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Ashland secures evacuation analysis in Transportation System Plan update
Summary
Staff confirmed wildfire- and evacuation-focused analysis was added to the TSP contract at staff request; Emergency Manager Kelly Burns will be consulted and the traffic subconsultant will model evacuation egress under future conditions.
During the July 14 Planning Commission meeting staff and the city's public works director confirmed an evacuation and emergency-evacuation evaluation was added to the scope of the Transportation System Plan update. "One thing that I pushed from the start was having some component of evaluation of our system, against an emergency evacuation process," Scott Fleury said, explaining that the traffic modeling will build on prior evacuation-time estimates and inform recommendations for capital improvements, signage, striping and other measures.
Brandon and Scott said ODOT, as the contracting and funding agency, wrote contract scopes to meet Transportation Planning Rule requirements, but the evacuation component was specifically requested by city staff and accepted by ODOT. Fleury said Emergency Manager Kelly Burns will be included in the project-management meetings and public outreach touch points so final project lists and public education align with emergency management needs. Commissioner Goldfarb praised the addition: "I just want to tell everybody how grateful I am that staff put the evacuation piece before ODOT and got them to agree to add that to the contract. I think it's a critical piece for Ashland."
The evacuation evaluation will be part of the traffic subconsultant's modeling and will feed into the TSP's capital-program recommendations and constrained project lists. The effort is expected to proceed with monthly project-management meetings and alignment with other planned analyses in 2026–2027.
