Community Government Transportation

City Council approves updated transportation plan

The Gig Harbor City Council unanimously passed a new six-year Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), which included minimal changes from last year.

The TIP is a prioritized list of street projects the city plans to undertake over the next six years. Jurisdictions must adopt six-year TIPs every year, consistent with their Comprehensive Plans, to be eligible for state and federal funding.

During a public hearing, several members of the public asked the council to move design and permitting work on a Cushman Trail project up the TIP priority list. But the council voted against the idea on June 22, with some members citing budget uncertainty.

In a presentation to the council, city engineer Aaron Hulse noted that, following a council study session on June 16, city staff would be working on a process to prioritize capital projects for the next budget cycle. At that study session, city lobbyist Briahna Murray told the council that local jurisdictions are in for a rough couple of years, “on comparison with the Great Recession.”

Earlier in the month, Gov. Bob Ferguson and the Office of Financial Management said that Washington faces a major fiscal cliff.

“Not exactly sure what [that process is] going to look like yet, but it’s gonna be a priority list where, and it might be in some form of a matrix where council and staff can go through and select priority projects,” Hulse said. “Again, this is very high level, but for budget purposes, we’re gonna get a lot more … in the weeds as we move into the next few months.”

Cushman Trail project

The Cushman Trail project would extend the trail from the existing trailhead at Borgen Boulevard past Baker Way, to end near city limits on Canterwood Boulevard. The city projects design and permitting alone to cost about $1.1 million, which does not include the cost of construction. The trail is priority No. 21 on the TIP, toward the bottom of the 28-item list.

A few community members advocated for moving the trail project up on the TIP list.

Gig Harbor resident Marlene Drucker said she uses the trail “pretty much every day,” and that the city has had a study regarding that trail for the last several years.

“I just want to urge you to prioritize it. … Trails really are a ‘build it and they will come,’” she said. “If you build that trail, they will be there using it.”

Impact fees

ForeverGreen Trails Executive Director Larry Leveen said that the trail extension has “migrated around the six-year TIP” for years. ForeverGreen Trails is a nonprofit supporting the buildout of a regional trail system in Pierce County.

“Now that the southern section of the trail has been completed by PenMet Parks, it’s time for Gig Harbor to take up the northern extension of the project in earnest,” he said. “Including this in the front side of your TIP is to me the most logical way to do so.”

He also noted that the city has not increased its park impact fees for more than 10 years. “Most park capital facility grant programs available to cities such as yours require some sort of local match for those grants, and park impact fees are one of the most important sources of such revenue,” he added.

“Park projects have gotten significantly more expensive. This will make it more difficult for your community to realize its recreation dreams,” he said. “It creates tougher budget deliberations by having insufficient special revenues for increasing park system capacity. And so please look into updating your impact fee structure.”

Council can choose items to prioritize

City Administrator Katrina Knutson told the council it is “highly unlikely” that the state will provide funding to design and permit the Cushman project.

“As we heard from our lobbyists on Thursday, the transportation and operating budgets are significantly down at the state level,” she said. “We are being signaled that there’s not going to be as much money available for projects in general, that the Public Works Trust Fund may be utilized again in order to make payroll at the state. We’re continuing to monitor that.”

She and city finance director Scott Larson met with a federal lobbying firm to figure out funding for the Cushman trail project, as well as for fish-passage projects and a new police boat. She said the city has struggled to obtain grants from the state for these sorts of projects, in part because new scoring criteria includes area economic factors.

“That is due to economic factors that Gig Harbor has,” she said. “That’s a long-winded answer to say that we will likely need to find other funding or fund ourselves the majority of the $1.1 million (for the Cushman Trail extension). Especially if this is to be prioritized up the chain, we will likely be needing to fund that through city dollars.”

Expiring grants

Knutson confirmed that the city can tackle the project at any time, regardless of placement on the list.

The city’s updated and prioritized transportation improvement plan.

Councilmember Ben Coronado made a motion to move the trail project up the priority list. Councilmembers Julie Martin, Le Rodenberg and Reid Ekberg said they would prefer to hold off due to funding uncertainty.

“I think that funding is the largest question here, and I don’t feel comfortable making a decision without knowing where those funds are gonna come from. And even if we could get grants, would it put down or make some other project drop — something that we already have the funding [for]?” Rodenberg said. “I think the public needs to know that some of these things that are higher up the list are because we already have some grants. And if those projects don’t move forward, then we lose the opportunity to cash in on those grants.”

Other changes

The city removed a signal installation at Wagner and Wollochet ways from the TIP, because work on the project wrapped up last year. It also combined a planned right-turn lane to the onramp from Wollochet Drive to westbound Highway 16 with other safety improvements at that intersection. Hulse said that would make it easier to work with the state Department of Transportation.

The city also added pavement maintenance on Soundview Drive, Borgen Boulevard, Harborview Drive, and 38th Avenue to the list. Also new is a study of metering at the offramp from westbound Highway 16 to Borgen Boulevard.