City strives for balanced west Vancouver strategy

Public Meeting

• What: Informational meeting about the city of Vancouver’s Westside Mobility Strategy.

• When: 9 a.m. to noon Saturday.

• Where: Discovery Middle School, 800 E. 40th St., Vancouver.

• On the Web: Information on the strategy, including background studies and plans, are at www.cityofvancouver.us/ced/page/westside-mobility-strategy

Many residents in west Vancouver’s historic neighborhoods are all too familiar with the rumble of freight trucks passing through from Interstate 5 to the city’s industrial sector.

The bad news: As business grows downtown and at the Port of Vancouver and west-side industrial areas, the traffic will only increase.

The good news: The city is working on a Westside Mobility Strategy to find a balance between neighborhood livability and economic growth.

The key is to analyze future trends and start managing traffic as a network rather than managing each street as an individual corridor, said Patrick Sweeney, the city’s principal transportation planner. The network consists of Mill Plain and Fourth Plain boulevards and 39th and 78th streets, which run east-west and have interchanges at I-5, and Main, C and Columbia streets, Lincoln and Kaufmann avenues and Fruit Valley Road, which run north-south.

“I think there’s definitely room for improvement when you manage it as a network,” Sweeney said Thursday.

The city will launch its public outreach portion of the mobility strategy project with a community forum from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at Discovery Middle School, 800 E. 40th St., Vancouver.

The meeting will begin with a city presentation showing traffic analysis results. Attendees can write questions on comment cards for a discussion panel of representatives from the business community, neighborhoods, the freight industry, police and city staff. Then attendees will break into small groups with maps and a moderator for discussion, after which each table will report on its top issues.

“Essentially, this project is a conversation about how the west-side neighborhoods and west-side industries can grow and prosper together, so this meeting is going to start that conversation,” Sweeney said.

A prime example of an area with conflict between neighborhoods and truck traffic is 39th Street. Truck traffic nearly tripled on 39th Street following the November 2010 opening of a $19 million bridge that the state built to span the railroad tracks near Fruit Valley Road, according to a city traffic study. With the at-grade railroad crossing eliminated, the route became more appealing to truckers, Sweeney said.

Residents of 39th Street have complained to the City Council that the increase in trucks has ruined the neighborhood’s liveability and made it dangerous for children and cyclists. One house has a large plywood sign in front of it that says, “Thank you! City of Vancouver for destroying another neighborhood with trucks and higher speeds!”