landing area for a
helicopter.
SLIDE 37
As Amtrak says, Keep Moving. Rail stations and
tracks require a large capital expenses and years of
planning and design. Most projects will rarely be
influencing the location of this infrastructure.
Concern is limited to access to rail facilities.
SLIDE 38
Bicycles are a viable transportation alternative.
Here is a photo of a bicycle parking facility.
SLIDE 39
That brings us to who. Who uses transportation?
Everyone at some time.

13. SLIDE 40
Then there’s why. Why use transportation? To
answer that question, we need to consider the trip
purpose.
SLIDE 41
One reason is to have fun. We take journeys to
reach a recreation destination. These trips typically
take place after school, in the evening, and on
weekends.
SLIDE 42
Another reason we travel is to reach a social event,
a parade, a party, a festival, and so on. Typically
these occur on weekends or in the evening.
SLIDE 43
And we can’t forget school. Trips to schools occur in
the morning and early afternoon and are
sometimes staggered for busing.

14. SLIDE 44
Then there’s shopping. Travel for shopping is often
done after work and during the weekends, but
sometimes during the midday for those quick
lunchtime shopping fixes. In some counties in New
Jersey there are laws, restricting shopping on
Sundays.
SLIDE 45
People also travel to attend religious events. These
trips vary on which day of the week depending in
part on the religion.
SLIDE 46
There’s no place like home, the place we return to
after our travel. For most commuters this trip takes
place in the late afternoon.
SLIDE 47
And then there’s work. Most commuters make this
journey in the early morning, gratefully fleeing the
location in the late afternoon.
SLIDE 48
That leads us right into when. When do we make
these trips? The reason for the trip greatly
influences the when as mentioned in the previous
slides.

15. SLIDE 49
Are these commuters going home or going to work?
SLIDE 50
I don’t know. But what I do know is a typical
commuter area will have two major spikes in
traffic, one in the morning (which is very sharp)
and a second flatter one in the late afternoon. If
there are eating facilities in the area there can be a
third smaller peak at lunchtime. Saturday and
Sunday traffic is generally lower, unless you are
near a major shopping mall. Eliminating commuter
peaks can vastly reduce the needed capacity.
SLIDE 51
So where are we? Pittsburgh. But really, let’s get to
some facts.
SLIDE 52
In 2009, 33,808 people died in traffic crashes in
the USA.
Source: National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration 9-9-2010.
In Operation Iraqi Freedom from March 2003 to
August 2010, 3483 US Military personnel were
Killed in Action.
Source: www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf,
Viewed October 25th 2010.

16. SLIDE 53
The accessibility or travel time is critical in
transportation decisions. The mean travel time
commuting is 31.5 minutes for New York State in
2007 but over 40 minutes in the New York
Metropolitan area.
SLIDE 54
US Motor vehicles consume 378 million gallons of
fuel per day. (42 gallons per barrel)
Federal fuel tax is 18.4 cents per gallon.
Source: US Energy Information Administration at
http://www.eia.doe.gov/, 2009 data.
SLIDE 55
57% of the oil we use comes from non-US sources,
making us the number one importer of oil in the
world.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html
SLIDE 56
The US passenger fleet produces more carbon than
the entire Japanese economy, which is the world’s
fourth largest economy.

17. SLIDE 57
Look at how much land transportation can
consume.
SLIDE 58
A Stone Mountain “green” parking lot , an example
of attempting to address water runoff.
SLIDE 59
Transportation is the second most energy
consuming sector. Transportation is almost
exclusively (94%) petroleum based which
consumes 72% of the US petroleum consumption.
SLIDE 60
And where we have too many people and their cars
we have Congestion. The cost per person for
congestion in the New York Metro area is $415 a
year. This does not include lost tourism revenue.
We are currently trying to alleviate existing
capacity and safety problems.
SLIDE 61
The LEEDS difference is what brings it all together.
See also
http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentI
D=6422 for a separate presentation of the on
LEEDS Neighborhood.

18. SLIDE 62
The density of the land use is a factor in cost and
mode choice. Clustering is a means to increase the
land density. For example, for a bus route there
should be a minimum of 4 Dwelling units per acre.
If you have light rail you need a minimum of 9
Dwelling units per acre, and with rail it’s 12
Dwelling units per acre.Zoning and environmental
factors often limit density. Clustering and transfer
of development rights are two mechanisms for
increasing density.
SLIDE 63
Other factors to consider are Proximity (how close
things are to each other), and Mixed Use (the
combining of uses on the land). These factors can
reduce travel time, fuel use, and infrastructure
cost.

19. SLIDE 64
Connecting transportation Infrastructures is critical
to certain modes. While you might not be dealing
with the relocation of certain infrastructures, such
as airports and rail stations, the connections to
those infrastructures can be important. For
example, people will walk a quarter mile to a bus
stop or up to a mile to a rail stop.
SLIDE 65
Woodside Queens Where the subway above meets
the Long Island Railroad below. Connectivity.
SLIDE 66
Choices, choices. Transportation improvements can
affect the mode choice.
SLIDE 67
Vehicle efficiency is affected by many factors. The
fuel efficiency rate, the fuel type, and the vehicle
occupancy, for instance. The revolution in hybrid
vehicles is a rising factor. Here we see a graph
from the European Commission’s Oil Bulletin and
the EIA’s Weekly Petroleum Status Report, Table
17 [found at
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/price
s.html#Motor].
The cost of gasoline in the USA being about half the
cost in the six European nations shown.

20. SLIDE 68
Here’s a little mental exercise. Consider your local
high school. You can use resources such as the US
Census, your school District Website, the State
Education Website, and an onsite Inventory to
obtain transformation information to assess the
who, what, where, when, why, and how. Once you
understand the answers to those questions, you
can think outside the box to improve
transportation.
SLIDE 69
Questions?
SLIDE 70
Exit and read the fine print.

21. SLIDE 71
A list of the sources for images.
wpcontent.answers.com
http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/82/New_York_City_Gridlock.jpg/180px-New_York_City_Gridlock.jpg
box
http://www.citypa.ca/Portals/0/PDF/CommunityServices/Social%20Development/Images/alphabet%20soup.jpg alphabet soup
http://www.cdtcmpo.org/rtp2030/images/cong.jpg mpo
http://www.cdtcmpo.org/cert2004/transit_files/image004.jpg cdta
http://medicineworld.org/images/blogs/6-2008/car-crash-accident-390.jpg crash
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec3_7.pdf energy info
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/skemp013/architecture/Mall_of_America.jpg mall
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/image/s_dont_walk_sign.jpg don’t walk
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceancolor/additional/science-focus/locus/images/LA-smog-2.jpg smog
http://www.utexas.edu/research/cem/images/offshore%20oil%20platform.jpg oil rig
http://www.treehugger.com/us-money-photo.jpg money
http://www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/roman/pix/IV_clock_Westminster.JPG clock
http://www.healthspablog.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/healthy_exercise.jpg exercise
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://wallpapers.bpix.org/wallpapers/24/Mi-
24_Hind_Military_Aviation_Helicopter.jpg&imgrefurl=http://wallpapers.diq.ru/wp/24__Mi-
24_Hind_Military_Aviation_Helicopter.html&usg=__5PeKJHoOifL5p9f69nzcPi0PYys=&h=960&w=1280&sz=118&hl=en&start=12&t
bnid=SFtKi7j8k4IorM: helicopter
http://greencraft.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/easter-island.jpg Easter Island
http://pgpmatspjimr.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/stopwatch.jpg stopwatch
http://imagecache5.art.com/p/LRG/27/2798/G79OD00Z/stacy-gold-crowds-numbering-over-100-000-gather-during-the-college-football-season-
to-cheer-penn-state.jpg Density
All other Photos are Copyright James A. Garofalo 2009
And the presentation is available at
http://www.slideshare.net/jamesgarofalo/transportation-oct-2009
SLIDE 72
Well, this is The End
SLIDE 73
Try not to go the wrong way…
c2010 James A.Garofalo