Benton‑Franklin COG counts show Road 68 corridor remains busiest; Pasco records five of region’s top count sites

Benton‑Franklin Council of Governments (BFCOG) staff presented the 2024 regional traffic count program to the Pasco City Council on April 28, reporting data collected at 718 regional sites, including 24 locations in Pasco. Tanner Martin, regional planner, said the program uses pneumatic tube counters deployed midweek in spring and fall to capture representative travel patterns.

The 2024 counts showed several Pasco locations among the region’s highest average daily traffic sites. Road 68, north of I‑182, recorded the largest average daily volume in the BFCOG program, with just under 50,000 vehicles per day. Other high‑volume Pasco corridors included Broadmoor and Court Street West of US‑395, both displaying substantial increases compared with 2016 counts.

BFCOG also reported heavy‑vehicle percentages and noted that certain locations show elevated shares of trucks, buses and other heavy vehicles—information relevant to pavement design and freight planning. Martin said BFCOG plans to continue the two‑year count cycle and will review additional detection technologies in 2026, such as camera‑based counts and GPS sources, to complement pneumatic tubes.

Councilmembers asked whether the data points to priority projects. BFCOG staff suggested Broadmoor linkage to Road 68 as a key project and said the counts support regional prioritization and grant applications. No formal action was requested at the workshop; the data will feed Pasco’s transportation planning and capital programming.