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7A Page 24 traffic study in the Draft EIR, assigning these trips to the surrounding transportation system results in the project adding 20 new PM peak hour trips on Woodside Road, east of Middlefield Road. The volume of site-generated trips decreases the further away a motorist is from the site, because motorists disperse, traveling on different roadways. Figure 7 in the Costco traffic study, located in Appendix D of the Draft EIR, indicates the trip distribution assumptions made by the traffic engineers for this study. This figure explains graphically how project related traffic is distributed amongst various routes leading to and from the site. Woodside Road carries 45,500 vehicles per day. The portion of Costco traffic on Woodside Road near the project site is less than 0.5 percent of the existing traffic and will decrease further from the site. Highway 101 carries 198,000 vehicles a day. The portion of Costco traffic on Highway 101 will be less than 0.08 percent. This amount of project-related traffic will not have a significant impact on these facilities. Future congestion on the main arterials would be a function of growth in the region as well as in Redwood City. It would not be solely attributable to the Costeo project trips. The traffic analysis evaluated the effect that Costco trips would have on the surrounding transportation system and identified one impact to the study roadway segments. The remaining roadway segments are not projected to have a significant impact according to the criteria used in the EIR. Item #8: The internalization trips obtained from the surveys of other Costco projects represent dual purpose trips regardless of the primary purpose of the visit. This is standard engineering procedure for determining the appropriate trip generation estimates for a given land use. Again, because this is an existing Costco with an existing membership base, the number of net new primary trips will be much lower than for development of an entirely new Costco location. Item #9: As referenced in this comment, the proposed tire center location under Costco's preferred project (evaluated as the Expanded Warehouse and Alternative Fueling Center Location On-site Alternative) would be closer to residences north of Middlefield Road than the location analyzed in the acoustical report prepared for the proposed project (tire center facing main parking lot and Orchard Supply Hardware). To minimize perceived noise exposure from tire center operations, the doors were oriented towards the adjacent SafKeep Storage facility. The operational noise associated with the tire center under this alternative would remain below the residential noise standard of 55 A-weighted decibels (see Draft EIR, page 9-13), and thus is not identified as an impact in the EIR. Even though the noise levels would be below the noise standard, it is possible that noise from the tire center may be audible at neighboring residential properties as a result of reflection off the adjacent self-storage warehouse building and the propagation of sound waves around the side of building. The use of heavy landscaping along the self-storage wall was recommended to control sound reflection; however, during the June 19, 2007 Use Permit hearing, the Zoning Administrator determined that an even more enhanced noise protection program would be beneficial to limit sound propagation around the sides of the tire center and to minimize noise reflection (this was added as a Condition of Approval of the Use Permit and is reflected in the Notice of Official Action). 6