The newly-released revised Draft Environmental Impact Report discusses the potential impact of the proposed Shops at Santa Anita on traffic in Arcadia in a manner that is as congested as the unwieldly name of the report itself.
Traffic is surely the single most concerning element of the proposed development. Therefore, a report of this magnitude needs to offer average residents an easy-to-understand summary of the results.
The report is filled with data relative to traffic flow and car volumes and peak and off-peak hours and mitigations and grades of A-F (including "E").
But none of that means anything to the average Arcadia resident. Sure, if one muddles through a few hundred pages and charts he might find some comparative grades for the current traffic of a given intersection, a grade for that same intersection in 2009 without the project, and a grade that reflects the projected traffic when developers implement mitigations such as additional right-turn and left turn lanes and computerized traffic signals.
One would draw the conclusion in the report that there are 20 intersections that will be significantly impacted by the proposed development, 15 of them in Arcadia. And it would appear by spending hours looking at grade comparisons in this report, that all but a few of them would be improved by the development and its mitigations, with the others remaining at the same grade levels even after the mitigations.
But how do we know what a "C" grade means, for instance?
This report needs to break this kind of analysis down for residents to better comprehend in terms that we can relate to.
It's like the old comedian's joke about how complicated weather forecasts have become with all the new technology, when the only thing that most of us really want to know is whether we'll need to take an umbrella or not.
In this case, all we really need to know is whether this proposed development will make us have to spend more time driving the streets of Arcadia and whether it will put more cars on our residential streets.
That should be made easy for us to determine with something simple like the following:
"Today it takes an average of ?-minutes to drive down Huntington Blvd. from Santa Anita to Baldwin during peak hours.
By 2009, if no major developments are added, that time will increase to ?-minutes.
By 2009, with the proposed development and the mitigations, that drive is projected to take ??-minutes."
That's primarily all we need to hear or read. And the same concise comparison should be made available for each intersection and street.
If we see that the average wait time at an intersection now is 3 minutes and will grow to 5 minutes by 2009 with no development and be reduced to 2 minutes with the development and its mitigations, then that is an obvious improvement at no cost to city taxpayers. If the time will grow, then that is an obvious downside.
It's that simple.
The developer, Caruso Affiliated, has said they will work to try to prepare this type of specific data.
But why leave something of this importance to the developer or their opponent to provide with their slanted conclusions?
We at Arcadia Wins! call on the city, which is responsible for the report, to provide this type of clear summary, preferrably in time for review by residents in advance of the Planning Commission public hearing on this report on November 28.

Scott Hettrick
founder, Arcadia Wins!