Collaboration and Vision: The Seaside Transportation System Plan

Collaboration and Vision:

The Seaside Transportation

System Plan

For decades the City of Seaside and ODOT have struggled with how to address traffic congestion on Highway 101, often resulting in impasse and strained relationships within the local community and between the community and the state.

The Setting

• The transportation debate came to a head in 2005, when the highway construction project known as Pac-Dooley was voted down by the Seaside Community

• More than half of those who voted felt that the Pac-Dooley project was “too big of a fix” for their small town and would negatively impact businesses

The Setting

The Setting

“The project has been among the most contentious issues in Seaside for years…”

Early one-on-one meetings with community and agency leaders revealed minimal trust in the community where ODOT was concerned and no clear consensus about how best to address the ongoing problem

Getting Started

Stakeholder Feedback

“Community input doesn’t matter.”

“ODOT and the City don’t talk with each other.”

“I get conflicting messages depending on

who I talk to.”

“The City needs to be part of the solution too.”

A Foundation to Work From

The team agreed to some key principles:

• Talk straight with each other and the community about all the tough issues

• Create a transparent process - sharing every step (regardless of scale) of the work

• Post everything on the website and update it weekly through blog-like format, sharing exactly what the team did that past week

• Enlist the community to help solve the problems

• Ask community leaders for guidance along the way

Working Collaboratively

• The City and ODOT agreed to start talking with the community together

• And in the process the agencies began to listen and understand each other too

• Early TSP work showed that:

– Traffic conditions on US 101 would continue to deteriorate, particularly on sunny summer weekends

– Addressing the problem to meet Oregon Highway Plan mobility standards would have required widening the existing highway – one reason why Pac-Dooley was voted down

– Some community members continued to advocate for a bypass – a big ticket project on the table for decades

Getting Started

• The natural and built environment limit improvement options in Seaside

Getting Started

A Partnership is Formed

• The team first worked on common ground – the easy parts of the TSP

• Building on this foundation, Seaside asked ODOT to be flexible about assessing the US 101 traffic conditions, especially the seasonal traffic problem, with hope that looking at traffic in a new way might result in a new set of solutions.

A Partnership is Formed

• The team first worked on common ground – the easy parts of the TSP – mostly on the local system

• Building on this foundation, Seaside asked ODOT to be flexible about assessing the US 101 traffic conditions, especially the seasonal traffic problem, and established their limits for the size of US 101

• ODOT agreed to explore a US 101 future with these limitations, with the understanding that doing so would require:– aggressive facility management– acceptance of lower highway performance– high commitment to local system improvements

Future Shock

• Analysis revealed that traffic conditions will deteriorate significantly if no improvements are made through 2030, resulting in full failure using conventional analysis measure and methods

Where is There Flexibility?

• In Seaside, emergency preparedness is of special concern

• Pedestrian and bicycle projects serve both recreational and emergency response

• Better east-west connections on city streets also help local residents making shorter trips

• ODOT explored alternative analysis methods and mobility standards:

– assessed Average Annual Traffic Volumes instead of 30th highest hour to avoid seasonal traffic demands

– continued to use Volume to Capacity (V/C) operational analysis, but were not constrained by existing OHP or HDM mobility standards

– developed a method to assess multiple hours of “at capacity” operations as a means to set alternative standards

– Considered design deviations to minimize potential impacts to properties adjacent to US 101

Where is There Flexibility?

New Solutions Emerge

A smaller highway footprint through town and:

• Improving the local street network

• Investing in bicycle, pedestrian, and transit infrastructure

• Structuring land use guidelines on the highway to encourage walking

• Access management

New Solutions Emerge

• TSP solution recommendations are based on existing adopted land use plan

• Solutions deemed feasible are associated with funding from multiple sources, generally modest, and incapable of meeting existing mobility standards

• Larger solutions on the state highway system are explicitly defined by ODOT as “not reasonably likely” to be constructed during the planning horizon

• The bypass is acknowledged as a locally desired project, but the obstacles to its implementation are clearly described

• ODOT agreed to recommend alternative mobility standards based on average, not peak summer traffic if the City:

– worked to meet Oregon Transportation Plan goals

– worked to to improve alternative modes

– improved the local street network– supported facility management on

US 101 to improve safety under the more congestion conditions

• Letters of support issued by the City and ODOT

New Solutions Emerge

New Solutions Emerge

New Solutions Emerge

Very long term projects are NOT reasonably likely to be

constructed during the planning horizon

New Solutions Emerge

New Solutions Emerge

New Solutions Emerge

• A new perspective on expected highway performance

TABLE 6.1Alternate Mobility Standards for 2030 Average Annual Weekday in Seaside

Intersection Current OHP Mobility Standard

Proposed Mobility Standard

Future (2030) Projected Average Annual

Conditions*

Expected Duration of Delay

US 101 / Lewis and Clark Road 0.80 1.0 1.10 2 hours (3-5 pm)

US 101 / 12th Avenue 0.85 1.0 1.05 1 hour (4-5 pm)

US 101 /Broadway 0.85 1.0 1.10 3 hours (3-6 pm)

US 101 / Avenue U 0.85 1.0 0.95 <1 hour (does not exceed 1.0)

* Future (2030) projected operations assume the construction of several improvements on both the local and state system consistent with TSP recommendations

Partnership in Practice

Trust between agency partners was strengthened by talking through difficult topics:

• How does the plan address the desire for a highway bypass? And how do we discuss this with the community?

• What projects are needed, but we can’t afford? What do we do about it?

• How do we reflect commitments andagreements in code language and policy changes?

Success

Seaside was successful because:

• Partners agreed to listen to each other and be creative about how to address each other’s concerns

• Discussion was honest and transparent

• The team worked collaboratively to problem solve everything they could

• The community identified problems and offered solutions at every step in the process