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February 21, 2008
Down the EIS rabbit hole: how growing subway ridership was finessed in the AY environmental review
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes another look at the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement, analyzing the tension between the methodology used by the ESDC to estimate future growth in transit ridership [not a lot], and reality [a lot!], and how the question of ESDC's projections played out in the lawsuit challenging the EIS.
Given that subway ridership in New York City has been growing steadily and just grew 4.2% overall in one year, as pointed out in news coverage February 7, how could the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) claim an 0.5% "background growth" rate for transit when it conducted its analysis of the Atlantic Yards project?
It's another example of the tension between reality and legality, in which a judge just has to agree that an agency's analysis was reasonable, without being able to second-guess it.
Posted by eric at February 21, 2008 10:19 AM