The City's transportation engineer is responsible for administrative and engineering duties including comprehensive transportation planning, budget management, design of improvements and regulation of development.
The Transportation Plan was adopted in December 2024. This plan conforms with the comprehensive planning requirements listed in the Washington State Growth Management Act Chapter 36.70A.RCW and needs to be consistent with PSRC Vision 2050. The plan includes both short-range and long-range strategies leading to the development of an integrated multimodal transportation system facilitating the safe and efficient movement of people and goods while addressing current and future transportation demand as well as land use.
The plan identifies all existing conditions for the various modes of transportation, as well as the proposed safety and mobility improvement projects. Those projects consist of all projected improvements through 2044 (within 20-year plan horizon), including capacity / safety intersection improvements, revitalization corridor projects, traffic signal upgrades, proposed sidewalks / bike lanes / multi-use paths. A methodology / criterion for the prioritization of identified projects was established in order to include those in future planning documents. The 6-year Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) will be updated in Spring 2025 in order to reflect identified projects in the plan. Projects need to be identified in those planning documents in order to be eligible for future State and Federal transportation grant funding opportunities.
As part of the previous Transportation Plans, concurrency was only based on motor vehicle infrastructure needs in order to support existing and future conditions (considering projected future growth). Multimodal Level of Service (MMLOS) has been introduced as part of this Plan, referring to a concurrency program recognizing infrastructure needs for the entire multimodal transportation system, including motor vehicles, pedestrians, transit, and bicycles. A list of future projects for the entire transportation system, including capacity / safety intersection improvements, revitalization corridor projects, traffic signal upgrades, proposed sidewalks, proposed bike lanes, and proposed multi-use paths have been identified (Transportation Plan, p. 51). An evaluation criterion has been established in order to prioritize projects for both the MMLOS and non-MMLOS project lists (Transportation Plan, p. 79). The identified criteria are areas of safety concerns: recent collisions recorded within project limits, proximity to schools, parks, transit stops, growth hubs, public buildings, and PSRC’s Opportunity Index (based on different Education, Economic Health, Housing and Neighborhood Quality, Mobility and Transportation, and Health and Environment levels identified in sections of Edmonds).
The project team is currently working to develop new MMLOS transportation impact fees. The new vehicle and person-trip rates will be implemented on future development projects once they are adopted by the City Council. Trip rates will be determined based on the total cost of all identified MMLOS transportation improvements and the total number of new PM peak projected vehicle and person trips in the network over the next 20 years. Since MMLOS impact fees are a new industry concept, the City will be evaluating other cities on how they implement this new impact fee structure. The schedule to complete this work isn’t set yet and our project team is working to develop the new impact fee rates and evaluate other cities MMLOS programs.