A split Sammamish City Council tonight passed the new traffic concurrency rules.
The “M4,” Mayor Christie Malchow, Deputy Mayor Karen Moran and Council Members Tom Hornish and Chris Ross, voted for the new volume/capacity (V/C) rule that brings some measurement of reality on the roads into Sammamish concurrency rules.
The “V3,” Council Members Ramiro Valderrama, Pam Stuart and Jason Ritchie, voted against.
Significant implications
The implications for new development are significant. As we explained in our analysis, new development in Sammamish may be denied until the roads gain capacity to carry more cars –specifically, Sahalee way and Issaquah-Pine Lake Road.
The new concurrency plan will go into effect in five days from publishing, likely subjecting the Town Center to the new rules.
In the only comments made, Stuart asked that the planning commission review the current calculations because she said they are generalized and not indicative of the actual factors in the fields and she wants it to be “accurate.”
In May, before V/C was added to concurrency, staff admitted the Intersection LOS was not accurate and ignored congestion. At that time, Stuart urged the council to move on and accept staff’s proposal even though the results were not verified in the field.
Moving on at that time would have enabled more development to continue without a check on infrastructure.
Sammamish Comment 
Good news for existing residents of Sammamish!! Hopefully it will play out as intended.
Anything to alleviate gridlock – congestion affects everyone. V3 members: you are on a losing side if you support growth without road infrastructure to handle. Voters will remember this.
Kirkland is going this route. They replaced V/C with a calculation they have not fully explained. Traffic is bad, only getting worse and our infrastructure is lacking in areas of growth.
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