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Weekly Updates

This page keeps you up-to-date on the progress of the project through weekly updates located here. Every week we take you inside the inner workings of our team - what we are up to, who we have spoken to, progress made, and issues resolved. Occassionally we'll ask local officials, business owners, and residents to share their thoughts about transportation in Seaside. And we will always be taking your comments and questions. Check back every Friday for a new update!


August 2008

August 15, 2008 - Guest Column Kevin S. Cupples, AICP - City of Seaside, Planning Director A Transportation System Plan (TSP) is a long range planning document (a twenty year plan) that guides the identification of and investment in future transportation facilities and services. TSPs are produced to meet State and regional planning requirements and to address local transportation needs for cost-effective highway, street, transit, freight, bicycle, and pedestrian improvements. The City of Seaside’s TSP will serve as the transportation element of our local comprehensive plan and it is intended to provide a balanced transportation system that supports livability and economic growth.

Since land use and transportation are inextricably linked, the Seaside TSP will allow us to take a broad look at future system needs instead of making all decisions on a case by case basis. This is important because it helps anticipate potential development impacts and plan improvements where they are needed the most. If Seaside continues to grow without any improvements to the transportation system, the system will ultimately fail. The TSP will support proactive measures that are intended to avoid the failure all together. From a public investment standpoint, planning to avoid failures is generally less costly than attempting to fix the system after a failure has occurred. Furthermore, the plan itself is often used to leverage public funding sources that can help offset the costs for needed improvements. In other words, without a TSP, some necessary projects simply won’t qualify for grant funding programs.

The City of Seaside is continuing to grow, and that growth will continue to place demands on our current transportation infrastructure. Through public participation in the TSP planning process, we are hoping to anticipate those demands and make reasonable accommodation for them in the future. At present, the City is considering an expansion of the urban growth boundary (UGB) to allow for additional housing development and encompass land outside of hazard zones for some public facilities. If this is to be accomplished, we will need to have these areas included in the current TSP so we can prepare for the demands they will create.

We hope the public will stay involved with the future UGB and the TSP planning activities. Public input will add to the ultimate success of both planning efforts and help us all prepare for the future.

August 11, 2008 It’s time for a transit update!
We have been working closely with the Sunset Empire Transportation District (SETD) and wanted to share what we’ve found on existing transit service in Seaside and results from recent rider surveys.

The SETD provides Route 20 Gray Sea Gull transit service within Gearhart, Seaside, and Cannon Beach, and the Route 101 Pink Salmon connects Seaside to many other destinations throughout Clatsop County, including: Gearhart, Cannon Beach, Astoria, Warrenton, and Westport. The SETD provides county-wide “Dial-a-Ride” service for the elderly, disabled and those living far from fixed routes. The SETD also coordinates with Oregon Coachways, a charter motor coach company, to provide once daily service to Portland.

Results from recent SETD’s rider surveys show transit to be of great interest to Seaside residents. When asked to indicate why they ride the bus, almost half of riders said they take transit because they don’t have a car available. Approximately one in four riders said they can’t/don’t know how to drive, and almost one-fifth said they ride because they prefer to take the bus.

Another transit rider survey revealed the following rider recommendations to improve SETD service: lowering prices (19 percent), adding more stops/routes (17 percent), expanding service hours into the evenings and early mornings (11 percent), adding more stops in outlying areas (11 percent), providing bus service on Sundays (11 percent), and including more direct/non-stop routes between Astoria, Seaside, and Cannon Beach (10 percent).

The SETD has itemized several goals and strategies to improve transit service in its Comprehensive Plan. These goals include:
1. strengthen access to public transportation,
2. provide cost-effective and safe public transportation, and
3. increase ridership by improving the frequency and connectivity of fixed-route service.

We’ll continue to work with Cindy and the SETD to incorporate specific transit improvements into the Seaside TSP.

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August 1, 2008 More talk about traffic? It’s the phase we’re in. This week we got preliminary results from our “existing conditions” work, which showed some traffic issues at the main east-west connector streets in town - US 101 and 12th Avenue; US 101 and Broadway; and US 101 at 24th Avenue/Lewis & Clark Road. The problems seem to be with the cross traffic moving east-west that are having a difficult time crossing the highway. I know, this sounds obvious to people that live in Seaside full time – but remember that documentation and justification will be critical when we start looking for ways to improve how people move around Seaside!

We’ve also started to get in the traffic data from our July counts. You’ll recall from earlier updates that the team – upon request from City Council – collected traffic data in mid-July along US 101. We collected data in April and forecasted it to reflect what we thought things would look like in July, and then we collected data in July to make sure we got it correct. We are pleased to start getting the data back so we can compare, adjust as appropriate, and finalize our “existing conditions” work.

We are pulling together our land use scenario. So far we’re focusing on six potential growth areas:
1. South end of town, along Sunset/Ocean Vista
2. South end of town, east of US 101, along Avenue S
3. Along and east of Wahanna Road, in vicinity of Broadway
4. Mid-end of town, along of Wahanna Road, between Shoreline Terrace and Beachview Terrace
5. North end of town, along Lewis & Clark Road
6. Mid- to north end of town, between Prom and Necanicum River

Please note that this work will take us until the middle of August, but we’ll share findings as they’re developed and will have details available at the next public workshop as well.

Finally, we will be working on getting some guests to post on this updates page in August. Stay tuned!

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July 2008