PORT TOWNSEND — Port Townsend intends to improve transportation routes for pedestrians and bikers, balancing plans for sustainable streets.
“We have a lot of main streets that don’t have sidewalks,” assistant city engineer Jeff Kostechka said at Monday’s city council meeting. “We need to be strategic about how we address that.”
Kostechka presented developments in how staff is approaching the active transportation plan, an element of the 2025 comprehensive plan update.
“What is active transportation?” Kostechka asked. “It’s pretty much anything besides driving a car. Even our bicycles have motors now.”
Even driving trips generally involve active transportation to and from the car, Kostechka said.
“We all use active transportation,” he added.
The active transportation plan will include a hierarchy of infrastructure: Bike trails — the most accessible and engineered — connected routes, improved trails and unimproved trails.
When it comes time to adopt the comprehensive plan, staff will propose replacing walking and biking routes, which denote existing routes, with a map which outlines existing and priority routes for biking routes — which meet ADA requirements and connected routes.
Previously called the non-motorized plan, the original concept was adopted in 1998, with some updates in 2011, Kostechka said.
“What it looked like to me was that the real focus was on trail systems,” Kostechka said. “Which is great. We love our trails.”
While people want to walk for recreation, people also want to walk or bike to get from point A to point B as they move through their daily lives, Kostechka said.
“Some of our community can’t drive,” he said. “So they are using active transportation or public transit as their only means of transportation.”
Without an intentional plan for active transportation, the city will become more car-centric, Kostechka said.
“With a balanced approach, sustainable streets and active transportation — we’ve gotta do both at the same time — we can balance out (transportation priorities),” Kostechka said.
Public Works Director Steve King also presented the city’s in-process Sustainable Streets plan Monday, wherein he outlined ideas to encourage development that would require the least amount of street feet per home moving forward.
Community surveys and outreach have shown the community’s interest in the city’s increased investment in active transportation and open space, Kostechka said.
“By thinking about streets, we can actually benefit active transportation and open space at the same time,” he said.
Kostechka noted that studies show that people on foot and biking spend more money, a point for economic development, he said.
“From a city perspective, car infrastructure costs a lot of money,” he said. “We don’t build a lot of roads, but we fix a lot of roads. Infill development builds the roads, but we want to own as few roads as possible.”
Kostechka said the increased focus on active transportation should come incrementally. He referenced rules for healthy neighborhood change from Strong Towns.
“Two rules: No neighborhood can be exempt from change,” he said. “Second: No neighborhood should experience sudden or radical change.”
More than five outreach events have generated four main areas of feedback, Kostechka said.
People want more connected routes. People want active transportation routes to be detached paths or calm neighborhood streets. People want more low- and medium-cost improvements over fewer high-cost improvements. Also, people want key problem areas around town to be improved for active transportation.
Connected routes should move through areas with low levels or traffic stress and are low- to medium-cost projects, Kostechka said.
“A lot of times those streets are already there,” he said. “We’re just going to use them and define them as a walking and biking path.”
These paths would link to schools but also from neighborhood to neighborhood, and from neighborhoods to downtown, Kostechka said.
Many cities are prioritizing connected routes as a cost-effective way to connect neighborhoods, Kostechka said. Staff recently acquired a design guide, specifically for bikes, on connected routes, he said.
“They define the minimum requirement for a connected route as signage,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to be looking at your phone, you shouldn’t have to print out a map. It should be very clear which way to go.”
Some cities paint signs on the ground, and some use upright signs, he said.
A recently adopted state law — Senate Bill 5595 — has legalized shared streets.
“We’ve always done that in Port Townsend,” Kostechka said. “It’s now legal to jaywalk. You can walk in the middle of the street. I think we probably have to declare it’s a declared street, then we can do these things.”
Shared streets can be posted down to 10 mph; the law could benefit the implementation of safe connected routes, Kostechka said.
“When designing these, you must prioritize peds, bikes then cars,” he added. “If you live on a connected route, you can still drive your car, you can still get back to your house and driveway, but it may have other elements that discourage cut-through traffic. It’s going to be a more comfortable place to walk and bike.”
The three problem areas — or pinch points — the city has heard the most feedback on are Hastings Avenue, the curve on San Juan Avenue and 49th Street, and the curve at Admiralty Avenue and Spruce Street, Kostechka said.
The city hired a consultant to map traffic stress levels on main roads around the city, Kostechka said. The levels, based on speeds, traffic volumes, whether there are shoulders, sidewalks, bike lanes or nothing at all.
“With this information, we can be better informed about where we should target projects,” he said.
Traffic stress level is becoming part of the granting process, Kostechka said.
In addition to added funding from the Transportation Benefit District, the city continues to pursue grant funding to pursue active transportation improvements, Kostechka said.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
