Council reviews draft transportation element; members press for clearer policies, tribal consultation and realistic ferry references

Paul Sharman, a senior planner with Transpo, and Sophia Cassam, San Juan County long-range planner, presented a targeted update to the county's transportation element at the April 21 meeting. The update extends the planning horizon to 2045, refreshes traffic forecasts, proposes updated goals and policies, and introduces multimodal level-of-service measures to comply with recent amendments to state planning law.

"The transportation element kind of had three primary areas of focus for the update," Sharman said, listing the 2045 horizon, updates to goals and policies and a new multimodal level-of-service requirement. He noted changes following 2023 state legislation: "The largest change of that was the requirement to measure transportation levels of service across all different modes," and described how the update measures pedestrian and bicycle comfort using a level-of-traffic-stress scale of 1 (very low stress) to 4 (high stress).

Sharman also described a crash-survey map included in the technical appendix showing collision locations and severity across the islands, and said the county retains a vehicle level-of-service standard of D; consultants found no roadways currently at that level and forecasts do not project approaching capacity through the planning horizon.

Council member Paulson provided an extended, detailed critique of the draft, urging the county to reduce redundancy across goals and policies, tighten and shorten the vision statement and to consolidate repeated policies. Paulson pressed staff to avoid relying on outdated Washington State Ferries documents: "The Washington State Ferries 2040 long range plan is no longer valid...I would encourage us, as much as possible, not to reference that plan in our transportation planning." He also expressed skepticism about assuming electrification alone will meet greenhouse-gas goals and said the county should plan for other technologies.

Chair McPhee and Paulson both called for broad public participation and tribal consultation before adopting substantive changes. Paulson asked that staff mark high-risk roads conservatively on safety maps and noted specific island roads that meet "red" or higher severity criteria for collisions. Council members suggested coordinating with towns, chambers and transportation providers, and asked the consultant and staff to return with revised language that reduces repetition and clarifies priorities.

No formal action was taken; the presentation and council feedback will inform further revisions to the draft transportation element and technical appendix.