In developing Destination 2030, the region's long-range transportation strategy, concurrency was discussed at great length as a tool for linking land use and transportation. The discussion brought out a concern that while the requirement has utility in theory, in practice it perhaps was hindering efforts to meet other GMA goals.

Based upon these concerns, and the defined role for Regional Transportation Planning Organizations noted in state law, the Puget Sound Regional Council developed a three-phased scope of work to assess the effectiveness of concurrency programs throughout the central Puget Sound area.

In the final report, the Puget Sound Regional Council concluded, “The transportation planning goal in the Growth Management Act (GMA) focuses on developing efficient multimodal transportation systems – however, the majority of local concurrency programs focus almost exclusively on auto congestion.” The report recommends that “concurrency should focus on multimodal transportation” (Miller, Piro, 2003). To make progress on this recommendation, the legislature passed 2SHB 1565 in 2005, which directs regional transportation planning organizations (RTPOs) to develop transportation concurrency strategies and regional level-of-service measures that are multimodal.

Options for Making Concurrency More Multimodal  [pdf]
This study’s purpose, by legislative intent, is to examine and propose multimodal improvements to concurrency. These include both alternative ways to measure the availability and effectiveness of multimodal transportation systems, and ways to use those measurements to implement more effective multimodal transportation systems that support the intent of the GMA.

Final Report - Project Summary and Recommendations  [pdf]
The final report concludes the Regional Council's 2 year assessment of concurrency practices in the central Puget Sound region. The final report compiles and combines the findings from the three phases of work, and includes recommendations for Regional Council actions and for local government concurrency programs.

Phase III Report - Workshop Results  [pdf]
The goals of Phase III, the final investigative phase, were to work with the practitioners to conduct a hands-on workshop to develop recommendations for how concurrency might be further refined at the local and regional level, and to determine if there are any recommendations for legislative changes that need to be made at the state level. A workshop was held in November 2002, with over 80 stakeholders attending.

Phase II Report - Analysis of Practices  [pdf]
The goals of Phase II were to review and analyze the concurrency programs for a selected group of jurisdictions. Jurisdictions were selected if they seemed to have innovative practices as identified in the Phase I inventory, and selected in order to provide some geographic and jurisdictional size equity. The Phase II work included focus group meetings, case study reviews of the selected jurisdictions' concurrency programs, and a review of concurrency-related case law. The goals were to highlight innovative methods, describe best practices, and to assess the different approaches in place.

Phase I Report - Survey Results  [pdf]
The goals of Phase I were to survey jurisdictions in the four-county region to determine if they have programs in place, how they are using them, whether they are working collaboratively, and to understand whether they believe changes are necessary. To meet these goals, the Regional Council inventoried jurisdictions' programs and approaches. More information

For additional information on the concurrency project, contact Ivan Miller, 206-464-7549 or Rocky Piro, 206-464-6360.