This week, members of the Puget Sound Regional Council’s Transportation Policy Board, a group of local elected officials from Pierce, Kitsap, King, and Snohomish Counties tasked with regional planning issues, voted against a proposal to bar transportation projects that would add general purpose vehicle capacity to the region’s limited access highways from competing against other public transit and traffic safety projects for a specific pool of federal dollars, the Federal Highway Administration’s flexible Surface Transportation Program (STP).

The unwillingness of regional leaders to take this relatively small step illustrates the degree to which a region that prides itself on being climate-forward is not ready to take the hard steps to actually make its emissions reduction goals a reality. The next chance to rethink grant prioritization guidelines likely won’t come until 2026. In the end, the vote was fairly decisive, with 15 elected officials voting against the idea, compared to three who supported it.

In December, The Urbanist outlined the proposal, which had been put forward in late fall and had support from a number of local policymakers, including Pierce County Councilmember Ryan Mello and Tacoma Councilmember Kristina Walker. They argued that the region needs to be forward-thinking about which projects get prioritized for investments, with the decisions being made right now now impacting dollars that won’t be allocated until 2027-2028, likely meaning they wouldn’t actually start construction until close to the end of the decade.

The proposal only would have applied to general-purpose capacity projects on the region’s limited-access highways, not surface-running state highways or local arterials. The Washington State Department of Transportation would still have been able to move forward with any expansion projects on those limited-access highways, and local governments would still be able to advance almost any projects they want. The only change would occur would be a repeat of 2022 would be prevented, in which the state-funded expansion of State Route 167 was awarded just over $5 million in STP funding, beating out a transit projects in Seattle and a safety project in Everett.

“The intent of this item is, is to say that we don’t want to use our dollars at PSRC to add general purpose vehicle capacity on state highways,” Mello said this week. “There are other ways to fund those projects on state highways, if the state chooses to do that with their dollars, but we’re saying that our dollars should be focused on limiting vehicle miles traveled, limiting greenhouse gases, improving safety and circulation within our communities… and we don’t do that by adding general purpose vehicle capacity. It is proven that by doing that you actually cause more traffic delay for people, you may get less safe, you have people sit in traffic more.”

The Regional Transportation Plan adopted by PSRC in 2022 projects that per-capita vehicle miles traveled in the region will fall by nearly 15% compared to 1990 levels by 2030, as the four-county area adds new residents who are more likely to take transit or smaller car trips for essential needs. That actually falls short of the goals the state legislature has codified into state law, which call for a 30% reduction by 2035. PSRC’s projections only expect to get to just over 19% reduction by 2050, compared to the 50% goal that the state legislature wants to see achieved by that year.

When it comes to overall transportation emissions, it’s not clear things are even heading in the right direction. While local emissions data remains several years out of date, new national emissions data shows that the transportation sector was the only place the US saw emissions increases between 2022 and 2023, with a 1.6% increase seen, according to research from the Rhodium Group reported this week. PSRC’s own analysis shows that the projects included in the Regional Transportation Plan aren’t enough to enable to region to hit its 2030 goals, but proposals that move too fast when it comes to how funding is allocated usually get strong pushback from local governments.

Pushing back most strenuously on this proposal was Mary Lou Pauly, the Mayor of Issaquah. Pauly, despite governing a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified city, argued that the region needed to have the flexibility to approve roadway expansion projects, particularly ones that interact with the state highway network.

“I’ll speak specifically to Issaquah, where we know additional ramps and other things are going to be required for the addition of light rail, for over/undercrossings — we don’t have enough in order to be able to manage mobility movements, and so this to me did not seem like a minor modification or something that we could do in the short term,” Pauly said, arguing that the board needed more information to be able to make a full determination of whether it should prioritize expansion of the state highway network. “I don’t know where I am,” Pauly added. “I don’t know if we had more data whether or not I’d be a yes or no.”

Other members of the policy board were open about their belief that the region should be building larger and wider roadways. “I believe that we need to focus on increasing capacity overall and throughput overall and not exclude increasing capacity that does not involve HOV,” SeaTac Councilmember Peter Kwon said. “I believe this is something that would negatively impact not just our city but also the entire region and this should require a lot more thought.”

Speaking in favor of the change at Thursday’s meeting was Matthew Sutherland, advocacy director for Transportation Choices Coalition. “Were excited by the opportunity to further align PSRC’s transportation funding processes with state and regional priorities of equity, safety and climate,” he said. “We should create a floor of some kind that would prevent poorly scoring projects that do not meet our vision priorities from a spot on the contingency list. And we shouldn’t be allowing projects applying for general purpose lane capacity to be eligible for FHWA and CMAQ competitions.”

In the final vote, Mello and Walker were joined by Bainbridge Island Councilmember Leslie Schneider in supporting the proposal, with the rest of the board solidly opposed. In his first meeting at the Puget Sound Regional Council, Rob Saka, the Seattle City Councilmember who was sworn into office just over a week ago, joined the opposition bloc. Seattle Councilmember Dan Strauss, who also serves on the board, did not attend the meeting.

The idea may have more support at PSRC’s Executive Board, which meets later this month, though likely not enough to reverse the transportation policy board’s stance.

“It shouldn’t be controversial to say it’s a bad idea to fund projects that increase traffic and climate pollution. Especially when we could spend the money on making our problems better instead of worse,” Bothell Mayor Mason Thompson posted on social media in December after the idea was put forward.

While Thompson is only an alternate member, at least one full-fledged member of the Executive Board agreed with him.

“The priorities for our region must be: 1) Safety for all users 2) Safety for all users 3) Safety for all users,” Shoreline City Councilmember Christopher Roberts posted in response to the same meeting. “As we prioritize safety, we will also be encouraging more people to walk, ride, and use transit – and address our climate crisis.”

If this week is any indication, aligning those priorities with where the region’s dollars go will be an uphill battle that’s far from won.

The post Puget Sound Leaders Not Ready to Hit Brakes on Highway Expansion first appeared on The Urbanist.

Everywhere from Lynnwood to Puyallup, from Auburn to Silverdale, the long-range transportation plan for central Puget Sound calls for a significant expansion of the region’s roadways over the coming decades, even as evidence mounts that expanding roads to accommodate more general purpose traffic just leads to more traffic and more pollution, while rarely achieving the stated aim of decreasing travel times, improving mobility, or keeping freight moving. But a debate happening at the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), the organization tasked with regional planning for King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Kitsap Counties, signals that there is some appetite to shift away from the business-as-usual approach.

The debate centers around the way that PSRC leaders (though a board composed of local elected officials) selects transportation projects to be funded via the region’s share of grant funding from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Every two years, local governments put in grant applications asking for dollars for specific projects intended to improve their transportation systems, but before that happens, there’s is an opportunity for those elected officials to reassess the criteria for selecting those projects, to help achieve regional goals and align transportation spending with PSRC’s regional growth strategy.

Two years ago, The Urbanist covered the last shakeup in that project selection process, in which PSRC approved a new specific set-aside for transportation projects that are targeted toward improving equity, but declined to approve an increase in the existing set-aside for projects specifically aimed at improving safety for people walking, biking, and rolling. But they did approve the pulling out of safety as its own specific category for projects to be graded on. Ultimately, the majority of electeds leading PSRC at that time wanted to see small tweaks to the prioritization process, but not significant changes.

Now, PSRC is again considering proposals to revamp the selection criteria for its 2024 funding round, with final decisions set to be made early next year. And in line with the officially adopted Regional Transportation Plan’s focus on Washington’s 2030 climate goals, some regional leaders have put forward the question of whether projects that add general-purpose capacity to the region’s roadways should be eligible to compete in the first place.

“If we’re that serious about climate, are we really going to put dollars into projects that are demonstrated to increase vehicle miles traveled and increase greenhouse gas?” is how Pierce County Councilmember Ryan Mello, vice-chair of PSRC’s Transportation Policy Board, framed the question when this idea was first put on the table in November.

The question isn’t a theoretical one. In 2022, PSRC awarded $5.4 million dollars in FHWA funds to the final phase of the Washington State Department of Transportation’s megaproject extending State Route 167 between Puyallup and Tacoma, beating out projects like Sound Transit’s infill light rail station at Graham Street in Seattle and pedestrian/bicycle improvements to California Street in Everett. The SR 167 project is a state priority due to potential benefits that will come to freight mobility from its completion, connecting the Port of Tacoma more directly with I-5, but the project almost certainly won’t push the region in the right direction when it comes to the established goals around reducing overall passenger vehicle traffic and emissions.

Elsewhere in the country, state and local governments are starting to reassess whether it makes sense to invest their scarce transportation dollars into expanding roadways. Last year, the state of Colorado declined to move forward with adding lanes to I-25 and Colorado State Route 470, both of which serve the Denver metro area, following a transportation funding package that the Colorado legislature passed in 2021 that also includes more climate-focused transportation planning in the state.

Under the bill, Colorado’s Department of Transportation and the Colorado equivalents to PSRC are required to undertake an “enhanced level of planning” to account for potential induced demand, the idea that roadway capacity projects will increase usage for those facilities all on its own by making travel easier. Following the bill’s adoption, Colorado enacted new goals around greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles traveled, and transportation projects have to fit within those “budgets,” with an expected impact on statewide VMT as high as 9%.

Washington isn’t yet being held to Colorado’s standard, with the proposal at PSRC to simply prioritize other projects for a small pot of FHWA funding much less broad. Yet the idea has received a fair amount of pushback from some regional elected officials who argue that increased electrification of vehicles will still allow the region to expand roadways without impacting climate goals, and that local governments should have the flexibility to be able to add new roads to help achieve regional goals.

“In a beautifully functioning system, climate pollution from transportation will not be a criteria in ten or fifteen years, because we’re supposed to be going mostly electric, and using clean fuels.” Kitsap County Commissioner Christine Rolfes said at that November meeting. “So from a transportation perspective, that will probably lose its emphasis in time but congestion and safety are going to stay … that’s always going to be a problem.”

Currently, around 2% of the total number of passenger vehicles registered in Washington are electric, and the state has seen a steady increase in the sale of EVs, with 18% of new cars sold in Washington during the first six months of 2023 being electric. But fossil fuel vehicles won’t begin to be fully phased out in Washington until 2035 according to today’s timelines, meaning the beautifully functioning system that Rolfes is referring to is quite a long ways off if it’s ever arriving.

“My concern with using the thought that new capacity is going to increase vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gases is concerning, because in my town, a suburban with superblocks, the way for us to get the density and to get greener, is to create streets where parking lots were,” Issaquah Mayor Mary Lou Pauly said. “Some people will argue that’s increased capacity, and I will push back that, depending on the type of vehicles that are moving around, if it’s more buses, and if it’s electric buses, it’s not more greenhouse gases.”

Pauly’s use of superblock calls to mind suburban big-box stores but also innovative approaches to transportation being implemented in places like Barcelona, which have used bollards and car diverters to create a groups of city blocks where walking, biking, and rolling are the predominate mode. Cities like Issaquah that want to break up their largest blocks don’t necessarily have to do so by creating a net addition of vehicle space, and by doing so might actually be undermining their own transportation goals.

Bellevue councilmember Jennifer Robertson, set to leave public office at the end of this year, backed up Pauly’s position.

“If you want to have TOD [transit-oriented development] around light rail stations, you got to have places for people to walk, and bike, and get into their buildings … and buses to connect,” Robertson said. “So you’re going to have more streets. That capacity can be climate-friendly in that it allows the TOD to develop. You’re more likely to have complete streets with places for bicyclists and pedestrians to walk, places for buses to drive.”

Robertson asserted that a move toward creating more complete streets in Washington will require right-of-way acquisition, rather than reallocating existing street space.

By December, the proposal had been solidified and also scaled back, seemingly in response to concerns from members like Pauly and Robertson: Projects adding general purpose capacity to limited-access highways throughout central Puget Sound wouldn’t be able to compete. Projects expanding roadways to add general purpose capacity, even to state highways, would still be allowed to compete if they weren’t dealing with grade separated highways like SR 167, I-405, or I-5.

Yet there were concerns raised about the latest version of the proposal, by the same officials. Pauly cited a concern about process, that the body hadn’t had enough time to consider the idea, and that they didn’t know what the ramifications could be.

“We’re asking this body to consider something of significant impact, with kind of an abbreviated conversation,” Pauly said. “I don’t know, of all of the examples of where there may be a possibility that this ‘do not allow’ clause will then end up doing damage to the greater elements of Vision 2050 and being able to make those greenhouse gas reductions in the way that we need to, which is really in how we use our land.”

Recent WSDOT reports to the state legislature on how to reduce VMTs have emphasized the role of land use, but also underlined how highway expansion undercuts constructive land use decisions. An analysis conducted jointly by WSDOT and the Thurston Regional Planning Council found that adding an additional general purpose lane to I-5 through Thurston County would have the effect of reversing 20 years of transit-focused land use planning there.

At that December meeting, proponents of this change stood their ground. “I don’t think this concept is new,” Mello said, staying the most outspoken proponent of the idea. “I think it’s very consistent with what we’ve been talking about with our climate goals … We’ve been talking for a long time about reducing vehicle miles traveled, and that is not a new concept.”

Mello was joined in outspoken support for the proposal by Tacoma City Councilmember Kristina Walker, and also indirectly by Kirkland Deputy Mayor Jay Arnold, who asked PSRC to look at broader language in scoring criteria for projects that rewards congestion relief.

Both Mello and Walker made the argument that the dollars that are set to be awarded next year won’t be actually allocated until 2027 or 2028, so PSRC has to be forward-thinking about how the funding will be used. Seattle, which has some of the most ambitious goals for reducing VMT compared to other regional cities, hasn’t had a voice in this broader discussion as Councilmembers Alex Pedersen and Dan Strauss, either weren’t present or didn’t chime in during discussions.

At the regional level, broad goals are easy to support but proposals to fundamentally shift the way funding gets distributed are generally treated much less favorably. Ultimately, if the idea moves forward early next year, it won’t be a seismic shift in and of itself. But it would signal that the region is ready to start looking critically at whether its transportation investments are aligned with its lofty ideals around climate change, or whether it’s fine with the status quo.

The post Puget Sound Leaders Debate a Pivot Away from Highway Expansion first appeared on The Urbanist.

The original version of the plan, as proposed nearly a year ago, focused almost entirely on a 2050 climate target, but amendments from elected officials serving on PSRC’s policy boards forced the agency to conduct additional analysis after the adoption of the plan in May to see how on track King, Snohomish, Kitsap and Pierce counties are to hit the more immediate goal at the end of this decade. Thanks to that pushing, additional work to get the plan more focused on immediate emissions reduction is now underway.

But after determining that 13% gap, equivalent to more than the City of Seattle’s entire pre-pandemic transportation sector emissions, models examining ways to fill that gap came up short in a number of key areas. Policy levers modeled by PSRC had minimal impact on emissions, raising more questions about the models used than anything.

Roadway Expansion Projects

Looking at the hundreds of millions of dollars in roadway expansion projects currently included in the plan’s project list, PSRC concluded that their removal would not improve overall emissions. While overall vehicle miles traveled (VMT) would not increase as much if the region stopped expanding those roadways, their models say, “emissions are not reduced due to the increased delay and amount of time vehicles are in congestion.”

This is bizarre, because the universe of projects included in the plan, expected to increase the number of lane miles regionally by 2% by 2030 and 4% by 2050, still won’t be enough to outpace traffic congestion. By 2050, the annual hours of “delay” recorded regionally due congestion is expected to increase by more than 50%. The plan already acknowledges we can not build our way out of traffic congestion, and yet it just so happens that not building the widening projects in the regional transportation plan would increase emissions.

PSRC’s Director of Data, Craig Helmann, presenting to the executive board, actually noted that the agency compared its traffic model to the induced demand calculator developed by the Rocky Mountain Institute, unveiled last year. The SHIFT calculator creates estimates of the amount of traffic that will be added onto roadways when urban highways are widened. “The Calculator provides transparency and accountability for transportation projects that often do not deliver on promised benefits and instead make traffic and pollution worse,” the Institute noted when the tool was created.

While Helmann described the two models as showing extremely similar results — only differing by 0.1% — PSRC’s model apparently still incorporates the debunked claim that a failure to expand urban highways increases congestion, even if expanding them produces more driving. The Urbanist labelled this myth #1 on our list of five wrong planning claims around highway expansion that are causing the US to fail to make progress on its climate goals. The fact that the Puget Sound’s municipal planning organization is still presenting them as gospel is embarrassing.

Transit Investments

On the transit side, PSRC’s models apparently show that increasing transit, in the form of accelerating transit investments, building more projects that increase access to that transit, or increasing frequencies on existing transit routes, do not move the needle much. This is not incredibly surprising in the context of how the models view roadway demand. The models assume current residents will continue to drive, while new residents concentrated around transit routes are the ones who will choose transit. An immovable volume of CO2 is already baked into the model.

The 2030 transit network in the four-county region includes 21 bus rapid transit lines, at least one in each county, as well as 50 light rail stations and 7 passenger-only ferry routes. Hellman explained that the models showed no climate benefits because fewer people are projected to be living near those transit stations as a percentage of regional housing. “What we learned is, it makes a significant difference in 2050. And what we’re seeing is, the impact of the growth and accessibility improvements really matter about how many people we have living around these places….but we saw less of it in 2030, and part of that is where the growth is at,” Hellman said. “They all move in positive directions…they just don’t have as big an impact as we thought they would.”

Many of the assumptions behind the modelling done here are not known, and the relationship behind added roadway capacity and willingness to take transit when it offers an alternative to sitting in traffic is likely more complicated than this model is demonstrating. Clearly the leadership at PSRC can not disregard transit as an essential element in providing an alternative to the single biggest source of emissions in the region, private auto trips.

Road Charges

One way PSRC’s models did show that the outstanding emissions gap could be filled is by charging people to drive, via a per-mile road usage charge. But this model actually revealed that the adopted plan contains a massive flaw, an assumption built on a mountain of sand. The regional transportation plan currently assumes that by 2030 Puget Sound residents will pay a 10 cent per-mile fee to travel on the region’s roadways during peak hours, with that fee dropping to 5 cents off-peak.

But PSRC cannot adopt such a road usage charge (RUC) itself: the Washington State Legislature would. And right now the body moving forward with a pilot RUC is the Washington Transportation Commission, which is proposing essentially a direct gas tax replacement. That rate, of just under 4 cents per mile, is also recommended by the commission to remain fully earmarked for “highway purposes” in the same way that today’s gasoline tax is.

WSDOT Secretary Roger Millar offered the PSRC executive board a word of caution about assuming that a road usage charge would be both available for demand management and that the revenue could be used for general purposes. “We need to be keeping track of that, making sure that we don’t get boxed into a replacement for the gas tax that is as restrictive as the gas tax is,” he said.

If the usage charge moving foward at the state level is adopted, it would not only impact the revenue assumptions in the plan, it would also impact the climate model: the gap rises from 13% to 15% with a straight gas-tax replacement RUC and to 17% with no road usage charge whatsoever. This is a big flaw in the plan, given the lack of influence PSRC has over a road usage charge implemented on the state level.

Over the coming weeks, PSRC is planning to create additional modelling, “packaging” some of these potential changes together to see how they relate to one another.

King County Councilmember and current PSRC President Claudia Balducci noted that the work to analyze this emissions gap has a purpose, which is to directly inform the next round of funding recommendations as the agency fulfills one of its most important roles: divvying out federal funding. If the models show accelerating transit investments gets the region closer to its climate goals, there will be an effort to tilt funding in that direction. On the other hand, if the only things in PSRC’s models that make a dent in the emissions gap are entirely outside the agency’s control — like a Road Usage Charge, or vehicle electrification, or the rate of employees working virtually — then the boat doesn’t really need to be rocked.

“It seems likely that the lift to get to our 2030 goal is not as impossible as I maybe assumed it would be,” Balducci said. “But it’s not going to be easy.”

The post Adopted Regional Transportation Plan Isn’t Aligned With 2030 Climate Goals first appeared on The Urbanist.

Prior to the meeting, the current President of PSRC, King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci, sent a letter to the members of the board highlighting two specific policy focus areas: climate and safety. Balducci has raised these issues as being of particular focus during previous conversations around the plan, but she clearly felt it was important to go on record before the board took the final vote before the public comment period.

Earlier this week, The Urbanist highlighted the current estimated climate impact of the plan, with various levels of carbon reduction estimated by 2050 depending on technology assumptions as well as policy choices (such as a road-usage charge) that exist outside the scope of PSRC and its local governments. In her letter, Balducci notes concerns about misalignment between the regional transportation plan and statewide adopted greenhouse gas reduction targets similar to those raised in our reporting.

“Ten years ago, PSRC proposed and adopted a Regional Transportation Plan (T2040) that did not meet Washington State’s adopted carbon reduction standards. We cannot afford to repeat that decision,” Balducci wrote. “The Regional Transportation Plan must (1) reflect the breadth of climate strategies adopted in Vision 2050; (2) be assessed and found to meet our regional goals for greenhouse gas emissions; and (3) incorporate metrics and accountability measures to ensure our strategies are working.”

At the meeting, PSRC Director of Transportation Planning Kelly McGourty presented a new chart on emissions, showing the current forecast of the impact of the transportation plan, along with its land use counterpart in the previously adopted Vision 2050, in context with other strategies that the agency is utilizing to forecast emissions reductions. Simply relying on increased fuel efficiency (Cafe) standards in vehicles is projected to take the region to approximately 22% above 1990 levels. Adhering to the elements of the transportation and land use plans discussed here brings that to 6% below 1990 levels. Electrification of the vehicle fleet does the rest of the heavy lifting to get below an 80% reduction compared to 1990 levels by 2050, the goal the Puget Sound Clean Air agency has adopted.

What was not shown were any interim metrics, for example a 2025 or 2030 goal. During the meeting Thursday, Port of Seattle Commissioner Ryan Calkins echoed the push for more well-defined interim metrics. “High level recommendation is, as you continue the work on this, that we create intermediate goals, very measurable goals, for each of the areas that we’re trying to achieve,” he said.

“All elements of our plan — policy statements, project lists and competitive grant programs — must align and comply with our climate goals. The plan must be closely assessed for climate impacts and we should be transparent about the results of that analysis, and engage with the level of policy and plan decisions needed to meet the urgency of the moment,” Balducci’s letter to the board noted.

The project list associated with the transportation plan, updated as recently as July of this year, includes a long list of highway and road expansion projects that will likely increase, not decrease, local emissions levels as added capacity encourages more trips. These projects are frequently framed as multimodal improvements, even when the accompanying pedestrian, bike, and transit infrastructure is minimal or required by law. Thus many of those projects have not been designed to maximize mode shift but rather prioritize vehicle throughput.

The State of Washington’s Office of Financial Managment currently projects less than 4% of passenger vehicles registered in the state in 2030 will be fully electric, as the state adds around 1.5 million vehicles compared to today, but the plan expects 90% of vehicles to be zero-emission by 2050.

A key aspect of the plan’s modest assumptions around emissions reductions stems from a “choices” component; in other words, people choosing to shift their travel onto more climate-friendly modes. But Alex Hudson of Transportation Choices Coalition noted that in PSRC’s current financial strategy, over half of the estimated funding gap of $42.8 billion dollars is currently in the area of local transit improvements, calling in to question what mode choices will be available to people in future decades.

Embracing Safe Systems

On safety, Balducci raised the issue of PSRC embracing the Safe Systems policy approach, which de-emphasizes human error as a primary factor influencing traffic collisions in favor of a proactive approach to street and vehicle design. Various levels of government, including the Federal Highway Administration, have moved to integrate this approach, but so far the regional planning agency has not.

“Many of our member jurisdictions have already adopted Safe System approaches, like Vision Zero. The international membership association Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) describes that a Safe System approach, ‘differs from conventional safety practice by being human-centered, i.e. seeking safety through a more aggressive use of vehicle or roadway design and operational changes rather than relying primarily on behavioral changes…’,” Balducci wrote to the board.

“Including a Safe System approach would align with federal direction such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) now signed into law and would set our region up to be successful in obtaining support to implement safety improvements,” she noted.

Bellevue Councilmember Jennifer Robertson, a member of the Transportation Policy Board, supported the move toward Safe Systems approach Thursday. “The Safe Systems approach is a really good first step. I think we should go further and use Vision Zero to make bolder steps toward safety,” she said. “I think we need to be more aggressive … PSRC should follow the lead of the President, Congress, and Secretary Buttigieg who have all signaled that [a] Vison Zero approach is critical, and that we should work toward meeting these goals so that we are in-step with the national agenda,” Robertson told the group, touting the work of the Vision Zero team in Bellevue.

But Kelly McGourty told the board that agency staff had not heard a clear consensus from the group of electeds. “We’ve not yet been directed to turn [Safe Systems] into a specific action item,” she noted.

Poulsbo Mayor Becky Erickson pushed the board to take a more direct stance than had apparently been heard by PSRC staff, but board vice-chair Ryan Mello, Pierce County Councilmember, steered the board back to waiting until the public had weighed in on the plan that it must again be reiterated that the Transportation Policy Board has not yet seen.

McGourty emphasized that the board would be able to reassess the plan again in a “few short years,” since it’s required to be reapproved every four years, downplaying the significance of this current review process, but it’s clear that PSRC has, in its current President, a leader who is determined to not miss a chance to get this right.

The post As Regional Transportation Plan Is Approved for Release, PSRC President Raises Concerns first appeared on The Urbanist.

So, how does the RHS fit into the catalog of planning policies that the Puget Sound region’s jurisdictions use? This document primarily acts as support and a resource for the region’s many housing actors and future housing planning actions. The strategy is meant to support Washington’s Growth Management Act and PSRC’s (King, Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties) Vision 2050 that both help direct the four-county region’s growth. It also provides a coordinated, data informed, and ambitious framework that supports all levels of government to meet current and future market-rate and affordable housing needs.

The problem the strategy aims to ameliorate involves the current affordability and supply challenges, and the historic housing wrongs and their reverberations that include housing discrimination and today’s displacement dilemma. The issues are amplified by the region being two years behind in housing production and deficient in affordable housing. The strategy details the use of housing as a way to create great inequities in wealth, ownership, and opportunity and as a way to start repairs on the historical and continuing racial/income divide. PSRC aims to provide this redress with a litany of measures that can be categorized into three pillars: supply, stability, and subsidy.

Supply

The Regional Housing Strategy’s call for more supply is only natural in a region with both a fast-growing population and a severe housing shortage. To accommodate an estimated population of 5.8 million people by 2050, the four-county Puget Sound region will need over 800,000 new housing units, based on PRSC projections. To meet this demand, the PSRC is calling for a major reexamination of the region’s zoning. The recommendations fall in line with the calls of a typical housing advocate, urging localities to upend or further liberalize existing zoning.

First, the RHS emphasizes the role they want to see transit-oriented development (TOD) playing in the region’s housing inventory. The strategy wants 65% of residential growth to be located near high-capacity transit stations with increased opportunity for moderate and high-density housing. That’s roughly 526,500 new housing units by King, Pierce, and Snohomish County’s bus rapid transit, light rail, and other capacity transit stations.

Less intensive upzoning measures include increasing moderate “missing middle” housing density areas and reforming single-family zones. These two changes are thought to be the best for affordability and supply. Moderate density zoning supports a more diverse catalog of housing options for residents, and also tends to be more affordable compared to low- or high-density housing options. Since large-lot single-family zoning is dominant throughout the region, changes to the strict low-intensity zoning could yield significant regional impact. Though the RHS only mentions reforms to possibly increase opportunity for small lots, zero-lot-lines, accessory dwelling units, and duplexes.

While transportation is not the domain of the RHS, the focus on TOD could prove as a way to shield much of the low-density single-family housing in the region. When considering the slow pace and potentially even slower pace that our high-capacity transit is being built, it’s slightly disconcerting to see the separation of missing middle legalization and single-family zone reform in the strategy document. Accessory dwelling units and duplexes are not the bold reforms that we need to see to combat the region’s supply and affordability crisis.

Outside of zoning, the RHS also wants to help lower construction costs to boost housing construction rates and improve affordability. Already mentioned measures like reduced minimum lot size, increased density, and reduced or eliminated parking requirements all make it less costly to build. The strategy also details increased development predictability by way of increased regulatory consistency and reduced complexity, as a way to lower costs. This would require cross-jurisdiction and agency cooperation, but the PSRC has found that developers report complexity of varying regulations, increasing costs for housing

Stability

The stabilizing prong of the RHS focuses on allowing people to remain in their communities and also improve their quality of life. The category aims to protect tenants and potentially turn them into homeowners. The first measure for stability that the RHS calls for is strengthening tenant assistance and protections by providing tenant counseling, assistance, and landlord education for fair, safe, and healthy housing. It wants cities and agencies to provide assistance and education, and to ensure affordable housing meets basic health and safety standards.

To increase access to homeownership, the RHS wants to see advocacy for a bill to support equitable homeownership assistance for tenants seeking to buy a home in their community with down payment assistance programs. The PSRC finds that often renters are able to afford the monthly costs of a mortgage, but are unable to make a down payment at the region’s current housing costs. The strategy points toward past success of low-cost mortgages and low-interest loans at increasing homeownership. The agency would like to see these tools in a modern federal program.

Stability through opportunity is also called for by the RHS. The strategy hopes to achieve this with increased services and amenities in low opportunity areas, and the creation and preservation of long-term affordable units near transit and higher opportunity areas. It calls for local bodies to incentivize early childhood education, medical care, and other community commercial use in mixed-used development. These services are also under threat of displacement, so development of more commercial spaces via mixed-use buildings are called for.

Additionally, as the opportunity of high-capacity transit does attract development and the PSRC calls for most of the region’s residential growth in high-capacity transit areas, residents in those areas are more susceptible to displacement. The strategy calls for voluntary or mandatory incentives to include affordable housing in all new development in proximity to transit and other high opportunity areas. One incentive is multifamily tax exemptions, which have been a major factor in creating housing for those earning less than 80% of the area median income (AMI). For example, much of Shoreline’s more affordable developments have used the city’s multifamily tax exemption program.

Subsidy

When discussing subsidy as the last prong of the RHS, market-rate housing is acknowledged as the largest source of new housing. The increasing market-rate housing supply does help slow the worsening housing affordability crisis in our region, as housing supply studies have supported. However, it is clear from the research and PSRC’s understanding of housing supply that the private market can’t provide housing or much relief to those with the lowest incomes. The housing strategy notes that the region can’t fully address its affordability crisis until housing needs of extremely low-income (less than 30% AMI) households are met.

To meet those needs, PSRC calls for intervention by the region’s public bodies to identify public, private, and philanthropic funding to increase affordable housing inventory and access. The strategy calls for advocacy and expansion of funding from all levels of government. Rental assistance for very low-income households and building more affordable housing would be top of mind for federal and state funding advocacy. Locally, the RHS does point out that a housing levy or increasing general funds toward housing may be challenging. However, it also states that local funds have played a major role in getting “matching” funds from other sources. For small jurisdictions that can’t raise significant funds of their own, the RHS proposes raising housing funding with a multi-jurisdictional housing body.

Mention of private financing and philanthropy is also included in the RHS, as there is a moral and even economic responsibility of private firms to spend on affordable housing. Housing options, affordability, and even a moral facade can help firms recruit in an increasing competitive environment. Private financing and funds for affordable homes have already been committed recently, but this largely has come in the form of below-market loans. Combined, roughly 8,900 affordable units in the region will be made available from Microsoft and Amazon’s loans. Local jurisdictions and housing organizations are also called to facilitate continued corporate involvement.

Implementation, Monitoring, and Outlook

To implement this strategy, PSRC needs responsible local governments to act. Both capacity and accountability are needed to meet our housing needs, as jurisdictions are typically either incapable or unwilling to meet development needs when they can or do not meet GMA requirements. However, there are no excuses for not meeting housing needs. Regional housing agencies have been used to help cities with less resources in each county implement the RHS. Accountability is outside the realm of the PSRC’s power for housing, but the regional council can provide incentives for cities to implement the RHS.

PSRC also put together a chart of what each level of government can do to meet the region’s housing and affordability needs. The chart follows:

PSRC is also taking steps to measure the changes in our housing inventory to help keep track of their goals. The regional council has committed to developing a framework to track performance and identify challenges. This monitoring will also be made shareable for the region’s many jurisdictions. It will also hopefully find that we’re on our way to over 810,000 new units, of which 89,000 new units would be affordable to those earning 0% to 30% AMI, to avoid continuing the current crisis. Getting there will be a slog, but it’s critically important for the region to at least keep pace with its housing needs.

The draft puts it best when concluding with the stakes of our housing crisis:

Housing is critical for every resident, and every community plays a role in addressing this collective responsibility. The complexity of addressing the full range of housing needs and challenges requires a coordinated regional-local approach and will require action from cities, counties, residents, businesses, and other agencies and stakeholders to work together to meet the needs. A coordinated, regionwide effort to build and preserve housing accessible to all residents is not just about housing. It is also about building healthy, complete, and welcoming communities where all families and people, regardless of income, race, family size or need, are able to live near good schools, transit, employment opportunities, and open space.

Draft RHS conclusion (Courtesy of PSRC)

Optimism aside, this strategy only works if every single measure is taken upon by most of the local governments in the Puget Sound. Increased market-rate housing supply alone begets displacement and affordability issues for those with the lowest incomes. Non-compliant local governments can push the burden on others and keep the region in a housing shortage. Even fully executed, the strategy preserves much of the low-density sprawl that is responsible for much of the region’s emissions. Additionally, the state could’ve undershot the 2050 population estimate, keeping the region in the housing crisis it finds itself in right now.

Ideally, the Puget Sound region could have much more liberalized zoning laws, robust tenant rights, and a large pool of public funds for social housing. That way both private market developers and public authorities could swiftly react to demand increases in either market-rate or affordable housing. Maybe displacement could be voluntary. Perhaps the region could even have surplus housing to increase affordability and cushion Puget Sound from demand spikes. But region doesn’t live in that kind of political environment yet, so keep pushing for the pro-housing docket.

A list of upcoming pro-housing opportunities by Share The Cities details what you could participate in soon.

The post PSRC Housing Strategy Seeks to Galvanize Region to Action first appeared on The Urbanist.

The regional growth plan provides a broad framework on how counties and cities should address a variety of planning topics, such as housing, the environment, economic development, infrastructure, transportation, development patterns, open space, and climate change. This ultimately affects how local land use decisions are made through designation of Urban Growth Areas, zoning, and development regulations as well as how the PSRC allocates pass-through funding for things like local and regional transportation investments.

Through mid-month, the PSRC is taking public comment on the draft proposal.

A growth plan centered around transit

In the draft proposal, the PSRC is moving forward with a plan that most closely resembles the “Transit Focused Growth Alternative” evaluated in the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement issued earlier this year. Generally speaking, that alternative performed best across different environmental topics and metrics than the “Stay The Course Alternative” and “Reset Urban Growth Alternative”. The Regional Growth Strategy in the plan would allocate 65% of regional population growth and 75% of regional job growth within Regional Growth Centers, Manufacturing/Industrial Centers, and near high-capacity transit. Only a small proportion of growth would be allocated to occur outside of Urban Growth Areas.

Urban geography terminology primer

The draft proposal consists of five urban geography types, including (from most intensive to least least intensive):

• Metropolitan Cities (e.g., Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett) which encompass five cities and 230 square miles;
• Core Cities (e.g., Kent, Lynnwood, and Silverdale) which encompass 16 cities and 255 square miles;
• High Capacity Transit Communities (e.g., North Highline, Lynnwood Municipal Urban Growth Area, and Federal Way Potential Annexation Area) which encompass 32 areas and 246 square miles;
• Cities and Towns (e.g., Algona, Duvall, Sultan, and Bonney Lake) which encompass 42 cities and towns and 140 square miles; and
• Urban Unincorporated Areas (located in all for counties) which encompass 134 square miles.

Within the urban geographies, the PSRC recognizes two flavors of Regional Growth Centers, two flavors of Manufacturing/Industrial Centers, and eventually two flavors of countywide centers. These could be added throughout the life of the plan due to a new framework adopted last year.

The draft proposal also includes four non-urban and special geographies, including:

• Rural Areas (located in all for counties) which encompass 1,494 square miles and represent 24% of the region’s land area;
• Natural Resource Lands (located in all for counties) which encompass 3,829 square miles and represent 61% of the region’s land area;
• Major Military Installations (e.g., Joint Base Lewis-McChord) which encompass four installations and 122 square miles; and
• Tribal Lands (e.g, Muckleshoot Indian Reservation, Tulalip Indian Reservation, and Puyallup Indian Reservation) which encompass nine reservations and 93 square miles.

To get a better sense of how this all shakes out, the PSRC has an interactive map that highlights each of the regional geographies.

While the draft plan covers a range of policy areas, the projected allocation of how growth would be apportioned across the region is one of the more interesting aspects and certainly of critical importance to achieving regional sustainability.

How growth would be allocated by geography

The proposal specifies how growth would be divvied up by geography for both population and jobs. Generally speaking, the bulk of growth is slated for Metropolitan Cities followed by Core Cities and High Capacity Transit Communities. How that breaks down by county, however, differs greatly.

For population growth, the four counties would allocate new residents by geography as follows:

• King County. The largest amount of population growth would be allocated to King County with 870,000 new residents. That represents nearly half of all new regional population by 2050. Approximately 44% of the county’s population growth is slated to occur in Metropolitan Cities with Seattle continuing to lead the way for that category. Another 40% of population growth in the county would occur in Core Cities followed by 11% in High Capacity Transit Communities. Since there are very few unincorporated Urban Growth Areas remaining in the county, less than 1% of population growth would happen in Urban Unincorporated geographies while higher rates would occur in other counties. Rural areas would continue to see a trickle of population growth at about 1%. Cities and Towns would see a meager 5% population growth.
• Snohomish County. The second largest amount of population growth would be allocated to Snohomish County with 424,000 new residents. That represents nearly a quarter of all new regional population by 2050. Approximately 50% of the county’s population growth is slated to occur in High Capacity Transit Communities, some of which include cities like Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace and Urban Unincorporated areas of Lynnwood and Mukilteo. Another 20% of population growth in the county would occur in the Metropolitan Cities (i.e., Everett) followed by 11% in Core Cities (i.e., Lynnwood). Since there are very few unincorporated Urban Growth Areas of the county not falling into the High Capacity Transit Communities geography, only 4% of population growth would happen in those areas. Despite a lower rate than VISION 2040, Rural areas would still see a relatively high rate of population growth at about 6% or 25,000 new residents which is highest among all counties. Cities and Towns would see 9% population growth.
• Pierce County. The third largest amount of population growth would be allocated to Pierce County with up to 397,000 new residents, although that number could be lower as allocation numbers are still being debated. Approximately 37% to 38% of the county’s population growth is slated to occur in Metropolitan Cities (i.e., Tacoma). Another 23% to 28% of population growth in the county would occur in Core Cities (i.e., Puyallup, Lakewood, and University Place) followed by 10% to 14% in High Capacity Transit Communities. For Urban Unincorporated areas, approximately 11% to 16% of population growth could be allocated to those geographies. This is somewhat reflective of the fact that the county has drawn those areas so large and has been very unsuccessful in pushing annexation of them. Cities and Towns would also see 7% population growth while Rural areas would range from 3% to 6%–less than Snohomish County.
• Kitstap County. The smallest of the four counties, Kitsap County would be allocated 96,000 new residents. Approximately 34% of population growth would be targeted for Metropolitan Cities (i.e., Bremerton) and 36% to High Capacity Transit Communities (e.g., Bainbridge Island and Port Orchard). Another 16% of population growth would be allocated to Core Cities (i.e., Silverdale), 6% to Urban Unincorporated areas, and 8% to Rural areas–the largest proportion of the four counties.

For job growth, the four counties would allocate new residents by geography as follows:

• King County. The largest amount of job growth would be allocated to King County with 683,000 new jobs. That represents more than half of all new regional jobs by 2050. Approximately 46% of the county’s job growth is slated to occur in Metropolitan Cities (i.e., Seattle and Bellevue). Another 45% of job growth in the county would occur in Core Cities followed by 6% in High Capacity Transit Communities. Less than 1% of job growth would happen in Urban Unincorporated (1,000 jobs) and Rural (3,000 jobs) geographies–with the latter producing more.
• Snohomish County. The second largest amount of job growth would be allocated to Snohomish County with 225,000 new jobs. Approximately 39% of the county’s job growth is slated to occur in Metropolitan Cities (i.e., Everett). Another 30% of job growth in the county would occur in High Capacity Transit Communities followed by 17% in Core Cities. Cities and Towns would receive 8% job growth while Urban Unincorporated areas would receive 3% job growth. A small sliver at 2% job growth would be allocated to Rural areas.
• Pierce County. The third largest amount of job growth would be allocated to Pierce County with 195,000 new jobs. Approximately 48% of the county’s job growth is slated to occur in Metropolitan Cities (i.e., Tacoma). Another 23% of job growth in the county would occur in Core Cities followed by 13% in High Capacity Transit Communities. Cities and Towns would receive 6% job growth while Urban Unincorporated areas would receive 8% job growth. A small sliver at 2% job growth would be allocated to Rural areas.
• Kitstap County. The smallest of the four counties, Kitsap County would be allocated 57,000 new jobs. Approximately 35% of the county’s job growth is slated to occur in Metropolitan Cities (i.e., Bremerton). Another 32% of job growth in the county would occur in High Capacity Transit Communities followed by 13% in Core Cities. Only 2% of job growth would be located in Urban Unincorporated areas while a larger 5% job growth would be allocated to Rural areas.

Next steps

Public comment is open through September 16th and can be provided through the online open house. A final plan will be developed in the fall going through the Growth Management Policy Board and onward to the Executive Board. In the spring of 2020, the PSRC General Assembly is poised to adopt a finalized version of VISION 2050.

The post Puget Sound Regional Growth Draft Plan Centered Around Transit first appeared on The Urbanist.