West Linn narrows pedestrian priorities, explores fee and bond options to fill sidewalk gaps

West Linn city staff and the Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) presented a reprioritization of the city's pedestrian project list on April 21, proposing a shorter, safety-focused set of sidewalk projects and asking the council to consider new long-term funding options.

The reprioritization effort, led by the city's consultant Kittleson and Associates and presented by Eric Laius, public works director and city engineer, used updated criteria based on the Oregon Transportation Planning Rule and other regional guidance to score and rank sidewalk infill and gap projects. The new list reduced items carried over from the 2016 Transportation System Plan, removed projects that are complete or infeasible and added projects raised by recent community requests.

The update matters because the older 2016 list identified many more projects than the city can realistically fund: the 2016 TSP listed 104 pedestrian projects with roughly $20 million in total estimated cost. The reprioritization produced 107 projects divided into two categories (tier 1: streets with no sidewalks on either side; tier 2: streets with sidewalk on one side) and highlighted a shorter set of high-priority projects concentrated around schools and other key pedestrian destinations.

Staff described the reprioritization criteria as objective and grounded in state and regional rules. "We based the factors on the Transportation…