After an unexpected call to reevaluate and change details about the recently approved concurrency plans, the Sammamish City Council agreed to further explore the data collected on peak hours of morning traffic.

At their June 5 meeting, the council directed staff to bring models of the peak morning traffic hours to determine if changing the established peak hour would effect the Transportation Improvement Plan.

Council members Karen Moran and Chris Ross brought a motion to the council to adjust previously agreed upon concurrency model details in a number of ways, including widening the city’s peak traffic hours from one hour to two, increasing the area tracked in intersection backup distance, as well as incorporating additional traffic analytics data to act as a secondary traffic management tool.

The motion came after the council voted to reaffirm their past direction regarding their interim concurrency model at their May 15 meeting. That model would be used to mitigate the traffic impacts caused by the city’s growth.

The city’s development moratorium is in effect until the council approves and implements the revised traffic model, which members of the council hope to have lifted in July. The moratorium was put in place in October 2017 to make sure new development projects are not vested to the old traffic model.

The council’s concurrency model would work as an interim structure that, once in place, could be tweaked and changed to best suit the needs of the city and its residents.

On top of research conducted by city staff, Moran and Ross explained that they had done additional research into other cities’ traffic models and had traveled to Vancouver, Washington, to meet with city staff and learn about their traffic model. The changes they proposed were based on their research.

The council and administration was not pleased with the timing or introduction of the proposal because they had not been given any information on what was going to be presented. Both staff and other council members expressed their displeasure with not being able to see the information beforehand in order to prepare for a detailed discussion on the proposed changes.

Public Works Deputy Director Cheryl Paston told the council that they would not be able to stay on their planned schedule if these changes were adopted. Currently a Planning Commission public hearing on the Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) is set for June 21; if the motion had been adopted the staff may have had to push back the hearing, she said.

July is the deadline to update the city’s TIP. Adopting the updated TIP will change the intersection level of service policy to the new model in the Comprehensive Plan and city code will be updated to match the new level of service policy.

Council member Jason Ritchie suggested tabling the motion so that council and staff could review the data, move forward with the existing plan, get out of the moratorium and then continue with adjusting the plan once it is in place.

“From what I’ve seen, the model that we have right now does show us the work we have to do right now. If we have more work we have to do through adding more intersections or more larger peak windows, let’s deal with that, let’s move forward on that. If we get GPS data or INRIX data that shows more issues we have to deal with, lets deal with that too,” Ritchie said. “But as I understand this process, we should be moving forward step by step incrementally over time, continuing this debate continuing these conversations and building consensus and learning from each other and learning through new data… I don’t want to knock what you guys have done, I just don’t know enough to support the motion or, frankly, to not support it.”

Ultimately, the council decided not to approve the motion and asked staff to bring back models on the data collected on the peak morning traffic hours from the current peak hour of 7 to 8 a.m. as well as 8 to 9 a.m. for review. Staff is now working on collecting the data to make sure that the 8 to 9 a.m. hour does not result in a significantly different project list.

The motion requesting staff to bring back the peak hour information passed in a 6-1 vote with council member Hornish voting against.

City Manager Lyman Howard also asked Moran to send staff the information on who they talked to at the city of Vancouver in order for technical experts to validate those discussions.

A public hearing of the TIP list is set for June 19, at the city council meeting. The planning commission hearing for the code and comprehensive plan is set for June 21, after which two additional public hearings will be held at city council meetings on July 10 and 17.