GP Transco or GP Trans Con

In what can be likened to a high stakes poker game, The Village of Plainfield, its citizens, and nearby residents and commuters, find themselves across the table from a giant with deep pockets. The trucking company GP Transco has applied for a special use permit to construct and operate a huge trucking terminal on Renwick road in Plainfield, about a mile east of Route 30. From the time of the Village of Plainfield Plan Commission hearing on June 19th, where rank and file citizens were the last to be dealt in, GP Transco has been playing its cards with the audacity of a cigar smoking poker shark who bluffs on every hand.

GP Transco Director of Marketing Sergey Bort, is doing the big boss’ bidding, by trying to stop the hemorrhaging of the true facts brought to light by the citizens, concerning the actual numbers of semi-truck trips per day (1300 upon full expansion, even according to their revised traffic study--page 262 of agenda packet). Bort asserted that, “drivers spend the majority of their day far away from home – that is how 98 percent of GP Transco trucks and drivers operate."

While that would be obvious for any trucking terminal whose drivers deliver all over the country, that in no way diminishes the amount of daily trips that can be expected from the proposed facility. First of all, it’s a freight terminal. It has been said by their attorney, Al Domanskis, that the proposed facility “will mainly be used for storage and logistics.”

No kidding. That is what a truck/freight terminal is. Do they expect us to believe that they will operate like those folks on that television show, “Hoarders,” where people store stuff in their garage for forty years? A truck terminal is used for very, very short term storage. There is a constant inflow and outflow of freight. When GP Transco’s trucks are all over the country delivering the freight they took out from the GP Transco facility, what do they expect us to believe will be used to bring in all the freight that needs to be replenished for the next round of trips—Volkswagen Beatles?

No. The additional freight will be brought in by more semi-trucks, most of which will not be GP Transco’s “clean burning trucks” they so blatantly brag about. There will be all different kinds of owner-operators and companies, using their trucks to billow diesel smoke and fumes into the yards and lungs of adjacent residential property owners, whose properties sit only 30 feet away from the access road to that terminal.

Domanskis also said, “Most of the trucks will leave on Monday and return on Friday, and there will be almost no trucks during the week.”

Maybe 286 semi-trucks per day is “almost no” according to an attorney for a huge trucking terminal. That is exactly what the daily trip number (Monday through Friday) is at the current facility, which has only 110 semi-trailer stalls. The proposed facility will have 312 to start, and 500 upon full expansion. (The revision asks for even more stalls to start--325!) And who would not believe that if this were approved, and GP Transco did request expansion to 500 stalls in the future, after putting all that money into building the modern office building, truck maintenance facility, etc., that it would be tough for the Village of Plainfield to say no.

The CEO of the company, Dominic Zastarskis said, “The truth is, the area is already being used for truck and trailer storage by a number of companies today, totaling to a similar number of future GP Transco trucks.”

That sentiment has been echoed by Jake Melrose, the Economic Development Manager for the Village of Plainfield. Melrose met with Steve Gulden, the Village Manager of Romeoville on July 12th, and according to Gulden, told him that the proposed facility would generate roughly an a.m. peak number of 116 trips, and a p.m. peak of 115 trips; and that is roughly the same as what is there now. Melrose told Gulden that if it were expanded to 500 storage spaces, the number of daily trips would increase by approximately, only twenty five.

That’s impossible. According to the Department of Transportation, there is only one registered trucking company currently occupying the property on Renwick where the GP Transco terminal is proposed. It is a company called Ensure Trucking. According to the company report, they have a fleet of only 20 trucks. Even GP Transco’s own application to the Village of Plainfield states that the existing site on Renwick “is primarily used for staging and warehousing materials for the businesses on the site.” In addition, even GP Transco's revised traffic study indicates that there is 21 total trips out of the current Renwick site during the a.m. peak hour, and 21 during the p.m. peak hour (page 231 of July 23rd agenda packet). The revised projected GP Transco total trips during those peaks are 77 total trips during the a.m. peak hour and 61 during the p.m. peak hour (page 242 of the July 23rd agenda packet). That's 138 trips in just two hours, compared with the 42 that is at that site now. "Similar number of trucks?"

GP Transco's attorney, Al Domanskis indicated at the July 23rd Public Hearing that the company is not telling half-truths. He's right on this example; it's much worse than a half-truth. The CEO should know better.

Milla Bullatovich, safety director of GP Transco said “Even with GP Transco’s proposed expansion in the next 20 years, at most, we could have 13 trucks passing each hour.”

That’s also impossible. They already have 286 trips per day (page 9 of their traffic study) at their current 110 semi-trailer stall facility, with the weekday morning peak hour number at 7 inbound and 12 outbound, for a total of 19 in that hour. The proposed expansion is up to 500 semi-trailer stalls. Why would anyone believe the 13 per hour number?

Cunningly written into the GP Transco application, on page 9 of the traffic study at the end of paragraph three, it states that, “The existing facility was observed to generate a weekday daily average of approximately 152 inbound trips and approximately 134 daily outbound trips, but no more than 13 inbound or outbound trips during any one hour.”
At first glance, most people would read that as no more than 13 trips per hour. Notice the word “or” in the above sentence however. It is differentiating between inbound and outbound trips. They are not taken together, but if you add both together, (Inbound 7 and outbound 12--page 9 of traffic study) you would get 19 at the current 110 stall facility in only one hour in the a.m., for a total of 286 semi-truck trips per day. Jake Melrose bought the “no more than 13 in any one hour” line and propagated that as evidenced in his quote in a July 9th article in the Patch by Shannon Antinori. Even GP Transco’s Sergey Bort, who knew better, still propagated that deception in an opinion piece to the Joliet Herald. To add insult to injury, he is equating this number of the current 110 stall facility to the new 312 semi-trailer stall facility (500 stalls upon full expansion). The revised traffic study corrected this, but only after we have been pointing that out for the longest time. Before that, they allowed the falsehood to be propagated, making no effort to correct it.

As the cards are being dealt, and the crescendo of the game approaches to when the final bets are made, GP Transco is pulling its traffic study in order to replace it. After getting hammered with the facts from lowly citizens staying in the game, when they were expected to have folded long ago, GP Transco is pulling a card from its sock. GP Transco knew that their original traffic study conducted by an award winning firm in Chicago, had the facts to take them down--1300 semi-truck trips per day upon full expansion. (The revised study still projects that number--page 262 of agenda packet!)
They are blaming the way the study was conducted, as if they were the experts in the traffic study field, instead of the award winning consulting firm, Sam Schwartz.

Sergey Bort said, “A traffic study was conducted by a third party, showing unrealistically high traffic of GP Transco trucks. Upon investigation, it was discovered that the high numbers were due to the way data was collected – instead of using the classic method of counting passing vehicles with a clicker and a stopwatch, data for the study was taken from the GPS units of GP Transco trucks. It was later discovered that the counted GPS signal often was multiplied by the software, causing the exaggerated traffic study numbers.”

So folks who run a trucking terminal are now more qualified to find the mistakes in a traffic study conducted by Sam Schwartz Transportation Consultants, of Chicago, IL, an award winning traffic study firm. I find it hard to believe that this firm would let something like GPS errors go over their heads.
According to a report on sciencedirect.com by R. Zito, and G D’Este, “The use of GPS receivers tailored for mobile applications, and able to provide direct observations of vehicle speed and travel direction, coupled with database management using geographic information systems (GIS) software, was found to provide a reliable and efficient system for vehicle monitoring.”

If anything, the GPS system would err on the side of lower numbers, given the number of times they would lose a signal. According to a study from the Institute of Transportation Studies, University of Berkeley, “Current GPS technology does not guarantee constant contact with 4 or more satellites, thus, occasional errors due to loss of satellite contact will occur.”

Has anyone any doubt that GP Transco will not stop with the traffic studies until it gets the low number it desires? Why don’t they just save themselves trouble, and have the same award winning company conduct a traffic study on the one truck they may have in a repair shop somewhere. Then they could get the total trip per day number down to two. One inbound and one outbound.

The Village Board of Plainfield will be conducting Public Hearings on this issue on July 23rd, and August 6th at 7 pm. Many citizens who have stayed in the game, and have an awful lot to lose will be in attendance. Why not join them? When GP Transco, who bluffed their way up to this point goes “all in,” I say the citizens, the commuters on Renwick, and the Plainfield Village Board, grab their one hand holding the card from their sock, look them dead in the eye and say “Call.”

Jeff Sniegowski
Plainfield

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