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City of Vancouver, Washington

Concurrency

Balancing Your Daily Commute

Lately you may have noticed there is more and more talk about something called “concurrency,” But what is concurrency and what does it mean to those of us living in Vancouver?

Simply put, concurrency is a tool the State of Washington uses to make sure development approval decisions are made in a timely manner with satisfactory public facilities, such as sewer, water and roads. In other words, concurrency links our community’s land use plans with our capital improvement plans (including our transportation plans), providing us with a tool for effectively managing the growth of our community.

You might remember that in 1994 our community adopted a 20-year Comprehensive Plan for the City of Vancouver. This document, which took nearly three years to create, outlines a vision of what we want our community to become. This vision called for the City of Vancouver to become a more densely populated, urban community, reliant on public transportation, rather than becoming suburbs spread out across the landscape of Clark County. So, we have already decided what we want our community to become. Now we are faced with making this vision a reality.

As part of this process, the City is proposing to reconsider how it deals with the issues of traffic concurrency. These changes will require that our elected decision-makers and, more importantly, we as a community, make the tough choices necessary to complete the plans we have made for our future. Your participation and input are a critical part of this process.

Concurrency Doesn’t Stop Growth?

No. There are many misunderstandings about concurrency. Specifically, concurrency is often misunderstood to be a way to stop both new development and new people from coming into our community. However, did you know that the birth rate of our community alone is responsible for 53% percent of our annual population growth? Concurrency is the tool we use to help us manage our community’s growth in a responsible manner.

In terms of transportation, concurrency requires that adequate transportation capacity is available to support new development. Basically, concurrency forces us to ensure that, as our community grows, our system of roads is able to handle our daily travels. When new development is proposed, it is studied to determine if it would exceed the City’s established Level of Service (LOS) standards. Most LOS standards deal with how long it takes to get through an intersection or turn at an intersection. They are the lowest acceptable operating level for a given road or intersection. Before the City can approve a development, a decision must be made that the development will not create enough traffic to overrun the LOS standards, or that the City or developer will be able to make traffic improvements to ensure compliance with LOS standards. In short, if a proposed development is likely to overrun established LOS standards, the development cannot be approved. Thus, concurrency allows us to implement our vision for our community in step with our growth.

Now Come the Trade-Offs...

As you have probably guessed by now, making concurrency work requires that we make difficult decisions about how to fulfill the vision we have created for our community. The basic choice is this: Are we willing to face higher levels of traffic and delay, or would we rather invest tax dollars and make the sacrifices associated with improving our existing roads? This question is even more difficult to make when you consider that, except during the “rush hour” commute, our roads seem to work pretty well. It is typically only during our commute to and from work that we even notice if our adopted LOS standards work or not. In other words, this concurrency debate is all about convenience and the types of sacrifices we are willing to make during about one hour of our daily driving routine.

To get a better idea of what this means, think of your local shopping mall. Most of the year your local mall has more than enough parking; in fact, most of the lot appears to be empty. But during the holidays and during major sales events the parking lots are nearly full. These parking lots are intentionally overbuilt to handle the relatively rare maximum demand time.

The same principle can be seen at work in our local transportation facilities. Most of the time we can travel to and from our destinations without great trouble. But don’t count on this same condition during rush hour. The amount of traffic our roads (and our nerves) can handle are tested each morning and evening as we travel to and from work. So what do we do about this? Like our malls, do we build roads large enough to handle the one or two hours a day when most of us are going to or coming from work? Or, do we choose to sacrifice some of our time each day? When you get right down to it, our individual perspectives on concurrency are based on what we each are personally willing to live with. It is a matter of perspective.

How Much Will This Cost Me?

State law requires that we allow a certain amount of growth, and we should plan for more in the future. Concurrency is a tool we can use to do this. Your tax dollars will be used to pay for the “public’s share” of whatever concurrency solution is adopted. That’s what the state law requires. This means, if, as a community, we decide to expand our roads to provide for constantly free-flowing traffic conditions, then we can eventually expect to pay higher taxes to support that choice.

However, the cost of roads is not measured in dollars alone. Wider roads mean more pavement and possible changes to our urban environment. These changes may involve increased amounts of polluted water runoff entering our local rivers and streams, affecting our native fish runs. Wider streets may also require that our roads be widened, making them closer to our homes and places of business, potentially removing street trees, affecting quality of life issues like increased traffic noise, and generally changing the pleasing look of our neighborhoods.

As difficult as these choices are, they are better than doing nothing at all. The cost of doing nothing would mean that we would not be able to make room for growth in our community. This would mean that new development would have to stop. Not only is that illegal under state law, but it would not follow our comprehensive plan. It would also have a negative effect on our local economy, and could make it difficult for our families and friends to find good housing or places of employment within our community. As you can see, the choices before us may prove difficult. However, based on the choices we have already made, we must now choose how to proceed in a way that is best for our community.

Now Then…Tell Me More About Concurrency

Q: What is concurrency?
A: In terms of traffic, concurrency means that enough road facilities need to be available to accommodate the additional level of traffic generated by new development. Otherwise, that development cannot be approved. If the road systems we have now cannot handle traffic that comes from new development, or the road system cannot be improved to carry this traffic within six years by financial commitments made by the City or a developer, then the City cannot approve the new development. In short, the development would not be built because it would generate more traffic than our community can handle in the foreseeable future.

Q: How is concurrency measured?
A: Concurrency is measured by adding the traffic that is likely to be caused by a proposed development with the current traffic levels. The sum of projected and existing traffic levels is then measured against the City’s level of service standards, or LOS. Simply put, LOS standards show the amount of traffic the community has decided to accept. So, if the traffic from a new development and the existing traffic levels do not go over the community’s LOS standards, the proposed development meets concurrency.

Q: Will these standards be adjusted on any regular basis? How will that be done?
A: Each year City staff will present, in an open public meeting before the City Council, a “report card” that explains the status of the transportation system. After hearing public testimony and reviewing staff suggestions, the Council will establish LOS standards for the following 12-month period. The Council will coordinate its decision with other City long-range land use and transportation programs.

Q: Doesn’t slower traffic on the main roads mean more cut-through traffic in my neighborhood?
A: Although concurrency requirements do not apply to local streets, there are other neighborhood planning tools in place so that motorists do not use our neighborhoods to avoid traffic delays. Additionally, the City’s new concurrency program uses various tests to measure how effective our road systems are. If for any reason these tests prove that a travel corridor is failing to meet the established standards, areas will be closed to new development until at least the next annual review.

Q: Why can’t developers pay for all these costs?
A: Developers pay directly for impacts caused by their new projects. For instance, developers are required to pay Traffic Impact Fees, which are used for road improvements, new signals, and other traffic facilities as a way of ensuring that the traffic generated by new development will not go over established LOS standards. However, we must remember that each of us has added to the growth of our community and that each of us has a stake in seeing concurrency work. We need to work together and share in the costs so that we can keep the vision we have created for our community.

Q: If I said I wanted to keep a travel time of 25 miles per hour as I drive to work, what would happen to the roadway?
A: Depending on the road you were talking about, this would probably mean that the through streets you drive would need to be widened. Widening of streets will increase the amount of paved surfaces in our community, which will increase polluted water runoff, push streets closer to our homes and businesses, and change the existing appearance of some neighborhoods in our community. Widening streets is also expensive due to the cost of buying property and constructing the new lanes.

Q: Is Vancouver the only city in the state trying to deal with concurrency? How is everyone else doing it?
A: No, all cities and counties that are regulated by the Growth Management Act (GMA) deal with concurrency one way or another. The City of Vancouver applies LOS standards to major travel corridors, or through streets. However, other cities and counties apply LOS standards to individual intersections. Either way, the basic idea is the same: If a new development will create traffic impacts greater than what the system can handle, the development cannot be approved.

Q: Is it true that a new development could be built even though I am waiting for 300 seconds, or five minutes, at a traffic signal that will be impacted by that development?
A: No. There are three tests that the City will use to test a new development for concurrency. These tests include: 1) an evaluation of whether we can drive through corridors at a minimum predetermined average speed; 2) an evaluation of specific intersections along a given corridor to ensure that a predetermined percentage of these intersections meet the LOS standards; and, 3) what is referred to as the “300 second test.” The 300 second test measures whether you are able to get through an intersection within two cycles (light changes) or a maximum of 300 seconds. The 300 seconds is based on the worst case scenario. Traffic lights in the city vary in time, location to location, and range from 55 seconds to 120 seconds. If you can’t get through the intersection in two cycles, then the intersection would fail this test. Failure of any one of these three tests will cause the affected areas to be closed to future development until the next annual review or until satisfactory improvements are identified and funded.

Q: If we select a more “urban” standard, will it affect the ability of emergency vehicles to move about the community?
A: Emergency vehicles constantly face the challenges of getting through traffic on the way to their destinations. Their drivers are trained to be able to avoid congestion, first, by route selection, but, more importantly, by evasive measures. An urban level of service is unlikely to adversely impact service delivery. Police, fire and ambulance will continue to work with the City, through the review process, to change and adjust service to community developments.