Traffic impact study: Christ Church numbers don’t add up
By Cindy Forrest
Staff writer
ROCKAWAY TOWNSHIP – The traffic impact study submitted by Christ Church expert Karl A. Pehnke to the Rockaway Planning Board began to look like Swiss cheese last night with Mayor Louis Sceusi shooting most of the holes.
What appeared to be a number discrepancy between documents submitted by church leaders to the state and the township may put the Highlands Act exemption granted to the church by the DEP in jeopardy.
The three-hour meeting began in the typical mundane manner with township traffic expert Scott Kennel questioning Pehnke about his testimony during the two previous meetings. At that point Pehnke’s report began to exhibit some signs of weakness when questions could not be answered and details left out. By the end of the quizzing Pehnke had a laundry list of information that needed to be put together and submitted to Kennel for review.
One cause for concern to Kennel was that the date of the last known correspondence with the Morris County Road Department. Since Green Pond is a county road, any traffic-control measures proposed would require county approval. When Pehnke confirmed the most current letter to the county was dated Nov. 19, 2003, Sceusi asked, "So we don’t know if there’s been any review of the revision to the plans?"
Previously Pehnke conceded the necessity of a traffic signal at the proposed site intersection with Green Pond Road as recommended initially by Steve Hammond of the county engineer’s office. A traffic light in that location would be the applicant’s responsibility to purchase and maintain.
During the 15th Christ Church hearing, Pehnke advised that a traffic signal at the intersection of Green Pond and Meriden roads might also be advisable. Since that light would not be tied directly to 107-acre site, its cost would not fall to the church.
Following Kennel, board members were given the opportunity to quiz Pehnke about the fine points of his research and the conclusion he drew regarding the impact of the Montclair-based church’s 5,000-person congregation on traffic along the Green Pond Road corridor north of the Route 80 intersection.
The church plan is significant because it not only includes a 2,512-seat sanctuary that would involve continual vehicular traffic on Sunday mornings but a 500 student K-5 school and numerous recreational facilities that would also affect the weekday rush hour traffic flow.
Township engineer, Lisa Ryden began the board questioning with inquires into whether the potential strip mall, The Villages at Rockaway, between Commons Way and Sanders Road was factored into the traffic study and also the logistics of the emergency access road at the former Agilent Technology site.
When Ryden was finished she passed the ball to the mayor. Sceusi, an attorney by trade, began his questioning slowly and methodically. His in-depth questions left big gaping holes not only in Pehnke’s testimony but also in the methodology he used to draw his ultimate conclusion, that the impact of Christ Church would still allow acceptable levels of traffic flow at affected intersections.
During the intense questioning even the simple questions were not answerable by Pehnke. Sceusi, "how far a distance is the Green Pond Road entrance to the Route 80 East interchange?" Pehnke, "I don’t know." Sceusi, "How about to Route 80 West?" Pehnke, "I don’t know." The questioning went on and on like that with Pehnke who was to have studied all of the factors not being able to answer basic inquiries.
At the break, Christ Church spokesman Marc Weinstein was optimistic. "This is what we’ve been waiting for," he said, "The opportunity to talk about the technical aspects of the project. It serves the public to know the technical versus just the controversial issues."
But the benefits of the information presented by Pehnke to the people of Rockaway began to dim when under questioning from Sceusi he said that he didn’t know how many township school buses passed by the proposed site every weekday morning. The audience of approximately 85 people snickered and outright laughed at his response. The reason for their reaction is that the bus compound for all of the township’s six K-8 schools is on Green Pond Road, north of the church site meaning that the answer to the questions is "all of them."
But the meeting very nearly came to a grinding halt when the mayor began questioning how many cars would be arriving and departing the church campus on weekday evenings Pehnke factored into his model.
Pressed about the effects of cars entering an exiting the area Pehnke testified that there would be less impact during the peak weekday evening commute time, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., because school lets out earlier in day. "Did you include 250 people on campus from 5 to 9 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Friday and 500 people on Wednesday and Thursday?" asked Sceusi. "No," replied Pehnke.
Pehnke explained that he worked off of the information given to him and testified to by church leader Rev. David Ireland. At that the mayor referred to Exhibit M, a document titled "Comparison of Sanitary Wastewater Generation" submitted by Ireland to the NJDEP while seeking an exemption to the Highlands Act.
That document showed that there would be considerable movement of cars during critical commuting time and a great inconsistency in the documents submitted to the township and the state.
The revelation caused somewhat of an explosion by board attorney William Dimins, who addressing church attorney Wendy Berger said, "Your client saying something to the DEP and something different to his own expert is disingenuous to this board." Dimins proposed halting the proceedings an hour early saying that "Exhibit M clearly sets forth that there is going to be a significant movement of cars during those times. If the information given to the DEP is wrong how do we make decisions? Are we to choose what is correct and what is incorrect?"
"The problem I have right now is that all of this testimony is questionable," said Dimins asking what would happen if this were a real court of law. In a court of law, Berger responded, "Someone would say that I made a mistake."
Berger went on to say that Exhibit M doesn’t deal with traffic it goes to water usage issues. Dimins jumped on that statement saying, "Yes, and water use relates to the number of people onsite and the number of people onsite relates to the traffic. I’m not a rocket scientist but this is a problem!"
At Berger’s urging, Dimins allowed the testimony to continue with the result that more inconsistencies and omissions came to light.
Another issue in question surrounds the formula used to calculate the number of cars that would be traveling to the former Agilent site for Sunday services. Given the number of congregants, the number of vehicles is derived from calculating the number of occupants in each car.
The research, done by Urban Tran and analyzed by Gary Davies of that firm, included surveying Christ Church members about their travel habits and actual car counting at similar churches. The Christ Church congregants were surveyed because at their current urban location, there is no dedicated parking lot and public transportation is available, so their current habits would not be indicative of how they would commute to the new Rockaway location.
The number of people in cars arriving for services at mega churches in Wayne and Old Bridge, along with the survey data, led Pehnke to conclude that there would be 2.1 people in cars arriving for services at Christ Church in Rockaway.
That number is pivotal in this hearing because it dictates the number of cars used in the model for traffic flow and for the number of parking spaces required. Questions about the viability of that number were also raised during the course of the last hearing making the validity of entire traffic report uncertain.
Due to the more manageable audience sizes at the last few meetings the next hearing will take place at town hall at 8 a.m. on May 2
Cindy Forrest can be contacted by e-mail at: forrestc@northjersey.com.

No it is 8pm - I guess they had a typo!

Lisa