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Home My WebLink About062515 Thomas, Samantha; Burden, Dan & Lys - Pre-scoping - VI From:Dan Burden To:Judy Surber;Richard Dandridge (dandrpt@gmail.com);wpburden@aol.com Cc:Lance Bailey;Amber Long;Samantha Thomas Subject:Re: Comprehensive Plan comments Date:Thursday, June 25, 2015 1:47:38 PM Attachments:Dear City of Port Townsend_compplan.docx Judy (and others). I sent this to the Comprehensive Plan update email address that you suggested, but here it is, just in case. Thanks for this opportunity. Dear City of Port Townsend At the important time in our community’s planning we offer you a list of recommendations driven by overarching principles, that we feel should be incorporated into the comprehensive plan. We are happy to provide more details. Port Townsend is a community uniquely positioned to model what sustainable stewardship of our natural and built environments looks like in practice, positioned in the intersection of the Olympic Mountains and the Salish Sea. Maritime communities, by nature, represent the intersection of human activity where land meets sea and the rich dynamic represented in that relationship. As we deepen our understating of our impact on our surrounding natural world, we become more responsible stewards for a healthy future. In order to create a more sustainable, healthy and prosperous future, we need to create a focus on strengthening our place-based economy by building a more walkable (human scale) city. In Port Townsend, one of its greatest and richest resources is human (social) capital and forethought. Continuing to grow place-based governance where as a community we utilize community as a platform for collaboration, innovation, investment and transformation will continue to move Port Townsend into the future—a more vibrant, educated, engaged, age-friendly community. After all, what is a city but its people? Walking on, Submitted by: Samantha Thomas and Dan and Lys Burden 1.Set a bold, visionary, yet practical, goal emphasizing sustainable and health-producing transportation shifts. Strive for a goal of 50% of all local trips becoming an active transportation mode (includes transit). Note: this is the sustainability quest of Portland, Oregon. Vancouver, B.C. has already achieved their equally visionary goal 20 years ahead of schedule. 2.Change transportation policies and incentives, which currently favor single occupant vehicle trips, to now favor the most sustainable and healthiest forms of transportation (i.e. move away from measuring transportation solely on Level of Service (LOS) and towards context-sensitive design and Level of Quality (LOQ) of all modes, users, ages and abilities. Change the transportation hierarchy so the person walking (pedestrian) is king and queen, not the car. 3.Change transportation funding ratios to prioritize walking, bicycling and transit in our community, so they become more widely popular. Prioritize the missing connections i.e. consider a cycle-track or protected bike lane on Hastings and Cherry. 4.Set policy and practice to require land use and transportation to become a seamless, collaborative way to stop growing traffic. Emphasize mixed-use development, giving high priority to central placement of key retail and services, and otherwise eliminate poor land use practices that build vehicle miles traveled. Consider Form Base Code overlay districts, and adopting a street connectivity and active transportation trail connectivity index. 5.Change the name of the Non-Motorized Transportation Advisory Board to the Active Transportation Board (easier to say, much better acronym and in step with designations for this type of advisory board and transportation planning/implementation nationwide. 6.Set a goal to reduce per capita Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) per capita by 20% by 2020. Bold goals and implementation plans to achieve these goals are needed, especially when the City and County have adopted a Climate Action Plan that states the goal of cutting green house gas emissions to levels by 80% lower than 1990 levels by 2050. Transportation related emissions make up 40% of the City and County’s GHG pie (the largest percent). PC-8 7.Adopt Complete Streets, and create appropriate Target Speeds—the speed in which we want people driving to go —for each road in town, and then when any change is made to a roadway, such as repaving, take action steps to achieve the target speed by narrowing travel lanes, adding bike lanes, on-street parking, mini-circles, roundabouts and other traffic calming tools. 8.Adopt 10-foot wide travel lanes as the default lane width for all roads, and then give permission to go wider when there is a benefit, such as on a curve, or in some industrial areas. 9.Adopt a “no centerline” approach for most roadways having less than 6,000 vehicles per day, allowing common sense exceptions, keeping centerlines on curves, the final approach to an intersection, the crests of hills, and other logical locations. Explanation: Evidence shows that the lack of lane definition can be a safety benefit; motorists having sufficient confusion drive with greater caution, pass bicyclists and people in the act of parking with greater clearance, and this action saves the city money. This is part of what is deemed in Europe as the Chaos Theory; a practice that routinely cuts all crashes by 50%. On roads where centerlines can be removed, designate the drive-space with bold edge stripes (8-10 inches wide), marking the space in between the lines to 18 feet (9 foot travel lanes), or a maximum of 20 feet. This allows the additional space to be dedicated to a wider shoulder to better support people walking and biking, for example. 10.Adopt a “roundabout first” approach. As each intersection is to be rebuilt, in lieu of signals or other controls when an engineering study determines that a roundabout is the best tool, feature this in decision making. Also adopt a low- speed in and low speed out design philosophy for all roundabouts. Such designs support appropriate yielding behaviors toward pedestrians by all motorists. Roundabouts have been proven nationwide, in Washington, and now in Port Townsend, as a means to eliminate delay, add efficiency to all forms of movement, reduce personal injury crashes (90%), adding 30% more capacity while creating a gateway and celebrating place. Mid-to long-term prioritize key intersections including Upper Sims Way and Sheridan, Discovery and Sheridan, Sims Way and Kearny for roundabouts and San Juan and F Street should be looked at for the placement of a mini- roundabout. 11.Wherever appropriate, mandate that the local City-County Transit Board organize a citizen, user and stakeholder advisory board in order to add and respect for their views and more public review of plans and budgets. Transit needs to be seen as a community value, an attractive (even sexy) mode of transportation. Provide an improved scheduling interface with Kitsap Transit, allowing the systems to work together to increase ridership. 12.More emphasis on the recreational resources available through our existing trails system (especially with improved connectivity and implementation, including named trail corridors and signed routes on trail/back road corridors that highlight scenic and recreational sites and routes). Good wayfinding increases use of trails and systems. 13.Provide a section of the comprehensive plan addressing health and wellness through transportation. This calls for a further emphasis on active transportation, and over time adopting a parking management plan and other education and incentive programs. 14.Fund and adopt a parking management plan for downtown. “The cost of all parking spaces in the U.S. exceeds the value of all cars and may even exceed the value of all roads,” says UCLA urban planning researcher, Donald Shoup. The opportunity cost can be high as well – each parking space can reduce the number of new businesses, housing units, social, recreational, or other activities by 25-percent. The city needs to strategically develop a parking management plan. Ideally, a plan would have open parking lots on the edge of downtown, which would capture auto-trips and convert them to people-trips. A few parking spaces may be more towards the center of town, but metered for fast turnover —keeping prime parking available to costumers, but not employees. In addition, education is needed for city officials, staff, and business leaders around parking issues. , In addition to a parking management planchange parking code: go to a maximum parking allowed strategy, as opposed to a minimum parking required. Reduce off street parking requirements everywhere, but especially for workforce housing. 15.Re-examine parking requirements for new development or house renovations that include adding ADU's, as current policies only increase the cost of development, add to PT's traffic problem and increase emphasis on car trips... when many times appropriate on-street parking may fulfill the need and provide more traffic calming on residential streets. 16.Set minimum requirements for street connectivity for future land development. Poor street connectivity eliminates opportunities for walking and bicycling. 17.Work with school administrators to create an added emphasis on Safe Routes to School initiatives; both with the PC-8 built environment, and programming walkable and bike friendly activities and events. Reward walking and bicycling trips. 18.Emphasize transportation access for elders; combining land use and transportation to make walking, bicycling and transit the easy, natural choice. 19. Plant more street trees. Street trees are one of the great ways to address storm water needs, often dropping drainage system costs 30%, and creating shade and cooling effects, add value to adjacent homes and business, and act as traffic-calming. A recent study points out that a single urban street tree living 50 years, which costs about $3,000 to get into the ground and through its first 3 years, returns to the community $193,250 during its lifetime (T.M. Das, University of Calcutta) 20. Adopt and adapt a street design guide such as LA County Living Streets Manual, or NACTO. Adopt or adapt a town-village urban design manual. A good model for an urban guide is taken from a like community, Collingwood, Ontario’s Urban Design Manual, which was written by Rob Voigt, who once lived and worked on Whidbey Island, and who was schooled as an urban planner by Larry Beasley, the master planner from Vancouver, B.C. (Larry Beasley is largely credited with the transformation of its downtown core alongNew Urbanismlines, known as Vancouverism or "The Vancouver Model". . -- Dan Burden Director of Innovation & Inspiration “I arise in the morning tornbetween the desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That makes it hard to plan the day.” — E.B. White Blue Zones Blue Zones, LLC 80 South 8th Street, Suite 1400 | Minneapolis, MN 55402 Cell: 614-595-0976 Dan.burden@bluezones.com|www.bluezones.com twitter |Facebook Blue Zones Solution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHFPXsCM0n4 From: Judy Surber <jsurber@cityofpt.us> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 1:12 PM To: Dan Burden <dan.burden@bluezones.com>, "Richard Dandridge (dandrpt@gmail.com)" <dandrpt@gmail.com>, Lys Burden <WPBurden@aol.com> PC-8 Cc: Lance Bailey <lbailey@cityofpt.us>, Amber Long <ALong@cityofpt.us>, Samantha Thomas <samantha@bluezones.com> Subject: RE: Comprehensive Plan comments Thanks for the prompt reply. You state that the next letter “incorporates all ideas” into one place. Will this replace the three previous letters? It really helps us staff/Planning Commission/Council to read one comp\[retentive letter rather than three or four iterations of the same letter. Take your time writing one comprehensive letter – perhaps signed by all? There is no rush – the joint Planning Commission/City Council meeting has been postponed to August (we suggest you comment by July 24 to ensure the letter is available in their packets). Judy From: Dan Burden \[mailto:dan.burden@bluezones.com\] Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2015 12:36 PM To: Judy Surber; Richard Dandridge (dandrpt@gmail.com);wpburden@aol.com Cc: Lance Bailey; Amber Long; Samantha Thomas Subject: Re: Comprehensive Plan comments Thanks, Judy. Yes all three submittals are intended to build upon one another. I am now polishing a joint submittal that incorporates all ideas into one place, and builds in many of Samantha Thomas’s additions, and we will label this An Open Letter. We are still holding to 20 items. So glad that you are doing this. I will send the mailing to both this address, and the one that you suggest. Will send within the hour. What a spectacular day for PT. -- Dan Burden Director of Innovation & Inspiration “I arise in the morning tornbetween the desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That makes it hard to plan the day.” — E.B. White Blue Zones, LLC 80 South 8th Street, Suite 1400 | Minneapolis, MN 55402 Cell: 614-595-0976 Dan.burden@bluezones.com|www.bluezones.com twitter |Facebook PC-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHFPXsCM0n4 From: Judy Surber <jsurber@cityofpt.us> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 12:29 PM To: "Richard Dandridge (dandrpt@gmail.com)" <dandrpt@gmail.com>, Dan Burden <dan.burden@bluezones.com>, Lys Burden <WPBurden@aol.com> Cc: Lance Bailey <lbailey@cityofpt.us>, Amber Long <ALong@cityofpt.us> Subject: Comprehensive Plan comments Good morning Richard, Liz and Dan, Thank you for your interest in the Comprehensive Plan update process. In the past two days, we have received three correspondence from you regarding Comprehensive Plan update Transportation suggestions. It appears that all three are related. Each one building on the previous. Date:FromSent via:Content June 24, 2015Liz BurdenEmailed to6 Transportation 2016Update@cityofpt.us suggestions June 25, 2015Richard Dandridge Emailed to10 Transportation lbailey@cityofpt.us on behalf of Dan suggestions Burden June 25, 2015Dan BurdenHand delivered20 Transportation Suggestions As you can imagine, record keeping for a complex project that lasts over a year can be complicated. To help us ensure that your comments are included in the Comprehensive Plan Process, please 1)UseourdesignatedComprehensivePlan updateemailaddress:2016Update@cityofpt.us 2)Pleasecontinuetoinclude“2016Update”in thesubjectline PC-8 3)Wheneverpossible,consolidateyour thoughtsintoasinglecorrespondence.Alternatively,pleasenotethattheletter replaces/supplementsyourearliercorrespondenceof(specifydate). Are we to conclude that the last letter with 20 suggestions replaces the prior two? (please reply all on any response). Thank you. Judy Surber SeniorPlanner/PlanningManager CityofPortTownsend 360.379.5084 jsurber@cityofpt.us CITYOFPT NOTICE REGARDING PUBLIC DISCLOSURE: Public documents and records are available to the public as required under the Washington State Public Records Act (RCW 42.56). The information contained in all correspondence with a government entity may be disclosable to third party requesters under the Public Records Act. PC-8