Council PKT 08-05-2008 Special
II
II
AGENDA
FEDERAL WAY CITY COUNCIL
Council Chambers - City Hall
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Special City Council Meeting
Study Session/Executive Session
5:00 PM
(WH'W. citvofJederalwav.com)
..........................................................................
1. CALL MEETING TO ORDER
2. EXECUTIVE SESSION
a. Potential Litigation/Pursuant to RCW 42.30.110(1 )(i)
3. STUDY SESSION
a. Level of Service/ Transportation Improvement Plan Briefing
3. ADJOURN
COUNCIL MEETING DATE: August 5, 2008
ITEM#: 3 (~')
CITY OF FEDERAL WAY
CITY COUNCIL
AGENDA BILL
SUBJECT: TRANSPORTATION LEVEL OF SERVICE STANDARD
POLICY QUESTION: Should the City consider ways to modify the adopted Transportation Level of Service
Standard?
COMMITTEE: None
MEETING DATE: N/A
CATEGORY:
D Consent
D City Council Business
D Ordinance
D Resolution
D
~
Public Hearing
Other
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Attachments:
1. Staff report
Options Considered:
1. Use the remaining project balance for the Traffic Impact Fee project to investigate alternative level of service
measures, and dedicate $50,000 of the 2009 budget to complete the Traffic Impact Fee project.
2. Take no action.
DEPT: Public Works
STAFF RECOMMENDATION: Staff
Council
DmEcToRAPPROVAL: ~
Committee
Council _
o recommendation.
CITY MANAGER APPROVAL:
COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION: This issue has not been before any committee.
PROPOSED COUNCIL MOTION:
(BELOW TO BE COMPLETED BY CITY CLERKS OFFICE)
COUNCIL ACTION:
o APPROVED
o DENIED
o TABLED/DEFERRED/NO ACTION
o MOVED TO SECOND READING (ordinances only)
REVISED - 02/06/2006
COUNCIL BILL #
1 ST reading
Enactment reading
ORDINANCE #
RESOLUTION #
CITY OF FEDERAL WAY
MEMORANDUM
DATE:
TO:
VIA:
FROM:
SUBJECT:
August 5, 2008
City Council
Cary M. Roe, P.E., Assistant City Manager, Chief Operating Officer, Emergency Manager (j/11t1..
Rick Perez, P .E., City Traffic Engineer ~
Transportation Level of Service Standard
BACKGROUND
City Council requested that staff examine the appropriateness of the current Transportation Level of
Service (LOS) standard. Particular concerns expressed include the impact of large intersection
improvements on pedestrian comfort and the aesthetics of the public environment, a perception that large
arterials were being favored over providing improved connectivity, and budgetary impacts of concurrency
to meet the current LOS standard. This memo outlines how level of service is measured, how it has been
used since the City's incorporation, and its impacts on economic development, public safety, and capital
budget needs. Options for revising the currently-adopted standard are also reviewed. Most of the
information contained herein was developed for a memo to the Land Use and Transportation Committee
on December 4, 2006.
LOS Defined
LOS is an attempt to grade the transportation system user's experience through quantifiable means.
Procedures used almost universally within the United States are provided in the Highway Capacity
Manual (HCM), published by the Transportation Research Board. Transportation facilities are graded A
through F based on ranges of values established in the HCM. For urban streets, the predominant
measures are delay and volume/capacity ratios, but the HCM uses different measures for different types
of facilities. The ranges for a given grade also reflect the typical user expectation. For instance, the delay
equated with a LOS F for unsignalized intersections is less than that for signalized intersections. In
general, LOS A refers to free-flow conditions with minimal user delay, wherein the traveler is virtually
unimpeded by conflicting traffic. By comparison, LOS F represents conditions where the traveler has
limited mobility with stop-and-go, forced flow conditions. The attached graphic demonstrates the various
levels of service on a freeway. Value thresholds used for urban arterial intersections are shown in the
table below:
A <10 < 10 <0.60
B > 10 - 20 > 10 - 15 > 0.60 - 0.70
C > 20 - 35 > 15 - 25 > 0.70 - 0.80
D > 35 - 55 > 25 - 35 > 0.80 - 0.90
E > 55 - 80 > 35 - 50 > 0.90 - 1.00
F > 80 > 50 > 1.00
August 5, 2008
City Council
Transportation Level of Service Standard
Page 2 of 10
Illustration 3-5. Le"el-of-senice A.
Illustration 3-6. Level-of-senice B.
Illustration 3-7. Level-of-service C.
Illustration 3-8. Level-of-service D.
Illustration 3-9. Level-of-service E.
Illustration 3-10. Level-of-service F.
City's Historical Use of LOS
The 1995 Comprehensive Plan adopted a policy TPl6 using strictly volume/capacity ratios ofless than
0,90.
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City Council
Transportation Level of Service Standard
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The 1998 Comprehensive Plan revised this policy to raise the v/c ratio threshold to 1.00, added a LOS
requirement ofE, and required the use of 120-second cycle lengths at signalized intersections.
In addition, language was added to TP60, establishing a policy where intersections failing this LOS
standard may then be measured using delay per person rather than per vehicle, essentially giving greater
weight to high-occupancy vehicles, transit, bicyclists, and pedestrians. In practice, this clause ofTP60
has been difficult to implement, due to the resource needs to determine occupancy of each vehicle
entering an intersection.
The level of specificity in the City's LOS standard is surprising to many professionals. In particular, the
use ofthe 120-second cycle length is a deliberate constraint. The purpose is to provide a limit that can
sustain pedestrian access, achieve good signal coordination (perceived lack of signal coordination is a
large source of complaints received by Traffic Division), and reduce intersection queuing, the last of
which is a major source of mid-block collisions. It also puts a constraint on intersection widening. By
considering pedestrian crossing times in the capacity analyses, larger intersections require longer
pedestrian crossings, which uses an increasingly larger portion of the cycle length. This leaves less time
for left-turn phases. To compensate, turn lanes can be added, but that also increases pedestrian crossing
times, and so the benefit adding turn lanes may be lost by the increased pedestrian crossing time.
Conversely, the policy on how LOS is calculated, ignoring pedestrian crossing times, would improve
calculated LOS, on paper at least.
Longer cycle lengths can be used to reduce LOS failures, but at the expense of longer queues at
intersections (which can lead to an increase in mid-block and rear-end collisions), and increased waits for
pedestrians.
The volume/capacity ratio (v/c) is an important criterion for achieving signal coordination. Ifv/c is over
1.00, the queue of traffic does not dissipate in a single cycle, thus defeating signal coordination efforts.
This becomes tied to air quality issues. If vehicular stops and delay are minimized, motor vehicle
emissions are reduced. On the other hand, many argue that delay reduction strategies encourage more
driving, negating the delay-reduction gains of signal coordination and capacity improvements.
Purpose of LOS Standards
Agencies adopt LOS standards to plan for growth, prioritize transportation projects, and to determine
appropriate mitigation of the in;tpacts of development. In Washington, adoption of a LOS standard for
transportation is required under the Growth Management Act (GMA). In addition, GMA requires
adoption of a concurrency process, whereby the City would certify that adequate capacity will exist
within six years to accommodate the development. If capacity to accept the traffic generated by the
development does not exist or cannot be created within six years, state law requires the City to not
approve the development.
Project Prioritization
Projects are developed in the Comprehensive Plan in order to meet long-'range goals for accommodating
growth and development of a transportation system that supports all modes of travel. In addition, each
year the City revises a Transportation Improvement Plan, adopting projects that the City intends to
construct within a six-year timeframe. Every project in the Comprehensive Plan is prioritized annually.
This requires staff to develop land use forecasts for a six-year timeframe, run the City's travel demand
model to develop traffic volume forecasts, analyze each major intersection to determine which
intersections would not meet the LOS standard, and identify which projects would correct the LOS
failure.
August 5, 2008
City Council
Transportation Level of Service Standard
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Staff considers two strategies for correcting LOS failures; one is to improve the intersection where the
failure occurs, and the other is to provide alternative routes to allow traffic to bypass the failing
intersection. Historically, correcting the failing intersection has been more cost-effective most of the
time. However, as we reach limits of what is feasible to construct at an intersection without resorting to
grade separation, providing new connections will become more cost-competitive. One option favoring
the latter approach may be to set arbitrary limits on the maximum number of lanes to favor other
approaches. One clause ofTP60 already does this: "When arterials require more than four through lanes
to maintain the adopted LOS, additional travel lanes will be for HOV's." We could adopt similar limits
for the number ofleft-turn lanes and right-turn lanes.
Project prioritization criteria include:
. Concurrency Requirement
. LOS Improvement
. Collision Rate Improvement
. Collision Severity Improvement
. HOV Supportive
. Non-Motorized Supportive
. Community Support
. Air Quality Improvement
. Ease of Implementation
. Benefit/Cost Ratio
Essentially, three of the 10 criteria are based on LOS, two on safety, two on support for non-SOY users,
two on cost, and one on public support. Nine of these criteria have been in use since 1996, with a second
safety criterion added in 2000. However, this change had little effect as most safety issues were also
concurrency issues.
Based on the project prioritization, staff proposes and Council adopts the TIP annually.
The relationship between the TIP and concurrency is not accidental; GMA requires that for development
to be considered concurrent, the capacity to absorb the impacts of the development must be dependent on
a financially viable plan to provide the transportation capacity within the same six-year timeframe.
Other Types of LOS Standards
Due to GMA requirements, among others, a number of different strategies have been employed by
different agencies to develop a LOS standard that attempts to balance competing priorities for funding,
congestion, safety, land use goals, economic development, and support for other modes of transportation.
Locally, many agencies rely on v/c ratios for its simplicity. Rather than measure only the evening peak
hour, many average the top two peak hours. Because some intersections may have intractable problems,
but alternate routes are available, some agencies create zones and average LOS values within each zone.
Similarly, a few agencies adopt screenlines at strategic locations and average v/c ratios on corridors that
traverse the screenline. Some agencies use a travel time standard on predefined arterial segments. Any of
these approaches allow the use of differing LOS standards for different areas.
Impacts of Revising the LOS Standard
The City incorporated the same year as the passage of GMA. Both efforts were fueled in part by
frustration over inadequate mitigation of the impacts of development. Hence a key component of GMA
August 5, 2008
City Council
Transportation Level of Service Standard
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was the requirement for transportation concurrency. Frustration over traffic congestion has continued to
fuel efforts to improve transportation funding. Citizen surveys over the previous two budget cycles
identified transportation and public safety as the two highest priorities for increased funding. More recent
regional surveys for the Regional Transportation Investment District and Sound Transit have shown that
transportation is by far the most critical regional problem.
Below is a summary of the non-enterprise fund capital needs identified in the 1998 Comprehensive Plan
and what projects have been funded:
Public Safe
Parks
Trans ortation
$4.5 Million
$38.7 Million
$543.1 Million
$4.5 Million
$30.3 Million
$106.3 Million
Transportation funding, although having the highest total cost, has lagged other City-funded capital
programs in terms of meeting identified needs. Compounding this disparity is that roughly half of the
transportation funding has been from grants, and the Parks project list did not include the Community
Center.
GMA explicitly addresses options for reconciling LOS standards with budgetary shortfalls:
. Increase the level of funding
. Revise the land use assumptions to lower travel demand
. Revise the prioritization process to fully fund capacity needs
. Lower the LOS standard to meet available funding
The Comprehensive Plan responds to each of these concepts as follows:
"Modifying the LOS standard cannot be recommended because safety problems usually result from
increased congestion and adversely impact air quality and transit operations where ROV facilities do
not exist. The adopted LOS standard accounts for ROV's and transit by basing it on average delay per
person rather than delay per vehicle."
"Reprioritizing improvements to address capacity would result in a lack of funding for safety and
non-motorized transportation. This would be inconsistent with adopted goals and policies to
encourage non-motorized transportation and maintain roadway safety."
"Lowering transportation demand to match available capacity would restrict the City's ability to
function as an urban center consistent with county and regional plans. Furthermore, the City has little
ability to reduce traffic through the City caused by growth in neighboring jurisdictions or overflow
from congested freeways."
"Therefore, improvement in funding for transportation appears to be the most realistic alternative."
LOS and Transportation Safety
Some advocates of "Smart Growth" strategies suggest that congestion is not something to be avoided, but
should be accepted as a reasonable accommodation to encourage use of alternative modes of
transportation. These advocates ignore the impacts of two major issues with respect to ramifications of
acceptance of greater levels of congestion. One of these is safety, the other is freight movement.
August 5, 2008
City Council
Transportation Level of Service Standard
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To illustrate the extent of roadway collisions, the following table provides data on the relative frequency
of crime and roadway collisions in the United States:
8 seconds
Thus roadway safety could be considered as much a public safety issue as fighting crime. The following
table also outlines the safety improvements achieved in the City by improving LOS on a project-level
basis:
1997 8.7 4.4 49%
1997 4.3 4.9 -14%
1998 2.7 1.3 52%
1998 4.0 3.1 21%
1999 10.0 6.4 36%
1999 55.7 37.2 33%
1999 41.0 40.3 2%
2000 6.5 7.3 -12%
2000 24.0 15.6 35%
2001 60.5 44.8 26%
2003 2.8 0.5 82%
2003 3.4 4.0 -18%
2003 69.0 57.0 13%
2004 10.0 4.0 60%
2004 99.0 68.0 31%
2004 4.3 2.0 54%
2005 56.6 37.0 35%
2006 2.9 6.0 -107%
2006 6.3 7.0 -11%
TOTAL 471.7 350.8 34%
Hence these roadway improvements have avoided 121 collisions annually, a societal cost reduction of
$1,512,500 annually. It should be noted that two of the five locations where collision rates have increased
are located where traffic volumes have increased significantly since project completion and are in need of
additional improvements. This finding is consistent with national research, which has found a correlation
between high volume/capacity ratios and collision rates. It is also important to note that this has not come
at the expense of pedestrians and bicyclists. In 1997, the City averaged 36 reported collisions involving
bicyclists and pedestrians, whereas since 2000 we are averaging one per year.
August 5, 2008
City Council
Transportation Level of Service Standard
Page 7 of 10
LOS and Freight Mobility
Although congestion encourages use of alternative modes, this is not an option for freight movement in
Federal Way. Congestion then influences economic development, particularly for industrial land uses,
but also retail uses. Congestion overall increases costs for the entire population as the cost to ship goods
increases with increased travel time.
LOS and Transit Mobility
In order for transit to be more viable, the difference in travel times between single-occupant vehicles and
transit needs to be reduced. Transit as a mode is not helped if buses are in the same congestion as other
vehicles. Reserved rights-of-way or lanes become increasingly important to transit travel times as
congestion increases. Federal Way Comprehensive Plan policy TP60 provides for ROV lanes when
arterials need to be widened to six through lanes. Row successful this strategy is will be revealed when
the SR 99 ROV lanes are completed on Phase IV and Bus Rapid Transit is implemented. Our forecasts
suggest that as many people will be moved in the SR 99 southbound ROV lane as in the general purpose
lanes.
LOS and the Character of the Roadway System
This topic is subjective in that all roadways function with a "balance point" between efficiently moving
people and goods, and providing an aesthetically pleasing corridor. Given that most of Federal Way's
environment is already constructed, transforming this environment comes at a high cost. The primary
function of arterial streets is to move people and goods safely and efficiently and, with the goal of a
vibrant city, having this occur in a visually-pleasing, pedestrian-friendly environment. Roadway features
that the City incorporates into its street projects in order to meet this goal include:
. Wide sidewalks and landscaped planter strips to separate pedestrians from vehicular traffic;
. Landscaped raised medians on major arterials to improve vehicular and pedestrian safety and
provide additional green space, reducing impervious surfaces and maintenance costs;
. Signal coordination plans that take into account adequate pedestrian crossing times;
. Consideration of roundabouts and other intersection treatments in lieu of signalized intersections
for major intersection improvements;
. Accessible pedestrian signals upon request by visually-impaired pedestrians;
. Countdown pedestrian signals, which are showing signs of significant safety benefits;
. Street trees in planter strips and raised medians to visually focus drivers on the immediate
foreground, which helps reduce vehicular speeds;
. Minimizing pedestrian crossing distances by using raised medians and right-turn islands, as right-
of-way allows; and
. Arterial ROV lanes to encourage improved transit service and maintain mobility.
LOS and Economic Development
There is no consensus on the relationship between higher levels of service in urban areas and economic
development. "Smart Growth" advocates suggest that economic development opportunities will increase
as higher densities are achieved. "Smart Growth" critics argue that increased congestion reduces the
population of market areas, and increases development costs, housing costs, and labor rates. It may be
that the balancing of these factors may be location- or industry-specific.
August 5, 2008
City Council
Transportation Level of Service Standard
Page 8 of 10
Similarly, if transportation mitigation costs become too high, it could drive development away from areas
where it is desired. But if it is too low, congestion could constrain the ability of a development to reach
its market potential.
How this applies in Federal Way is complicated by the fact that most of the residential area ofthe City is
not directly served by the regional transportation system for either highways or transit. The majority of
both commute and shopping trips must traverse the commercially-zoned properties to reach the regional
transportation system and are therefore impacted by congestion in the commercially-zoned areas. The
majority oftraffic entering and leaving the City funnels into the major arterials that are served by
interchanges on 1-5, as noted in the following figure from the Comprehensive Plan. Although
improvements are planned for all three interchanges on 1-5, only one has partial funding for construction,
so short term relief is not forthcoming, and long-term relief is highly speculative. Even assuming 'these
interchange improvements are funded for construction (at current estimates of roughly $400 million), over
$500 million would be needed to fund planned improvements on City streets by 2030.
August 5, 2008
City Council
Transportation Level of Service Standard
Page 9 of 10
TRAVEL PATTERNS
IN THE
FROM
FEDERAL WAY
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PLANNING AREA
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DATE: DECEMBER 1995
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Options
Options for revising the LOS standard can be divided by the procedure necessary to revise it; one is a
matter of Public Works policy, and the other requires an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan. For the
former, the only flexibility is defining the period over which LOS is measured. No specific time period is
mentioned in TP16, so it could apply to individual hours, a two-hour average, or over a whole day. The
drawback to extending beyond the evening peak hour is that it could dramatically increase workload as
we currently only use our travel demand model for the evening peak hour. Merely to analyze one more
August 5, 2008
City Council
Transportation Level of Service Standard
Page 10 of 10
peak period, the morning peak for example, would double the workload for travel demand forecasting and
concurrency analyses.
By comparison, expanding the evening peak analyses period to two hours would only require minor
model calibration issues. However, a cursory analysis suggests that this would drop the traffic volumes
used in a capacity analysis less than 5%, and thus it would not have a significant impact on the number of
projects proposed in the TIP, and would only defer the need for a "borderline" project for up to three
years.
Conversely, one issue that staff would like clarified is whether the Council would want to see the LOS
standard applied to other peak hours. Due to our commercial retail base, congestion peaks on weekends
in many intersections are worse than the weekday evening peak. Occasionally, commuters can create
congestion in the morning peak hour. Similarly, certain land uses, such as schools, movie theaters, and
amusement parks, can create periods of congestion outside of any traditionally measured peak hour.
Other considerations for revising the level of service standard include impacts to recently completed and
ongoing projects, and viability of grant funding for capital projects.
Impacts to Other Projects
Projects involving planning for transportation projects could be affected by a revised LOS standard,
which could result in revisiting existing documents and revising the scope of projects underway. These
include:
· City Center Planned Action: The mitigation was based on a pro-rata share mitigation approach to
fund projects on the then-current TIP and a new project that was triggered by the Planned Action.
· City Center Access: The most important finding of the Phase 1 Design Study was that, under our
current LOS standard, FHW A agreed that it was not realistic to assume that we could meet travel
demand without the added access by 2030. A different LOS standard might weaken this
argument, and would require that much of the work be redone.
· Traffic Impact Fee: Since the rate of a TIF is driven by the adopted TIP, and the TIP is driven by
the LOS standard, staff has put a hold on this consultant contract, until the question of the LOS
standard is resolved.
Grant Viability
Many grant programs are dependent on the ability to show that a project improves roadway LOS. To the
extent that a revised LOS standard makes this difficult to demonstrate, it will be difficult to attract grant
funding for transportation projects.
Work Plan
If the Council would like to consider revising the LOS standard, staff would propose that any LOS
standard revision be analyzed using consultant forces due to workload, and that this could be funded by
the remaining fund balance for the Traffic Impact Fee project, and dedicate $50,000 of the 2009 budget to
complete the Traffic Impact Fee project.
cc: Project File
Day File
K:\LUTC\2008\08-05-08 Transportation LOS.doc