SEQUIM — Stuck at any given crossroads here, you might be moaning: I didn’t move to a small town for this.
But who’s to blame for those increasingly long waits at Sequim’s intersections? Who should be hit up for new traffic signals?
So went the discussion during Monday morning’s City Council work session.
The agenda item was “concurrency” — building roads and traffic signals concurrent with the city’s growth.
Some municipalities impose impact fees on developers to pay for stoplights, roundabouts and repaving. Sequim officials, however, have shied away from such charges.
And with the city planning staff, deluged with applications, some developers did their own traffic-impact studies.
But City Attorney Craig Ritchie had news for the City Council members. It’s legal, he said, for them to hire a consultant to study the effects a proposed subdivision will have on traffic flow — and then send the bill to the developer.
