ARITHMETIC ERROR CAUSES SCAG TO OVERSTATE CURRENT ORANGE COUNTY AIR TRAVEL, USING ALL AIRPORTS, BY ONE-THIRD.
THE ESTIMATED NUMBER OF OC TRAVELERS USING LAX AND ONTARIO IS OVERSTATED BY 80 PERCENT IN REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION PLAN.

Here is how the SCAG figures unraveled:

1. On February 13, 2001, Leonard Kranser, Editor of the El Toro Airport website, submits several comments as part of the SCAG DPEIR process. One is:

"Justify the construction of a second commercial airport in the geographically smallest and slowest growing county. Provide your estimates of the future number of passengers generated by county and compare this to existing data."

2. The SCAG published Response to Comments answered Kranser and others as follows:

"SCAG data derived from over 60,000 air passenger surveys taken at all six air carrier airports in the region as well as at Lindbergh Field in San Diego, indicates that Orange County currently generates about 16 MAP of origin-destination (O&D) demand (18.41 % of the region total, not including San Diego). The 16 MAP includes visitors, business travelers and tourists in Orange County."

3. Kranser sent the following June 2 e-mail to the SCAG contact person on the DPEIR.

"In the response to my comments, letter I39 on pages 4-154 and 155, the
statement is made that 'SCAG data derived from over 60,000 air passenger
surveys taken at all six air carrier airports in the region as well as
at Lindbergh Field in San Diego, indicated that Orange County currently
generates about 16 MAP of origin-destination (O&D) demand.'"

"The El Toro Airport website collects and Internet publishes information
regarding El Toro reuse. We have information from only two surveys of
passengers on our website."

"It would be appreciated if you could identify the six surveys referred
to in the response with title, date and a contact to facilitate my
obtaining copies. If they are not too voluminous, would you be able to
supply copies in either hardcopy or by an Internet ready format?"

4. The planner referred Kranser to SCAG's Legal Department.

5. After Kranser spoke with SCAG Legal and explained his interest, they e-mailed a suggested response from a planner. Attached was a Power Point file of a one-page chart giving O&D Demand Percentages by County:

"The survey responses are the basis for the proprietary Regional Airport
Demand Allocation Model (RADAM) owned by CitiGroup Technologies. Although SCAG receives the output of the model, the data collected as inputs to the model, as well as the model software is proprietary. However, to answer your question, the attached file indicates recent demand generated, as well as the demand served (by county).

"This message from SCAG does not answer my inquiry. The evasive response
only raises new questions as to why the information is being withheld."

"… Furthermore, in light of your e-mail, I now also request copies of all
SCAG documents and calculations used to develop the 16 MAP estimate of
Orange County demand from the referenced survey data, and copies of any
report to SCAG, from Citigroup Technologies, dealing with this matter."

"Please accept this e-mail as a request under the California Records Act.
A complete and prompt response will be appreciated. Thank you."

7. On June 19, Kranser telephoned and e-mailed SCAG's attorney, in part as follows:

"It has been 10 working days since I filed a request with you, on June 5 under the California Public Records Act. I called to ascertain your intentions regarding the response to my request…"

8. SCAG e-mailed back, the same day, in part:

"… due to pending litigation against SCAG related to the El Toro airport matter … SCAG is unable to provide you with records you are requesting. The California Public Records Act provides exceptions for 'proprietary data' and for 'records pertaining to pending litigation'…"

9. Kranser responded on June 21 in part:

"I believe that the exception may apply to attorney-client or attorney work product but not to other documents for a project whose approval results in a lawsuit. I believe that public records remain public records."
"It is difficult to understand why this material, which is of great public interest, is being withheld."

"My request has not been satisfied, for copies of the SCAG calculations
leading to the DPEIR statement, "Orange County currently generates about
16 MAP of origin-destination (O&D) demand (18.41% of the regional total,
not including San Diego)".

First of all, you provided a one-page table that states that Orange
County Origin/Destination demand in 2000 was 17.7%, of the Region, but
not 18.41% as stated in the response to my DPEIR question.

Secondly, the Region's O&D demand would have to be 90.4 MAP for OC's O&D
demand to be 16 MAP. (17.7% of 90.4 is 16.0). I have data from each
airport in the Region and Year 2000 O&D demand appeared to be
substantially less than 90.4 MAP. Are you sure that you did not
multiply the consultant's 17.7% of O&D demand for OC, not by regional
O&D traffic but rather by TOTAL passenger traffic - a figure which adds
in roughly 20 MAP of transit and connecting passengers? Please clarify
by providing the calculations."

11. On June 29, Kranser also had a long phone conversation with the President of Citigroup Technologies, the SCAG consultant. He did not recall OC O&D demand being more than 13 percent of total regional demand.

12. Kranser gave SCAG a two-day additional extension on the Public Records Act request. On July 3 he received a long fax which included 12 blank pages.

13. After hearing from Kranser about the 12 blank pages, the SCAG lawyer called Kranser on July 5 and related the following, per Kranser's notes:

Notes on telephone call, July 5, 2001 around 11 AM, from SCAG Legal Department.
She called me in response to my latest messages about the missing
calculation of the alleged 16 MAP of O&D demand for Orange County. I
have been suspicious of the number since I first saw it, and persistent
in tracking it down with SCAG.

Today, she said that they may have misstated the figure. "16 MAP is not
actually the Orange County O&D demand", she said. It is "actually 12
MAP", she said.

However, the calculation is not really a document covered by the Public Records Act so she won't send me anything in writing. However, Mike Armstrong of the Aviation Staff, will provide an explanation.

Apparently, as I suspected, they multiplied the total regional passenger
demand, which she said was "88.9 MAP", by an O&D demand percent for OC.
However, they now realize that the total passenger demand includes, she
said, "32 percent of the passengers at LAX and 3 percent of the
passengers at Ontario who are connecting" through and don't constitute
O&D (origin and destination) passengers. She says the 16 MAP includes
O.C.'s "fair share" of these connecting passengers who are passing through.

She was unclear as to what year she was talking about, but 88.9 MAP is,
in my data base, the actual total passengers reported for LAX, ONT, BUR,
SNA, LGB and Palm Springs for 2000, including connecting passengers.
The nature of the O&D demand percentage for OC is more nebulous. I
previously called her attention to what she today called "a discrepancy"
between two of their quoted percentages. She tied to explain, and seemed
to be saying that these percentages also attributed some of North San
Diego County and Imperial Counties to OC. Depending on which percent they
used, 17.69 percent or 18.38 percent, they got OC O&D demand of either
11.8 MAP or 12.28 MAP. Mike Armstrong averaged these to get 12 MAP which
he would explain to me.

Her office had faxed me 12 blank pages on Tuesday. She resent these
today. One of the pages was the consultant's chart showing OC Origin
/Destination for 2000 - "passengers generated in County" - as 17.7 %.

14. After talking to Mike Armstrong on July 5 Kranser e-mailed him:

Subject: Demand calculation

"Here is my understanding of our conversation this afternoon, and thanks
for your time. I want to be very clear as I may use this on our website, so please advise."
"Your best estimate of Orange County O&D demand for 2000 is 12 MAP,
rather than 16 MAP. That is the number of actual flights by persons
residing in or visiting OC during the year."

"The 16 MAP calculation resulted from staff inadvertently misapplying
the percent of OC O&D supplied by the consultant to total passengers in
the region. The 12 MAP comes from applying the O&D percentage only to
O&D passengers and excluding connecting passengers - which excludes 32
percent of passengers at LAX and 3 percent of passengers at ONT."

"I understand that the 12 MAP is your best estimate between two figures,
11.88 MAP and 12.28 MAP which came from whether Imperial and North San
Diego passengers using SCAG region airports were included or excluded in
the calculation."

"It was informative to learn that the consultant estimates that 7.0 MAP
of John Wayne's passengers are OC O&D with the remainder of the 7.77 MAP
coming from other counties or connecting through."

"Therefore, OC residents and visitors represent just about 5.0 MAP of the
passengers currently using LAX and ONT. Under the prior calculation they
would have been 16-7 = 9 MAP."

"Thanks."

15. Armstrong e-mailed back:

Subject: Re: Demand calculation
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 16:49:42 -0700
From: "Mike Armstrong"
To: "Leonard Kranser"

"Yes, very good summary. One thing that you might add is that some of the
connecting flights at LAX are to and from John Wayne. I don't have data
as to how many, though."

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Since JWA handled 7 MAP of this amount, the calculation overstated the number of OC residents, visitors and tourists using other airports by 80 percent. (9 MAP vs. 5 MAP.)
The 5 MAP includes overseas travelers.

This data refutes El Toro airport proponents' claims of much higher numbers of OC residents and visitors using LAX. It is consistent with information previously summarized on the El Toro airport website. See for example "Who Uses LAX? http://www.eltoroairport.org/issues/lax-use.html

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