Alameda City Planner Andrew Thomas’ letter to the editor (“City planner responds,” April 30) is disingenuous and borders on ludicrous. In a carefully worded statement, Thomas states that the City Council, Planning Board, and Alameda Point Environmental Impact Report (EIR) “did not say” at multiple public hearings “that the redevelopment of Alameda Point would result in only one car.” Far from producing the “Oh, OK then!” reaction he undoubtedly wanted, this declaration simply begs the question: Why not?

Why didn’t the city say what is obviously and undeniably demonstrated by the Alameda Point EIR? By Thomas’ own admission, the city had some 30 opportunities to tell the unvarnished truth about the Alameda Point project’s traffic impacts. Why did the powers-that-be choose to gloss over the truth and focus, instead, on the project’s dubious economic benefits and the Band-Aid approaches they proposed to mitigate the unconscionable traffic burden they were about to foist on Alamedans? If the city staff and City Council had presented the real facts, the people in those hearings would have said, “Not no, but hell no!” 

The Alameda Point EIR is a fantasy. Page 4C-92 by the year 2035, “Cumulative Project Conditions” state that the project’s impact is “insignificant” at the Webster and Posey tubes. Table 2-2, the summary table of the project impacts indicates “no traffic impacts” due to the project at the West End approaching the Posey Tube during the morning commute. 

Furthermore, tables 4.C-2 and Tables 4.C-15 in the EIR, with the exception of the intersection of Challenger Drive and Atlantic Avenue, all intersections on the West End had no significant delays during the morning commute today nor in the future year 2035 with Alameda Point and with all the homes proposed in the Northern Waterfront. How is this possible? 

And when traffic volume values shown in the figures in Appendix G are summed up — regardless of what Thomas says — the indisputable result is only one additional net car off-Island due to the Alameda Point project during the 2035 morning commute. (Figures G-6B and G-6C for 2035 no-project traffic volumes and Figures G-8B and Figures 8-8C for 2035 with project traffic volumes) 

Those claims are not only wrong, they defy common sense. They even defy Thomas’ statements in his letter: “In 2035…there will be no capacity left for more cars in the morning commute hour on Alameda’s bridges and in the tubes even without the redevelopment of Alameda Point.” 

Then there’s this statement: “After more than 30 hearings, the City Council and Planning Board determined that the benefits to the Alameda community from the redevelopment of Alameda Point outweighed the unavoidable transportation impacts.”

Thomas professes that Alameda Point will bring 9,000 jobs, attract $600 million in private investment to support job and business growth and support the existing business and residents at Alameda Point. But how in the world can Alameda support such growth at Alameda Point and the growth in the Northern Waterfront area, if the people cannot get from point A to point B? Common sense dictates that, before we bring development of that scale to our Island, we must first be certain we can accommodate the growth. Mobility is the first and foremost criterion in making that judgment. A major influx of businesses and people will do nothing but exacerbate already untenable traffic conditions on the Island.

The EIR, City Council’s actions and Thomas’s letter all have one goal in mind: to ensure that the development and real estate communities would go along with the Alameda Point and Northern Waterfront projects and its findings in the EIR. The people’s well-being was secondary, and the facts were twisted to tamp down public dissent. Still, the city refuses to focus on the truth that traffic will be beyond overwhelming if all the development projects take place. 

But that’s not the most alarming part of what is happening here. The Alameda Point EIR’s traffic data was used for the Del Monte project and is being used for several other new development applications. The city simply modified the Alameda Point EIR’s traffic volume data for a few intersections near the proposed development sites and then accepted all the other findings in the EIR regarding cumulative growth. The traffic study in this EIR is fatally flawed and should not be used as the basis for approving even one project, much less multiple 
developments. 

Don’t be misled by Thomas. The Alameda Point EIR’s traffic evaluations indisputably result in the conclusion of one net car off-island during the morning commute as a result of the redevelopment of Alameda Point. They constitute nothing more than a fairy tale. Alameda needs an honest, realistic traffic study of the predicted cumulative development, with reasonable assumptions regarding growth in jobs and housing, in order to realistically plan for the island’s future. 

An old saying comes to mind: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Shame on Thomas for trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the people of Alameda in order to push through the Alameda Point redevelopment and Northern Waterfront projects, despite the fact that it clearly is inappropriate for the island and will throw us into a traffic gridlock that will make all our lives miserable. Shame on us if we let him get away with it.

Eugenie P. Thomson PE is a licensed civil and traffic engineer, retired, and a long-time resident of Alameda. The Traffic facts and Figures cited above are available on the website of the Alameda Sun.