Transportation Commission Recap: The 1.2 Factor Goes, the Yellow Dots Stay

Bellevue Chamber of Commerce  |  October 8, 2026

At its October 8 meeting, the Bellevue Transportation Commission voted unanimously to recommend that the city measure walking and biking stress against posted speed limits instead of the 1.2 "speed limit factor" it adopted last year, and it told staff to leave the Mobility Implementation Plan's intersection targets where they are. Five commissioners were present; two seats are vacant after resignations, and Deputy Mayor Dave Hamilton said five finalists will be interviewed in the coming weeks.

The 1.2 factor goes back to the posted limit

The 2025 MIP update estimated vehicle speed as 1.2 times the adopted limit, a buffer chosen when the city had little speed data. Speeds collected at more than 200 arterial locations now run close to the posted limit in every performance management area. Staff said the factor exaggerated gaps on streets that already have sidewalks and bike lanes, Spring Boulevard through BelRed among them, and pulled attention away from arterials with no facility at all. Commissioner Albert Ting moved the staff option and the vote carried without dissent. The change still needs Council approval, and the same tables absorb the lower arterial speed limits Council adopted in June, including the new 20 miles per hour limit on several downtown streets.

Two items go back to staff before November. A commissioner working through the packet tables found that the share of the 2045 bicycle network meeting its target falls from 34 percent to 27 percent under the new tables, the wrong direction for a speed reduction, and staff agreed to recheck the data. After a resident described walking in the roadway on arterials that have no shoulder, staff committed to rate any arterial without a shoulder at the highest pedestrian stress level regardless of speed or volume, so those gaps rank for investment.

Intersection targets stay, with a note on the yellow dots

The volume-to-capacity discussion ended without a vote. The 2045 forecast flags intersections that miss the target for their area: 1.0 downtown, in BelRed and in Wilburton, 0.9 in Crossroads, Factoria and Eastgate, and 0.85 everywhere else, which is where most of the yellow dots sit, especially along 148th Avenue. Staff offered three options: keep the targets and keep studying each location, relax the target at freeway ramps and along 148th, or sort the failing intersections into categories that explain why some will not be expanded. NE 8th Street at 112th Avenue NE was the example: 1.05 today, 1.1 by 2045, and 0.99 if every turn lane were added, with 20-story buildings on one side and the freeway on the other.

Commissioner Ting argued for keeping the targets as they are and against recasting 148th as anything other than a neighborhood corridor.

"One thing I would caution against is trying to make it look good if it actually is failing." — Albert Ting, Bellevue Transportation Commissioner

Chair Drew Magill saw the appeal of categories but worried that a different color would let future commissions stop asking about an intersection. Vice Chair Kay Williams suggested showing the true performance of the network alongside narrative on why the city is not investing at a given location. Staff read the consensus as keeping the existing targets, adding guidance on how to read a yellow dot, and marking state-owned intersections such as Coal Creek Parkway at I-405 separately, since the Commission will never send Council a project it cannot build. A staff recommendation returns November 12.

Where we stand

The Bellevue Mobility Coalition's June letter to the Commission supported the move away from the speed limit factor and asked that the intersection targets hold until the city had priced the alternatives. The letter said that "relaxing V/C performance targets should be a last resort, not a first step," and the Commission's direction on October 8 tracks that ask.

Also at the meeting

The Commission approved its quarterly report to Council, which goes in the November 3 Council packet, and a briefing on the adopted transportation budget is expected December 10, once Council picks a funding package in November.

Watch the meeting recording (City of Bellevue)