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Yelm city engineer presents 6-year transportation plan and previews traffic-fee changes
Summary
City engineer Rizal told the Yelm Planning Commission that the six-year transportation improvement program (STIP) will guide which projects enter the next six-year capital list and that changes to that list will alter the city's traffic facility charges; staff will present a formal TFC proposal to council on July 28.
Rizal, identified at the meeting as Yelm's city engineer, presented the city's six-year transportation improvement program (STIP) and explained how the STIP drives the calculation of traffic facility charges (TFCs) that developers pay to fund road projects.
"A STIP is a six-year transportation improvement program," Rizal said, describing the annual review that adds or removes projects and the internal prioritization process that recommends which projects should be included. He told commissioners that projects must be reasonably completeable within six years and that adding projects to the STIP changes the total cost base used in the TFC formula.
The presentation listed local projects under consideration — including a Burnett Road realignment, a Coats Avenue extension, Rotor Road (currently under design/construction), NP Road and Wilkinson, Mossman Avenue work, connections to Meade and Clark roads, and other connector improvements — and noted that some intersections have undergone intersection-control evaluations (ICEs) that recommend roundabouts for safety and turning issues.
Rizal said the TFC calculation is drawn from the Yelm Municipal Code and that staff will take a recommended TFC adjustment to the city council. The transcript contains a garbled numeric line for the proposed per-trip amounts, so the precise fee figures are not specified in the commission's record. Rizal said staff plans to present the proposal to council on July 28.
Commissioners and staff pressed several technical questions: how projects are chosen for inclusion, how trip generation is estimated and applied (for example, single-family homes are commonly modeled as one trip per unit), how multifamily and commercial uses are calculated differently, and whether TFC revenues can be used for multimodal elements (pedestrian or bicycle facilities). Rizal said technical parameters are handled by staff and consultants and that TFC-funded projects can include sidewalks, shared-use paths and other items that appear on the STIP.
The presentation was informational; the commission did not vote on the STIP or on TFC changes. The city engineer and staff said they will provide the presentation materials to commissioners by email and that the formal TFC proposal will be considered by the Yelm City Council at an upcoming meeting.
