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 25, 2008 This past week we had a meeting to discuss how to address potential future development in the Seaside TSP. This conversation was important because future development will impact the type, size, and location of transportation improvements needed in the City.



Typically when we forecast future traffic levels, we use one of two methods. For larger urban areas we use a travel demand model, which is a fairly sophisticated tool that considers population and employment growth by small geographic areas called traffic analysis zones (TAZs). Trips generated by growth in population and employment are assigned to the transportation network, distributed based on origins and destinations, and assigned a mode (i.e., cars, bicycles, transit, walking). However, travel demand models are not available for many smaller urban areas, including Seaside. For areas without a travel demand model, the typical process is to look at historic traffic growth and apply this same rate to the future, growing all parts of the City at the same rate.

Some jurisdictions have been using a third method called Cumulative Analysis which applies a simplified version of the same steps as travel demand models to smaller urban areas. We are using this method in Seaside, using what the City already knows about projected growth in population and employment, available lands by zone, and known environmental constraints that would limit development.

The meeting this week was for the project team to discuss future development projections in Seaside, land use availability, development constraints, and how to assess potential development outside the Urban Growth Boundary. The team agreed on an approach that allows the team to analyze future traffic conditions in the month of August. This analysis is needed to complete the first phase of the TSP “Identification of Need” and must be completed before the workshop planned for September.

July 21, 2008 The remainder of the summer traffic counts were collected this past Saturday (July 19th). The weather was warm and sunny, so we expect that the information will give us a great sense of typical summertime travel conditions in Seaside. Reminder that the team will use this information, combined with those counts collected back in April, to help evaluate traffic flow and delay along the highway (US 101) through Seaside.

The Project Management Team is finishing up its review of Existing Conditions and Deficiencies. This work prepares an inventory of the current roadway, bicycle, pedestrian, and transit network in Seaside (local and state facilities) and identifies key deficiencies in regards to safety, mobility, and connectivity. We expect to revise the Existing Conditions and Deficiencies work and post it to the website in early August.

We continue our work on the future land use scenario. This week the team is meeting to discuss how to address potential growth outside the City limits and Urban Growth Boundary. As we know, this requires a balance between land and environmental constraints outside the Urban Growth Boundary with the desire to accommodate development consistent with Tsunami Emergency Preparedness Plans. Our team hopes to document information at this meeting that will be relevant to the development of the Future Conditions and Deficiencies work.

With the conclusion of our Existing and Future Conditions and Deficiencies work, we will be complete with our first project phase – Determining Project Need. The next phase of the project will be kicked off with a public workshop in September called Brainstorming Potential Improvements.

July 11, 2008 Please be aware that summer traffic counts will be collected tomorrow (Saturday July 12th), as well as next Saturday July 19th. We will be capturing information at the following areas:

• US 101 / Lewis and Clark Road
• US 101 / 24th Avenue
• US 101 / 12th Avenue
• US 101 / Broadway
• US 101 / Holladay
• US 101 / Avenue S
• US 101 / Avenue U

The intent of this effort is to understand as clearly as possible what traffic is like along the state highway during the summertime. These counts are in response to a request from the Seaside City Council and Planning Commission at our meeting with them in March. This information will improve our understanding of how well (or not well) traffic moves along the highway.

These are 16-hour counts so you’ll see cameras up for the majority of the day. A crew from the Oregon Department of Transportation will be mounting cameras at intersections late Friday or early Saturday, and removing them late Saturday or early Sunday. Half of these intersections will be counted tomorrow, and the other half next Saturday (July 19th).

Our team will use the information to count the number of cars traveling through the intersection, record their movement (traveling straight vs. turning), make note of how many bicyclists and pedestrians pass through an intersection, and record the number of axles on each vehicle. This latter observation helps us identify the percent of trucks as part of overall traffic.

July 3, 2008 Happy 4th of July! We are sure that Seaside will be busy this weekend, and the weather should hold out for some nice beach activities.



This week we finalized our summary of the first transportation summit we had on June 18th. The participation at this summit was fantastic and we’re excited by all the good feedback we received. The summer assignment is up on the project website and we are starting to get some early responses from the community.

Please be aware that summer traffic counts will be collected on Saturday, July 12 and Saturday, July 19. We’ll send more specifics on that next week so you know what to expect.

Also this week we’ve been coordinating quite a bit with Cindy Howe at the Sunset Empire Transportation District. Cindy has been very helpful in providing information on current transit routes, ridership, and results from rider surveys. This information has helped us tremendously in understanding current transit service and how we might consider future improvements in the TSP.

Finally, we’ve been working with the City of Seaside and Clatsop County to develop a “future land use scenario.” This scenario looks at what type of future development might occur in Seaside, how much we might expect, and where it might go. This work gets at some of the questions we heard at the summit, such as whether the school(s) might relocate, and how much development might take place east and/or south of Wahanna Road. This is an interesting and interactive process, but will challenge us as we move through the summer.

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