I I . BACKGROUND DATA 



This section describes how visitor forecasts for Aquarium attendance and 

 employee travel demand, along with forecasts of other activity In the Navy Yard, 

 were developed for the 1994 design year. The latter forms the background traffic 

 conditions to which travel associated with the new Aquarium facility activity Is 

 then added. A design year of 1994 was chosen since by this year the balance of 

 development In the Navy Yard should be complete, the new Aquarium facility would 

 be fully operational, and construction of the CANA Project and In City Square 

 should be completed. 



1. Aquarium Travel Forecasts 



Travel demand associated with the Aquarium facility will be a function of 

 both Aquarium employees and visitors to the new facility. 



Estimates of Aquarium employment levels were provided by the New England 

 Aquarium. In the 1994 design year, It Is estimated that 300 employees would work 

 at the facility on a typical peak summer day, and that half of these employees 

 would travel to and from work during the morning and evening peak hours. 



1987 visitation Information for the New England Aquarium was obtained 

 directly from the Aquarium staff. Tables 1 and 2 show the 1987 total visitation 

 volume of 1,261,180 broken down by month, day and hour. As shown In Table 1, the 

 monthly volumes vary considerably throughout the year. Peak visitation occurs In 

 August, and Is more than three times greater than the lowest month, which Is 

 January. Dally and hourly levels of visitation for August are shown In Table 2. 

 The largest dally volume occurs on Saturday. Hourly peaks for each day occur at 

 various times between 12:30 PM and 4:30 PM. 



A number of assumptions related to Aquarium visitation were tested. Based 

 upon Information provided by Aquarium staff, the existing average visit length Is 

 two hours. For the new Aquarium, this was raised to 2.5 hours to estimate the 

 visitor departure volumes. An average vehicle occupancy (AVO) of 2.5 persons per 

 vehicle was used. Following an Initial round of analysis, a "working scenar lo" was 

 selected for opening year 1994, as follows: 



o 2.1 million visitors/year; 



o 25% of visitors access by means other than private automobile; 



o Percentage of visitors In July and August Is 32. 4%; 



o Average vehicle occupancy of visitors arriving by car Is 2.5; and 



o Average length of stay of two and one-half hours. 



Table 3 shows the projected visitor volumes for 1994 compared with existing 

 admissions. The future year scenario assumes that 25X of visitors arrive by means 

 other than private auto and that 32.4% of total visitation occurs during July and 

 August. Table 4 shows the dally and hourly distribution of visitors for August, 

 1994 under the working scenario. It is anticipated that the peak day will continue 

 to be Saturday, and the hourly peaks will occur at various times during the early 

 afternoon. To conduct the transportation analysis, two peak conditions were chosen 



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