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124 Miles of CasinoTraffic! Traffic from the Federated Indians
of Graton Rancheria's casino will affect not only Highway 101, but alternate routes such as Petaluma Hill Road and Stony Point
Road and surface streets as well, especially in the City of Rohnert Park.
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| Hwy 101 Petaluma Northbound traffic (current) |
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124 miles of casino traffic. That's what we'd get on Highway 101 and local roads every twenty-four hours if the 3,000
slot machine casino proposed by the Graton Rancheria casino is built next to Highway 101
in Sonoma County.
According to traffic experts, each slot machine in a casino generates 13.6 car trips per day. The
Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria have been given 3,000 slots for their casino. That's 40,800 additional car trips per day - the equivalent of 124
miles of cars and buses if placed end to end. (see footnote at bottom of this page).
With 40,800 or more additional
car, bus and truck trips per day generated by the casino, we'll all be going nowhere fast. All the improvements
and additional lanes will simply be consumed by the casino traffic, and we'll back to square one - stuck in traffic
on Highway 101!
Caltrans refused to consider casino traffic in their Highway 101 improvement projects
traffic models. It was simply ignored when all the improvements to 101 were being made.
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Novato Narrows: Both former District 6 state Assemblymember Jared Huffman (now serving in Congress) and former state Senator Carole Migden spoke out against Caltrans refusal to consider the FIGR casino in the long-awaited
Novato Narrows project, an $800 million project that could see no net improvement as a result of Graton Rancheria
casino traffic. An entire land
on 101 just for casino traffic: Even
at the casino cartel's own low figure of 18,000+ vehicle trips per day, Rohnert Park casino traffic would need an entire
lane all its own on Highway 101 from the Golden Gate Bridge to Rohnert Park in both directions. Could the Federated Indians
of Graton Rancheria mitigate this? Well, according to Caltrans, it costs $20 million to build one lane of
freeway one mile in one direction. Federated
Indians of Graton Rancheria Chairman Greg Sarris promised to mitigate "all impacts" from the casino. He even stated (KSRO Marcy Smothers Show, July 2005) that
he would build new lanes "all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge" if it were necessary! Does anybody really
think the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria-Station Casinos gambling syndicate would spend this kind of money, just so
you can get to work on time? Most of any money needed
to make improvements to accomodate the traffic from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria's casino would be YOUR money
- federal and state tax dollars!! This isn't just
scare tactics: the situation is so
unnerving that in 2004, the Sonoma County Transportation Authority sent a three page letter sent to Sacramento that asked the Governor not to grant a compact for this site until all
the traffic concerns had been addressed. They have not been addressed in a meaningful way, but Brown ignored this letter
and gave Graton a compact for 5,000 slot machines. The big problem is, the traffic impact, like most of the Federated
Indians of Graton Rancheria's casino project's impacts, cannot be mitigated. The public will pay in dollars and cents,
in time, and in quality of life.
Chairman of the Federated
Indians of Graton Rancheria Greg Sarris claims that casino opponents' traffic projections have no basis in fact. Wrong
again, Mr. Sarris! Read the traffic study used by State Senator Loni Hancock in 2005. This
is how the experts estimate casino traffic, using an industry-standard formula based on the number of slot machines in
a casino. Why is casino traffic
different? A study in Connecticut by the State's Southwestern Regional Planning Agency found that casino
traffic differs from traffic generated by shopping centers, tourist attractions and office parks because of two things: 1. Casino traffic is not seasonal; the number of trips to and from casinos
is relatively consistent from month to month. 2.
Casinos operate 24 hours per day; there is no peak travel period to and from casinos thus traffic impacts of casinos may
be experienced at all times of day. See the traffic flow charts from
the casino's own environmental study:
Flow Chart: Traffic Entering Casino
Flow Chart: Traffic Leaving Casino
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| A Taste of Things to Come? |
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| Stuck in Casino traffic 24/7! |
5,000 HOURS STUCK IN TRAFFIC!
5,000 HOURS STUCK IN TRAFFIC: that's what Sonoma County drivers spend stuck in traffic on Highway 101. 5,000 hours. More
than a year of work days.
In fact, Sonoma County is the only Bay Area county to experience an increase in congestion;
by 2003, delays on Highway 101 in Sonoma County increased 18%, up 44% from 1999. Morning, noon or night - it doesn't matter.
If you're driving Highway 101 in Sonoma County, you're stuck in traffic.
5,000 hours. That's pretty bad. But what
if it were 10,000 hours? What if it took more than the usual half hour to drive the seven miles from Rohnert Park to the County
Administration Center in North Santa Rosa? What if it took an hour just to get from Rohnert Park or Cotati to the County Courthouse?
What if you lived in Rohnert Park, and wanted to shop at Costco or Target or Wal-Mart, but it took you 45 minutes
to get to the other side of town, because the casino traffic was backed up three miles? What if you were in an ambulance headed
for the hospital in Santa Rosa, but were stuck in traffic on Highway 101?
What if all the work that's been done
to date on the freeway and the alternate routes like Stony Point Road, as well as the new lanes to be added on Highway 101
in the future did nothing at all to make your commute faster and easier?
That's what will
happen as a result of the Graton Rancheria casino.That's why we have to keep fighting until we stop it!
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READING ROOM:
CLICK HERE to read the Sonoma County Transportation Authority letter to Sacramento (PDF)
Read Project 101's letter to Rohnert Park-CLICK HERE
| Looking at Casino site from Rohnert Park |
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PETALUMA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE says traffic from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria's casino would
be "detrimental to businesses throughout Sonoma County". Read the letter HERE!
Footnote:
13.6 cars per slot x 3,000 slots = 40,800 car trips per day
40,800 x 16' length cars/buses/vans averaged out = 652,800'
652,800' divided by 5,280' per mile = 124 miles miles rounded off.
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Stop the Casino 101 Coalition, Rohnert Park, CA info[AT]stopthecasino101.com
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