Cornell's transportation-focused Generic Environmental Impact Statement (t-GEIS) has passed, in draft form, an adequacy review by the Town of Ithaca Planning Board. Copies of the document will be available for public review and comment Aug. 1.

The planning board granted the document adequacy status at its meeting July 16. Adequacy means that the document has covered all of the research and analysis that Cornell and the town agreed upon at the outset of the project, according to David Lieb, assistant director for Cornell's Office of Transportation and Mail Services (TMS).

The 439-page t-GEIS document identifies, analyzes and evaluates transportation-related impacts on the surrounding community of hypothetical population growth at Cornell over the next decade. It contains an assessment of current conditions (including surveys of commuter behavior and parking), and explores potential effects and mitigation strategies for four hypothetical population-growth scenarios.

Nearly all impacts under these scenarios can be addressed by strategies to reduce single-passenger vehicle traffic and which encourage walking, cycling and use of public transportation, Lieb said. At the highest growth levels, some intersection upgrades and changes to traffic signal timings may be appropriate, he noted.

In the proactive spirit of the t-GEIS, Cornell has already begun the process of implementing some mitigations recommended in the document, Lieb said. These include partnering with Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit (TCAT), the city of Ithaca and Ithaca College to launch a communitywide vanpool program; and providing significant support to the fledgling not-for-profit Ithaca Carshare initiative, which launched June 25.

The t-GEIS will be available to the public on or before Aug. 1 on a Web site set up by TMS (http://www.tgeisproject.org). Paper copies will be available in Mann and Olin libraries on the Cornell campus, the Town Planning Office at Ithaca Town Hall, the City Planning Office in City Hall, the Tompkins County Public Library and the Ithaca College Library.

"The underlying goal of the document is trying to get people out of their single-occupancy vehicles and into alternative methods of transportation," said Annette Marchesseault of Trowbridge and Wolf Landscape Architects, the Ithaca firm that assembled the document and conducted bicycle, pedestrian and neighborhood livability analysis.

Among the findings of a local transportation survey released in March 2007 (included in the t-GEIS):

The public and involved government agencies can comment on the contents of the t-GEIS draft before it is final. A public hearing is scheduled for Sept. 16, following an information meeting at a September date and location to be announced.