Arvada staff seek council input on funding, prioritization and advocacy for 20-year Transportation Systems Plan

City of Arvada staff and consultants reviewed a draft Transportation Systems Plan implementation strategy during a study session, asking the City Council for feedback on recommended funding allocations, prioritization metrics and how councilmembers can advocate for multi-jurisdictional projects.

The presentation, led by project manager Mike Griffith, summarized a 20-year TSP that prioritizes projects by measurable goals such as safety, implementability and public input. Griffith said the plan proposes seeding preliminary work from a designated TSP implementation bucket and recommended an annual seed fund to position projects for grants. "We end up with a $638,000 annual fund for seeding future TSP projects," Griffith told the council, adding that the seed funding is intended to support early phases such as scoping and preliminary design so projects can be competitive for federal, state and local grants.

Why it matters: the plan identifies roughly $1.8 billion in total project costs across lead, partner and advocate roles and aims to move many projects to a state where they are eligible for outside funding. Councilmembers pressed staff for line‑item detail about which existing CIP accounts would be shifted and asked for clarity on the tradeoffs between maintenance-oriented spending (for example, pavement repairs) and funding TSP planning work.

Staff described the prioritization framework as a weighted scoring matrix that emphasizes safety (the largest single scoring factor) and captures implementability through measurable metrics such as cost per mile, right-of-way needs and number of partner agencies required. Curtis Rowe, transportation engineer and deputy project manager, described operational benefits for air quality tied to better signal timing and intersection operations: "We're improving traffic efficiency, moving vehicles. And so that does improve air quality and, you know, the carbon emissions." Griffith and Rowe also noted the plan incorporates public outreach results — online mapping, surveys and rankings — into the scoring so projects that residents prioritized appear higher in the list.

On funding, staff summarized a multi‑decade conservative CIP forecast used for planning: an initial 2027–2030 CIP projection of about $12 million, a 2031–2040 projection of about $39 million and a later 2041–2050 projection of about $49 million for all transportation CIP (figures shown by staff as planning estimates). Staff explained those totals cover the citywide CIP and are not dedicated solely to TSP projects. Griffith said the recommended TSP seed bucket would draw from existing related accounts (noting collector and arterial improvement allocations have overlap with TSP objectives) and that the proposed change would create the $638,000 annual seeding level starting in 2027 to support early project phases.

Councilmembers raised questions about how unit costs and phasing were applied and asked for clearer line‑by‑line descriptions in the working papers and the final budget documents. One councilmember observed that pavement quality is often the most visible concern to residents and asked how that priority shows up in the scoring. Griffith said pavement condition is primarily an operations/maintenance item but noted major corridor projects tied to the TSP may also address pavement in their scopes; staff pointed the council to the working paper for detailed breakdowns and said staff will provide more granular, line‑item information through the normal budget process.

Staff also described roles by project type: "lead" projects the city would deliver, "advocate" projects the city would champion but which require another agency (for example RTD or CDOT), and "partner" projects shared with neighboring jurisdictions. The draft plan identifies projects in each role and includes examples such as the Wadsworth Bypass Trail (a lead project in the plan) and several transit connections (listed as advocate projects). Staff emphasized the advocate role will require council assistance: "I think one of the things that staff is gonna be looking for help from council with is the advocate role," Griffith said, asking councilmembers to use their elected positions when regional advocacy is needed.

Grant strategy and recent awards were highlighted as well. Staff noted federal grant programs and priorities change over time and said the plan is intentionally flexible. Staff invited council feedback on prioritizing projects that match likely future grant priorities (for example, safety and capacity). Thomas Shaw and his team were singled out for securing a recent Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) grant of about $750,000 for the 80th Avenue and Kipling intersection project; Griffith noted that award alone exceeded the TSP consultant contract cost to the city.

Council next steps: staff will produce a final TSP document and an executive summary to return to council in a July study session with edited materials. Councilmembers asked staff to include clearer references to external constraints such as railroad crossings, to call out greenhouse‑gas and air‑quality impacts in both the TSP and related Climate Action/Sustainability planning, and to provide line‑by‑line CIP reallocation detail so council can weigh shifting funds into the proposed TSP bucket.

No formal votes or ordinances were taken during the study session; staff sought council direction and feedback to complete the final plan and the related budget recommendations.

The plan and the working papers referenced in the presentation will be available to the public when finalized; staff said they will provide the executive summary and the edited working papers at the next study session in July.