Mountlake Terrace planning commission backs 2025–29 commute trip reduction plan

The Mountlake Terrace Planning Commission voted June 9 to recommend the city's 2025—2029 Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) plan to the City Council for public hearing and final adoption. The commission's endorsement advances an update intended to align the city with Washington state requirements and new baseline commuting data.

The CTR plan, prepared with support from Community Transit, updates employer requirements, outreach and measures intended to reduce single-occupancy vehicle trips, reduce congestion and cut emissions. City staff said the plan must be adopted by ordinance to be incorporated into Mountlake Terrace municipal code.

John Merrick, traffic engineer for Mountlake Terrace Public Works, told the commission the plan replaces the existing CTR plan and was delayed after 2020 because commute patterns changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Merrick said the state's overall target for affected employers is a 60% drive-alone rate by June 2029; Mountlake Terrace's current target in the draft is a 63% drive-alone rate for affected sites, a target established from the 2019 survey. Merrick said the 2023—2025 CTR survey will establish a new baseline and jurisdictions will measure progress against results from the 2025—2027 survey.

Under the draft, "affected employers" are those with 100 or more full-time employees arriving between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m.; those employers must prepare CTR programs, designate employer transportation coordinators, respond to required surveys and implement selected measures. Merrick said Premera is currently the only employer in Mountlake Terrace that meets the 100-employee threshold and that employers with fewer employees may opt in voluntarily.

The draft groups employer measures into three categories: commuting support and incentives (for example, transit-pass subsidies, vanpool or carpool subsidies, telework and compressed work schedules); information and education (new-hire commute information, on-site outreach, promotion events); and amenities and infrastructure (secure bicycle parking, showers, preferred carpool parking, electric-vehicle charging). The updated plan expands the menu of measures from about 15 to 24 options and would require employers to implement at least five measures, including at least one from each category.

Merrick described the city's existing interlocal agreement (ILA) with Community Transit, which coordinates CTR work across eight Snohomish County jurisdictions and leads outreach and survey administration. "The interlocal agreement is funded'we get about $15,000 a year'for administering our commute trip reduction program," Merrick said, and those funds are directed to Community Transit to provide coordination, templates and employer outreach.

Commissioners asked how the plan addresses school-related traffic, enforcement and incentives. Merrick said student drop-off and pickup (for example, high school and elementary queuing) are not CTR-covered "commute trips" if drivers do not remain at the worksite; he said the city can still pursue outreach and operational changes with the school district to reduce local congestion, but those actions are outside the CTR program'which targets employee commuting patterns.

On enforcement and incentives, the draft ordinance text included in the commission packet identifies civil-infraction penalties for failure to implement CTR requirements as a Washington Class I infraction; the draft text in the packet characterizes the per-day amount as up to $2.50 per day per violation. The commission also discussed nonpunitive approaches: outreach, technical assistance and coordinating facilities to make transit, walking and biking more practical for employees.

Commissioners discussed the idea of a commuter-benefit ordinance that would require employers with 20 or more employees to offer a pre-tax benefit or transit subsidy; Merrick said Seattle and other jurisdictions have explored such ordinances but that Mountlake Terrace staff want additional employer outreach before proposing a requirement, and that such a change might be considered for a future update (the next cycle discussed was the 2029 update).

Action: the commission voted to recommend the Mountlake Terrace 2025—2029 Commute Trip Reduction plan to the City Council. The motion passed with all present commissioners voting in favor; the recommendation sends the draft plan and the updated ILA for consideration at an upcoming council public hearing and possible adoption.

Commissioners and staff identified follow-up steps the city will take before council consideration: finalize the plan text based on public comments from the online posting, coordinate with Community Transit to renew the interlocal agreement that expires this month, reach out to Premera and to the school district about site-specific concerns, and continue reviewing whether a future commuter-benefit ordinance or additional local incentives are advisable.

The commission's recommendation does not itself change the municipal code; final adoption requires council action and ordinance passage after the public hearing.

Details from the discussion: the plan's affected-employer definition (100+ full-time employees arriving 6—29 a.m.) means most local schools and some city departments are not counted as affected employers at this time; Merrick noted that lowering the threshold to 20 employees (as part of a separate commuter-benefit ordinance) would expand coverage to more sites, including certain school district sites, and that staff have identified roughly 35 employers in the city that would meet a 20-plus threshold (this list did not initially include the school district). Merrick also noted Community Transit'led outreach included two online open houses and employer workshops last summer and that Premera participated in those workshops and reviewed the draft.