Drafting a Transportation Master Plan

Tacoma's Public Works staff and members of the Transportation Commission have been hard at work laying the groundwork for a new Transportation Master Plan for the city.

The creation of Tacoma's TMP is no small task, as it will involve bringing together all elements of transportation in the City to form a coherent vision to guide transportation planning and prioritize investment for decades to come in Tacoma.

The TMP will provide a long-term vision for transportation infrastructure in the City of Tacoma. It will be the primary tool for forecasting transportation demand and identifying services and improvements needed to achieve those goals and accommodate future demands.

At a meeting last month the City Council heard a presentation on the Transportation Commission's work so far, and plans going forward, including the commission's work to date on the Transportation Master Plan. So far the commission has focused on defining existing conditions, exploring land use and travel demand forecasts, outlining goals and policies, and beginning to consider individual transportation modes, including transit, road, bike and pedestrian, and freight networks.

Once the needs and challenges have been mapped for the individual modes, those maps will be overlaid with each other and with maps of existing conditions and land use in Tacoma. The task then will be to identify specific conflicts between modes, and assess how to prioritize uses for specific streets (see above flow chart).

That process will also be informed by existing policy priorities from Tacoma's Mobility Master Plan like green transportation hierarchies, and the 20-minute neighborhood concept. The results will be used to draft level of service standards, which will in turn inform a list of transportation projects. That list will feed into Tacoma's SIx Year Transportation Improvement Plan and the Transportation Element of Tacoma's Comprehensive Plan.

It's a complex challenge, which in 2015 will involve integrating all the various transportation modes, and working with associated stakeholders. There's a lot more work ahead of the commission. Looking ahead, the next couple months will bring more concrete plans, and more public outreach process, including an online survey, and outreach to major employers and other stakeholders.

You can participate right now and help inform the prioritization of transportation modes by completing a brief three-question survey available on the City's website.

1. What modes of travel do you use in a typical week?
2. In a sentence, tell us your future vision for Tacoma's transportation system.
3. Comparing what's on the ground today with what you'd like to see in the future, what modes need the most attention?

So, how do you travel around Tacoma? What are your transportation priorities?