PSRC and City of Bellevue Multimodal Concurrency Pilot Project A Special Report to the Joint Transportation Committee Prepared by: Puget Sound Regional Council In consultation with: City of Bellevue King County Metro June 2009 Puget Sound Regional Council Project Team: Charlie Howard, Director, Transportation Planning Maren Outwater, Director, Data Systems and Analysis Robin Mayhew, Program Manager, Transportation Jeffrey Frkonja, Program Manager, Data Systems and Analysis Benjamin Brackett, Senior Planner, Transportation Kris Overby, Senior Modeler, Data Systems and Analysis Jennifer Ryan, Principal Planner, Transportation Mark Charnews, Principal Planner, Data Systems and Analysis Kimberly Scrivner, Associate Planner, Data Systems and Analysis Alon Bassok, Assistant Freight/Economics Analyst, Data Systems and Analysis In consultation with: Kevin O’Neill, Assistant Director of Long‐Range Planning, City of Bellevue Kevin McDonald, Senior Planner, City of Bellevue Judy Clark, Modeling and Analysis Manager, City of Bellevue Stephen Hunt, Service Planning, King County Metro PSRC AND CITY OF BELLEVUE MULTIMODAL CONCURRENCY PILOT PROJECT TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Executive Summary.................................................................................................................... 1 II. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 4 Background...................................................................................................................................4 Regulatory Concurrency versus Planning Concurrency ................................................................7 City of Bellevue: Local Planning Context......................................................................................8 III. Proposed Method – Multimodal Concurrency Template .......................................................... 10 Method Overview .......................................................................................................................10 Implications of Multimodal Concurrency....................................................................................11 Establishing the Base Year Context ............................................................................................11 Method Details ...........................................................................................................................12 IV. Example – Downtown Bellevue ................................................................................................ 22 V. Institutional Issues ................................................................................................................... 52 VI. Key Findings and Potential Next Steps...................................................................................... 57 APPENDICES Appendix A – Local, Regional, and Transit Policy Direction Appendix B – Regulatory Concurrency versus Planning Concurrency Appendix C ‐ 2007 City of Bellevue Concurrency Update Appendix D ‐ Bellevue Concurrency Procedures Appendix E ‐ Detailed Transit Competitiveness (TCI) and Transit Sketch Planning Tool (SPT) Analysis Appendix F ‐ 2007‐2011 City of Bellevue Growth and Transportation Efficiency Center Plan Appendix G ‐ Transit Sketch Planning Tools at the PSRC Appendix H ‐ King County Metro Comment Letter Appendix I – Seattle Department of Transportation Comment Letter Appendix J – City of Redmond 2008 Transportation Concurrency System Update [This page intentionally left blank] I. Executive Summary Downtown Bellevue, like other regional growth centers in the Puget Sound region, is currently experiencing dramatic growth in both population and employment. As more workers, residents, and shoppers congregate in the same amount of space, maintaining a high level of mobility will be increasingly challenging. Roadways will likely be unable to meet the additional demand placed upon them, underscoring the need to invest in a multimodal network of services and facilities that will facilitate the free movement of people and goods. Such a system will emphasize effective travel choices including transit, as well as biking and walking. Efforts will also need to be made to remove single occupant vehicle trips from the system through Transportation Demand Management (TDM) options, including telecommuting, flexible work schedules, and ridesharing. Regulatory Concurrency => As required by Washington In the 2008 session, the Washington State State’s Growth Management Act, the short‐term Legislature allocated funding for the Puget process for determining if a proposed development will Sound Regional Council (PSRC) to conduct a add trips to the transportation network that will cause a jurisdiction’s level‐of‐service standards to be pilot project demonstrating a process for compromised. analyzing multimodal concurrency within a Planning Concurrency => As proposed in this report, a designated regional growth center. This long‐range planning exercise that compares forecast report responds to that proviso and population and employment growth to the capacity of a documents the work conducted by PSRC in planned multimodal transportation network. If a gap is consultation with the City of Bellevue and found in the ability of a planned transportation system King County Metro. The pilot project focuses to accommodate estimated demand, an action scenario is developed that outlines multimodal improvements on Downtown Bellevue as a case study with necessary to close that gap. the intent of developing a scalable multimodal concurrency measurement and Multimodal Concurrency => A Regulatory or Planning Concurrency process that incorporates considerations analysis template that other jurisdictions for all modes of transportation including, but not could employ to manage multimodal travel limited to transit, automobile, bicycle and pedestrian as demand and potentially incorporate into their well as benefits of transportation demand management concurrency management systems. efforts. The focus of this pilot project is on multimodal concurrency within the long‐range planning process herein called “Planning Concurrency”. In contrast to the existing “Regulatory Concurrency” that typically has a five‐to six‐year horizon, this longer horizon allows the ability to incorporate multimodal levels of service into local and regional long‐range planning efforts. The end result is a process for projecting a multimodal level of service (LOS) that may be used in either Regulatory or Planning Concurrency processes. This report includes: • A description of background legislation driving Regulatory Concurrency and the need for a multimodal approach. • Project context and city of Bellevue background. PSRC and City of Bellevue Multimodal Concurrency Pilot Project 1 • Comparisons of Regulatory Concurrency and Planning Concurrency. • A generic template that can be used by regional growth centers to forecast a future, multimodal transportation system. • A summary of the methodology used to conduct the City of Bellevue Multimodal Pilot Project. • A summary of institutional barriers that inhibit the feasibility of implementing a true multimodal concurrency program. These issues are raised by all would‐be parties to multimodal concurrency and require further discussion. This report simply identifies these issues. • Background land use and transportation policy from the state, regional and local levels. Key Findings: • In growth centers, all modes are needed to meet travel demand. • Citizens and employers care about how the transportation system performs – exempting dense areas from concurrency does not address this. • What’s important is the use of alternative modes, not the just the capacity provided. Performing a market analysis is key to evaluating effective strategies. • Transit metrics need to include multiple dimensions in order to address all factors that affect transit performance. • Roadway, transit and land use planning need to be done together and reinforced with investment decisions to ensure that local growth can be supported. • Long‐range planning focus: How can future growth within centers be adequately served by all modes (while recognizing the need to translate the long‐term approach into an approach that can be used for Regulatory Concurrency)? • Suggested process for conducting Regulatory or Planning Concurrency analysis: Step 1) Identify total person trip demand in established horizon year based on projected growth. Step 2) Conduct a Gap Analysis based on current and planning capacity to determine the person‐trip “gap” for all modes. Step 3) Conduct an Action Scenario analysis (design/testing of transportation demand management (TDM), transit improvements, transportation system management (TSM), non‐motorized investments, pricing, and general purpose roadway capacity expansion) including transit market analysis, to propose the most efficient transit service configuration to meet projected travel demand. PSRC and City of Bellevue Multimodal Concurrency Pilot Project 2 Potential Next Steps: • “Multimodal Concurrency” is a complex concept. The Legislature has made several changes to the statute which move in the direction of multimodal concurrency, however there has not been a comprehensive rewrite of transportation planning or Regulatory Concurrency requirements which states clear intent as related to how multiple modes of transportation are to be incorporated into concurrency. The Legislature may want to consider