Downtown Congestion Reduction Plan
In 2015, Lafayette received a planning grant from the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) to conduct a comprehensive study of congestion in and around its downtown. ARUP leads a team of consultants are taking a fresh look at a decades-old problem that, to date, has had no easy solution. The team aims to break new ground with a broad range of multi-modal traffic improvement options, applying new technology and techniques. Lafayette will undertake a robust public engagement process to solicit participation from all stakeholders within the community. The City Council has a formed a Steering Committee to guide the consultant team’s effort throughout this study. The intended outcome of this study is
In 2015, Lafayette received a planning grant from the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) to conduct a comprehensive study of downtown traffic congestion. ARUP is the lead consultant taking a fresh look at a decades-old problem which, to date, has had no easy solutions. The team aims to break new ground with a broad range of multi-modal traffic improvement options, applying new technology and techniques. This planning effort includes a robust public engagement process to solicit participation from all stakeholders within the community. The City Council has a formed a Steering Committee to guide the consultant team’s effort. The intended outcome of this study is a Downtown Congestion Reduction Plan (“Plan”) aimed at reducing future traffic growth in and around Downtown Lafayette.
In the first phase of this developing the Plan, ARUP collected data and assessed existing traffic conditions as well as historical trends in the downtown area. In November 2015, ARUP then briefed a joint session of the City Council and Circulation Commission. Following this meeting, Lafayette launched a web-based “priorities survey” to gather public opinions about traffic priorities and concerns , which would inform the consultants’ next step: developing a range of solutions for further public discourse. The priorities survey ran from mid-November through December 2015. The results of that survey can be viewed here. After that survey, the Steering Committee reviewed the universe of potential solutions suggested during past transportation studies, at Circulation Commission and Council study sessions, as well as the aforementioned priorities survey. ARUP applied high-level quantitative and qualitative analysis to potential solution ideas, which the Steering Committee subsequently evaluated. The first study phase completed when the Plan Steering Committee distilled that universe of all of the potential solutions into a “Short List” of the most promising traffic congestion reduction strategies.
The second phase in this Plan effort began in summer 2016. During this phase, the Steering Committee holistically evaluated the Short List of ideas using rigorous traffic models and a multi-criteria assessment method developed by ARUP. Based on this evaluation, the Steering Committee formed a preliminary recommendation of 15 congestion reduction strategies, to be vetted by the City Council, Circulation Commission, and the general public. In late April 2017, ARUP returned to a joint session of the City Council and Circulation Commission, and presented the Steering Committee’s 15 recommended congestion reduction strategies and to introduce a second round of public outreach.
After that presentation, the City launched a new round of public outreach to gather community opinions on the 15 congestion reduction strategies proposed by the Steering Committee. This round of outreach consisted of a web-based “preference survey” and a public workshop. The public outreach was completed June 1, 2017. Over 600 community members submitted their opinions on the 15 recommended strategies.
The Steering Committee then met on August 15th to review the results of the preference survey and public workshop conducted in spring 2017. These results can be viewed here. The results of that feedback informed their decision to further refine the Short List of recommended congestion reduction strategies from 15 to 11, with a twelfth strategy designated as tentative and subject to further discussion by the City Council. The Council is now scheduled to consider adoption of the Plan at its meeting on January 22, 2018.