Milwaukie staff, consultant preview Transportation System Plan update; focus on bike/ped stress metrics and equity outreach

At an abbreviated Milwaukie work session, city staff and consultant Matt Hudark presented an update to the Transportation System Plan that emphasized bicycle and pedestrian performance measures, gaps in sidewalks and bike facilities, and planned community outreach in May and June.

The presentation centered on two technical performance measures—bicycle level of traffic stress (BLTS) and pedestrian level of traffic stress (PLTS)—that staff plan to use to identify and prioritize multimodal projects across the city. Matt Hudark said the BLTS and PLTS “are really gonna drive a lot of the project selection and evaluation that we do” and described the measures as data-driven scores based on speeds, volumes, facility width and observed obstructions.

Why it matters: The TSP update will guide which streets receive sidewalks, bike lanes, shared‑street treatments or intersection upgrades and will be used as a prioritization tool when the city seeks funding or advocates to regional agencies. City staff described the BLTS/PLTS analysis as an early, technical baseline that will be paired with community input before final project prioritization.

Most of the session focused on how the BLTS/PLTS scores were calculated and how the city will use them. Presenters said the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) methodology treats streets without sidewalks as deficient for pedestrians, which raised concerns from council…