Bellingham’s TIPsy Transportation Planning and Policy

Bellingham resident Preston L. Schiller has been involved with transportation issues for more than 25 years as a citizen, alternatives advocate, researcher and teacher. He is co-author of “An Introduction to Sustainable Transportation: Policy, Planning and Implementation” (Earthscan Publishing, 2010). He has taught transportation planning at Western Washington University’s Huxley College of the Environment and the School of Urban and Regional Planning, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. He has been involved with numerous transportation and transit advisory bodies as well as local, state and federal campaigns. As a Sehome Hill Arboretum board member in 2004, he opposed a WWU proposal to expand a road that would have infringed upon the arboretum.

Part 1

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of two articles about transportation. The opinions in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of Whatcom Watch.

In the early 1950s, the “best minds” of Bellingham were in agreement. Something had to be done about traffic, especially that of State Route 99 (SR99), the main road connecting Seattle and Vancouver. The “best minds” included the mayor, the city council, the port, the business community, the school district, all those who wanted Bellingham to become—in the words of the city’s daily boosterpaper—“the New York of the West.”

By 1953, the state’s Department of Highways began to plan for an expanded version of SR99 to and through Bellingham (soon to become I-5 under Eisenhower’s 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act). No longer would through drivers have to wander a circuitous route through Bellingham; they would have a wide, grade-separated limited access multi-lane freeway to whisk them on their way.

But what route would it take through Bellingham? The “best minds” favored a route that “helped” local industries. From the south, it was roughly along what is now known as Old Fairhaven Parkway. Then, as a favor to the large cannery, a large cloverleaf interchange would be built at 10th and Harris (thus wiping out most of the Fairhaven Commercial District), proceed along the waterfront (hijacking and destroying the Boulevard) and, as another favor to a friend, add two more large cloverleaf interchanges at the south and north ends of the pulp mill (G-P), then another large interchange to serve industrial friends near where Bellingham Technical College is at present, and finally on to an interchange near the current Bakerview exit, then north to Ferndale.

But it would cost big bucks for the state to acquire all the property needed for its 200-300-foot-wide right of way along the waterfront and through Fairhaven, Downtown and other fairly dense neighborhoods. So the state’s highway department, ever desirous of spreading its asphalt money further, chose the current alignment as cheaper.

Ironically, the cannery closed permanently the same year that I-5 was completed through Bellingham. And most of us remember the recent history of the Georgia Pacific (G-P) pulp mill and other industrial “friends,” as well as the increasing recreational and aesthetic importance of the waterfront to the whole community, from the north end of Roeder to Fairhaven.1

As the story of how I-5 came to Bellingham indicates, the city has a long history of transportation favors for “friends.” More recently the city has done favors for friends such as the widenings of Bakerview (from Cordata to I-5) and Sunset (between Woburn and McLeod), replete with sidewalks (and even a bicycle lane on Sunset thrown in to attract more state and federal funding) in order to spare the developers those expenses ahead of development. In other words, to lessen the costs of mitigation of impacts of development projects on developers.

Evidently the city has not learned enough from the many sustainable transportation speakers who have visited Bellingham in recent years, including Boulder’s Spense Havlick and Will Toor (“Transportation & Sustainable Campus Communities”) and “Sustainability and Cities”’ Jeffrey Kenworthy, who have explained why cities cannot “build their way out of congestion,” because road expansion triggers more traffic and that investments in walking, bicycling and well-planned transit give much more bang for the buck as well as supporting compact, less finance-draining development.

Arguments that road expansions relieve congestion and increase safety have generally been found to be mythological and not supported by evidence. Analysis almost always indicates that road expansions and expanding the amount of roadway, even through new links between previously unlinked roads, simply increases driving and traffic volumes.

Probably the greatest problem working against rational and sustainable transportation policy and planning in Bellingham is the lack of rational criteria for assessing and prioritizing projects. A few years ago when I was very critical of the widening of Sunset from Woburn to McLeod (Bellingham’s highest and most expensive transportation priority at that time), I asked the former director of public works how a priority ranking was determined, what was the process, where was it codified?

He replied that he just “shopped projects around to see what people wanted.” Who were these “people” and what was the process that ensured representation or reasoned deliberation? Just where and when did this nodding and winking occur? Details were never furnished. Public hearings were held, but while they are necessary ingredients, they are not sufficient for informed effective public deliberation and participation.

Bellingham’s proposed transportation projects are collected in an annual Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP). Fifteen to 20 projects, ranging from relatively inexpensive pavement repair and pedestrian crossings to extremely expensive new roads and bridges intended to meet the port’s plans for a marina with massive parking, are catalogued with very little information other than a very brief description, estimated cost, source of funding—if known (many unfunded projects are included in the hope that funding will someday materialize) and a map.

While some enlightened jurisdictions have stopped calling any and all road expansions “improvements,” rather than simply “expansions,” Bellingham continues using road-speak. The language used to justify projects is often lifted right out of consultants’ studies. All road expansions, whether new roads or widening existing roads, are “needed” to “relieve congestion, improve traffic flow, improve safety, improve access, provide multi-modal connectivity [big roads with small sidewalks], as identified in the comprehensive plan, as needed for growth management goals” etc., etc. Why not throw in “promote motherhood” as well?

And if the first phase of a road expansion doesn’t accomplish these, why not keep on “biggering the roads”2 in the hope that someday all these wishes will come true?

The TIP is meager in detail and is often not released sufficiently in advance of formal processes for those involved, including the public, to delve into its depths. Detailed information is only available upon request and may be cloaked in technical terminology opaque to the average citizen.

This year’s TIP was routed to the newly formed Transportation Commission (TC) for review. A wise move, but the TC had only a few days to review it before meeting to superficially discuss—and “approve” it. Not enough time, not enough detailed information, not enough process. But Public Works could then present it to the City Council and say that the TC had reviewed it.

Bellingham’s transportation planning had started to improve a little, at least in terms of some project selections and a small measure of progressive rethinking, some years ago. The former mayor, the prodding of former councilmember Barbara Ryan and some openness on the part of a few staff managed to reduce the number of motor vehicle lanes on a few downtown streets where space for bicycles was created; a few inappropriate traffic signals were changed to stop signs and a badly needed traffic signal was placed at Railroad and Chestnut; a few parking spaces were taken away from cars and given to the growing numbers of bicyclists for lanes; and a few roundabouts were created to smooth traffic flow—although the jury is still out on whether these have been designed to safely accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists. And there was more in the way of small but generally effective spending on pedestrian projects.

But the pace of progress slowed considerably as the widening of Sunset from Woburn to McLeod became the priority and the road gang could not imagine reducing the number of lanes on Holly or Chestnut to create much-needed space there for bicycles. Suggesting that all the wide downtown one-way streets needed to revert to two-way in order to improve circulation became taboo, even when it came from the mouths of nationally recognized experts or when the successful experiences of other downtowns was referenced.

My suggestions to reduce the width of the overly wide motor vehicle lanes on Forest and State Streets in order to create counter-flow bicycle lanes (common in European cities as well as progressive North American cities such as Boulder and Toronto) or to plant trees—or both, were laughed at by the former director of public works.

It is against this checkered background that a recent project proposal and a policy initiative could be evaluated. First, the sort-of-good:

The mayor proposed and the council has so far concurred (as of Mid-July) that it would be a good idea to form a transportation benefit district (TBD). The TBD could create a revenue stream that could be used for a variety of purposes. Since the state’s gasoline tax is dedicated to highway purposes by constitutional amendment, alternative revenue sources are needed to fund transportation alternatives such as transit and pedestrian and bicycling facilities—although sometimes these can be funded along with road projects.

There are only a few unencumbered taxing mechanisms, other than taxing real estate, left for cities to use to support transportation alternatives. While advocates of transportation alternatives have proposed a sales tax on gasoline the state legislature resists offering this alternative. So local policymakers are left with the option of increasing the sales tax, already high and regressive (hurting low income persons more than high income persons), and a more recent option: a local motor vehicle excise tax (MVET), up to $100 per year per vehicle registered in the city. The city can levy an MVET of up to $20 per vehicle without a vote of the public. Any levy above that amount must go to a public vote. A generally accurate rule of thumb indicates that there are at least 80,000 motor vehicles registered in Bellingham and that at least 50,000-60,000 would be MVET taxable.

Most of Bellingham’s transportation funding comes from a mixture of the city’s share of the gasoline tax and more generalized sources of revenue such as the real estate excise tax (REET), sales tax and property taxes. Of course, there is much competition among different agencies for the general revenue sources.

The proposal that has passed the council calls for a public vote come November for a $0.002 (two-tenths of a cent) sales tax increase to create a revenue stream for 10 years to fund road maintenance, pedestrian and bicycle projects and some transit services that would likely be cut in the wake of the defeat of the recent WTA tax proposal. There are several questions that might be raised with this well-meaning proposal:

• Why is this limited new revenue stream being applied to road maintenance—an already well-established item that can be funded through the city’s share of the gas tax? Is it because the city’s share of the gas tax is being mostly applied to questionable road expansions, leaving less and less for what should be the high priority of maintaining what we’ve already got? Shouldn’t bicycle and pedestrian improvements, the proven best and most cost-effective ways of moving persons out of cars—especially for short in-town trips, be the next highest priority? And shouldn’t road expansion be the lowest priority? Many surveys indicate that the public prefers forms of taxation that are related to the services to be funded, the problems to be addressed. The public prefers to fund transit from revenue streams that tap into the source of our transportation problem: overdependence on automobiles, undersupply of alternatives. This would point in the direction of the MVET as a tax preferable to the sales tax for transit.

• It is laudable that the mayor is thinking of ways to maintain transit services in Bellingham—the source of approximately 80 percent of WTA’s revenues and riders. But will the city demand some much needed reforms from WTA in the process? Yes, WTA’s ridership has grown dramatically in the past couple years. Yes, its marketing (branding of routes, buses, stops and shelters, etc) has led the improvements. Yes, the WWU students now all have a universal bus pass and those who did not have a pass before are enjoying the use of it more and more—contributing more riders to an already robust WWU ridership. Yes, ridership has also improved due to the routes whose services (or portions thereof) have become more frequent. Yes, some of the longer distance in-county and inter-county routes have proven to be amazingly successful often with standing room only (despite WTA’s early skepticism about the value of the state-funded inter-county routes whose original research and planning I was involved with). Yes, but … WTA still is in the grips of an outmoded service planning model that has buses unnecessarily delayed by a downtown stop of several minutes for transfers from one route to another. While this allows for some convenient transfers in some cases, this system feature imposes self-defeating limitations on its ability to improve frequencies route configurations.3 Will the city simply underwrite WTA services as currently delivered, or will the city negotiate for some needed system planning improvements?

• Will the city consider developing a rational system of project prioritization and funding allocations to reflect the higher priority that maintenance and non-motorized deserve? Will the expertise and commitment of the recently formed transportation commission (TC) be given a significant role in developing this process? Will the citizen volunteers of the TC be able to craft a list of meaningful priority projects well in advance of the November vote? Or will we have more business as usual and a last minute waving of a city hall wish list in front of the TC and the council?

Further debate and deliberation of the TBD proposal could result in improvements:

• Not using unconstrained revenues (MVET and sales tax) for road upkeep, but rather applying the city’s share of the gas tax to this before expanding roads.

• A hard look at what the city would contract with WTA for in the way of services, possibly forcing some needed service planning and route configuration changes.

• An opportunity for the city to charge the Transportation Commission with the task of overhauling the TIP process before its next cycle.

Footnote: As of press time, the council narrowly passed a measure creating the TBD but has delayed identifying specifics such as the form and amount of taxation as well as details of what would be funded. These items will likely be discussed at its July 26 meeting and must be voted on then and finally decided by its Aug. 9 meeting if a measure is to be placed on the November ballot. A number of citizens have expressed concerns along the lines cited here which has led to more discussion of this matter by the council than otherwise might have occurred. §

¹The story of I-5 is recounted in detail by former Fairhaven College student James V. Hillegas in his 2004 article for the Whatcom Journal of History (an online version is available at http://www.wwu.edu/history/annual/papers/Hillegas.htm) and a shortened version of it was included in An Introduction to Sustainable Transportation: Policy, Planning and Implementation by Preston L. Schiller, Eric C. Bruun and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy, Earthscan Publishing, 2010 http://www.earthscan.co.uk/?TabId=101776&v=512228.

Next Month

Explore the hijacking of the Bay to Baker Trail, a potential Greenways project.