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City of Bellingham Planning Commission (Joint Meeting with Transportation Commission)

BEL-PLN-2024-08-01 August 01, 2024 Planning Commission Meeting City of Bellingham
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The City of Bellingham's Planning Commission and Transportation Commission convened a rare joint work session on August 1, 2024, hosted at the Public Works Pacific Street Operations Center rather than City Hall — signaling the meeting's character as a collaborative technical forum rather than a standard policy proceeding. The session had no formal votes or action items. Its purpose was to deepen coordination between the two advisory commissions and the Whatcom Transportation Authority (WTA) as the city advances its comprehensive plan update, known as the Bellingham Plan. WTA Planning Director Tim Wilder and Transportation Land Use Planner Hayden Richardson delivered a presentation covering WTA's current network, fiscal structure, long-range WTA 2040 plan, and the ongoing Rapid Transit Study. The central message from WTA: the agency is committed to supporting whatever growth scenarios emerge from the Bellingham Plan update, not merely the transit-oriented development (TOD) alternative, and is actively seeking stronger planning coordination with the city. Three structured discussion questions framed the evening's dialogue: whether high-frequency transit is critical to community development; what the city's commitment is to actively supporting effective transit service; and whether sufficient institutional resolve exists to make difficult right-of-way trade-off decisions. These questions were not answered definitively — they were designed to surface the tensions inherent in aligning land use planning and transit investment, and they succeeded in generating substantive discussion. The conversation surfaced recurring tensions: the chicken-and-egg relationship between density and service frequency; the limits of right-of-way in a built-out city; the challenge of requiring mixed-income housing without deterring private development; and the gap between where WTA's Go Lines run and where Bellingham's zoning currently supports transit-oriented density. Commissioners pushed

No formal votes were taken at this meeting. This was a work session / information and discussion item only. The following summarizes the key information presented and commitments expressed: **WTA Commitment to Support Bellingham Plan Growth Scenarios** WTA confirmed it intends to support all growth alternatives under consideration in the Bellingham Plan — not only the TOD-specific scenario. Tim Wilder stated explicitly: "We want to be engaged we want to try to support any of the scenarios that you're talking about." This was a direct response to a previously expressed concern from Planning Commission that WTA might not be able to scale service to match growth projections. **WTA Rapid Transit Study — Phase 2 Underway** Phase 1 of the Rapid Transit Study concluded that BRT is feasible in Bellingham to some extent. Phase 2 is currently underway and aims to shape a "locally prefer…

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**Topic 1: Transit and Land Use Coordination — The Core Challenge** The meeting's central theme was the interdependence of transit investment and land use planning, and the difficulty of sequencing the two. WTA and city planning staff have been engaging since early in the Bellingham Plan update process, but this joint session represented the most substantive public airing of the coordination challenge. WTA's Go Lines — four 15-minute high-frequency routes — currently serve about 33,000 residents within a quarter mile and 56,000 within a half mile, representing roughly one-third and one-half of Bellingham's population, respectively. These routes account for 41% of WTA's revenue hours but 68% of all boardings, demonstrating their outsized efficiency. The Samish Urban Village is the notable gap in Go Line coverage, with WTA acknowledging a chicken-and-egg dynamic there: development is growing but hasn't yet reached the density threshold to justify upgraded service. Planning Commissioner Mike McAuley raised the concern that the city's new zoning codes — which authorize density increases citywide — may not produce density concentrated enough along Go Line corridors to support frequent service if residents' daily needs are increasingly met within their urban village (reducing trip generation). WTA's Wilder responded that studies show walkable, mixed-use urban villages actually increase transit ridership rather than reduce it: "studies have shown that pattern where you're able to create a community right where you can walk a lot bike a lot and that helps the transit system." **Topic 2: WTA Go Line Permanence and Land Use Planning Reliability** Planning Commission members expressed concern — noted explicitly in the minutes and the transcript — that Go Lines are not physically permanent infrastructure. If a Go Line route moves, density that was built to rely on it could be left without service. WTA's Wilder offered reassurance: "I don't see those changing. There's honestly, we don't have a lot of opportunities to change where we provide service." He argued the corridors are effectively determined by the arterial network and destinations they connect, and that if anything, Go Lines have become more permanent over time. He also noted that WTA 2040 service maps show the current Go Line corridors maintained or expanded under both the status-quo and enhanced-revenue scenarios. Commissioner McAuley made a sharper point: with the city's new middle housing laws applying citywide rather than spot-zoning specific corridors, the old model of tying density permissions to proximity to a specific transit line may need to be rethought entirely: "if in 2040 there's not a huge change in the amount of service to reach that quarter-mile… then we may have to think of how we're going to decouple our land use choices and our density decisions based on the amount of available transit." **Topic 3: Bus Rapid Transit — Feasibility, Cost, and Federal Funding** Hayden Richardson walked through WTA's Rapid Transit Study. Phase 1 examined two corridor alternatives: a Green/Blue corridor (serving Western Washington University and Northwest Avenue to Cordata Station) and a Gold corridor (along Cornwall, Alabama, and Woburn to Cordata). Both face limited right-of-way. The Gold corridor has more transit-supportive development potential but is more circuitous. The Green/Blue corridor is more direct but constrained through the Western Washington University campus. Phase 1…
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**Tim Wilder, WTA Planning Director** Wilder presented WTA as an engaged partner willing to support all growth scenarios in the Bellingham Plan, not just the TOD-specific alternative. He emphasized that the Go Lines are effectively permanent given arterial constraints and destination patterns. He argued that walkable, mixed-use urban villages increase rather than decrease transit ridership. He acknowledged the fiscal challenge of rising labor costs outpacing sales tax growth and the significant investment required for BRT. He referenced the Fort Collins BRT project as evidence that transit investment catalyzes private development. **Hayden Richardson, WTA Transportation Land Use Planner** Richardson focused on the Rapid Transit Study, describing Phase 1's corridor analysis and the three-tiered BRT approach currently under examination in Phase 2. He characterized Phase 2's goal as developing a locally preferred alternative that both commissions and the City Council would formally adopt. He praised the Bellingham Plan update process as "the most robust comp plan update process that I've ever witnessed." He engaged substantively on the relationship between mixed land uses, density, and ridership support for high-frequency transit. **Les Reens, WTA General Manager** Reens spoke primarily about WTA's transit safety officer program, which launched approximately a year before this meeting and has demonstrably reduced incidents. He clarified that transit safety officers are not law enforcement; they serve as "eyes and ears" and coordinate with BPD. He noted that officers have been effective through relationship-building with regular riders and individuals who may cause disruptions. **Chris Behee, Long Range Planning Manager, City of Bellingham** Behee framed the meeting as a continuation of early coordination between the city and WTA during the Bellingham Plan process. He noted the difficulty of requiring mixed-income housing given economic conditions and referenced unpublished ECONorthwest/Sustainable Connections research on the multifamily tax exemption. He described the city's current housing funding allocation and affirmed the city is "pulling every lever" on affordability. He expressed support for the direction the discussion was heading but did not commit to specific policy changes. **Scott Jones, Planning Commissioner** Jones asked the opening question of the discussion period: what is the ultimate goal of high-frequency transit service? He pressed WTA for a clearer articulation of outcomes (equity, environment, congestion reduction?) before accepting WTA's "access to opportunity" framing. **Mike McAuley, Planning Commissioner** McAuley was the most analytically probing voice of the evening. He questioned whether the chicken-and-egg framing is still applicable given citywide…
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**Tim Wilder, WTA, on WTA's commitment to supporting Bellingham Plan growth scenarios:** "WTA going to be able to support some of the growth Concepts that are coming out of the Plan update — and we've discussed it at WTA and I would say absolutely the answer is yes." **Tim Wilder, WTA, on Go Line permanence:** "I don't see those changing. There's honestly we don't have a lot of opportunities to change where we provide service so just we had a limited number of arterials that we can operate ri…
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- **WTA Rapid Transit Study Phase 2** is ongoing. Phase 2 goal: develop a locally preferred alternative. After adoption by WTA's board and recommendations from both commissions, a 15% design will be developed for city review. No specific timeline given. - **Bellingham Plan — Policy Development Phase:** Chris Behee indicated the next Planning Commission meeting will pivot from public engagement to policy development on the Bellingham Plan. Specific date not announced. - **Parking Policy Discussion:** Scheduled for Transportation Commission's fall agenda. No specific date given. - **ECON…

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This was a work session with no votes or formal actions. The following conditions are meaningfully different after this meeting: 1. **WTA's formal commitment to support all Bellingham Plan growth alternatives is now on the public record.** Previously, Planning Commission had expressed concern (noted in the minutes summary) about whether WTA could support proposed growth scenarios. WTA's Tim Wilder explicitly addressed and affirmed this commitment. 2. **The Planning Commission now has a clearer understanding of WTA's Go Line permanence rationale.** WTA explained the arterial-constraint logic underpinning route stability, providing a basis for Planning Commission to treat Go Line corridors as more reliable planning inputs than previously assumed. 3. **The "transit as infrastructure precedes density" argument has been formally introduced** into the joint planning discussion. Commissioner Whidbee's framing — that transit is an amenity that catalyzes density rather than follows it — now has institutional footing and is likely to appear in Bellingham Pla…
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