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Whatcom County updates online Travel Planner to show city and state road information
Summary
Whatcom County Public Works updated its online Travel Planner to display city limit boundaries with links to municipal pages, integrate Washington State Department of Transportation maps and cameras, and add tabs for snow-priority routes, bridge inventory and all-weather roads.
Whatcom County Public Works has updated its online Travel Planner to show city-limit boundaries, links to municipal road pages and integrated information from the Washington State Department of Transportation, the agency demonstrated in a tutorial video.
The update is intended to help drivers and residents identify which jurisdiction maintains a road and to centralize alerts and camera feeds. The planner now shows grayed areas for incorporated cities that can be clicked to open a box with a link to that city’s website (the video demonstrated links for Ferndale, Everson and Linden). It also connects to the state’s real-time travel map and includes state traffic cameras for highways such as I-5.
The tutorial walks users through the planner’s interface: the county homepage lists four blue squares that link to frequently used pages, including the road closures and restrictions page where the Travel Planner is hosted. Within the planner, controls include zoom in/out buttons, a home button that resets the map view, and a compass button that, when enabled, shows the user’s current location with a blue dot. An information (i) button links back to the road closures page, and separate buttons reveal map layers, the legend and a base-gallery option to change the map background.
County staff showed how state-managed routes are marked on the planner — the video describes state route markers as a white triangle icon or purple line — and demonstrated that clicking those markers opens a state-provided message (the video used an example message about Artist Point being closed for the season). Round camera icons on or near I-5 open state-managed traffic camera feeds.
Beyond live alerts and cameras, the Travel Planner includes tabs for snow-priority routes, the county’s bridge inventory and all-weather roads. The tutorial also points users back to the county’s road closures and restrictions page to view announcements and to sign up for road alerts by email or text. The planner requires users to accept its terms and conditions before the map becomes interactive.
The video presentation is a how-to demonstration of the updated planner rather than a policy statement or new ordinance. The planner consolidates county-maintained road data with links to municipal and state resources so users can quickly determine jurisdictional responsibility and view current travel conditions. For access, the video directs viewers to www.whatcomcounty.us/publicworks.
