Milwaukie moves to finalize 20‑year Transportation System Plan; bike and pedestrian projects prioritized amid a $2 million shortfall

Milwaukie city staff on Tuesday presented a revised prioritization of projects for the city's Transportation System Plan, focusing on bike and pedestrian improvements while acknowledging a roughly $2 million gap between the draft constrained project list and the state-required funding target.

The update summarized a multi-step process that began with a data-driven scoring of projects, incorporated public outreach and focus groups this summer, and was refined by the TSP advisory and technical committees and the planning commission. Staff said most tier‑1 (financially constrained) projects are multimodal: sidewalks, protected bike facilities and shared-use routes.

"We took the evaluation criteria and created basically a scoring mechanism," said Matt Hubert of Kittleson, the project's consultant. "That data-driven numerical process was then filtered with comments we had received...and then you step back and say, you know what? That doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe we should move some of these projects around." Hubert led the technical walkthrough of the prioritization method.

Why it matters: the TSP identifies which projects the city intends to pursue over a 20‑year horizon and can determine where staff and grant applications concentrate resources. The city must submit a financially constrained project list that does not exceed 125% of its projected funding; staff said the 125% threshold for Milwaukie is about $27.5 million.

Key numbers and narrow gap

Staff reported that an initial, data-driven project list totaled just over $30 million while the city's funding forecast (including an allowance equal to 125% of the projected revenue) is about $27.5 million. Committee refinements brought the working total down to roughly $28.5 million, leaving the plan about $2 million over the…