Renton City Center Community Plan

The City Center Community Plan establishes strategies to help shape growth based on the vision of the people that live and work in the developing part of Renton. The area was recently designated as a Regional Growth Center, which will greatly alter the existing character of the community. To help enhance liviability within the community, Transpo assisted the City and project team in integrating multimodal transportation strategies into land use plans to improve access to/from the City Center and increase connectivity within the community. Key strategies for accessibility include improving I-405 to reduce cut through traffic, and enhancing transit access to HOV lanes.

The City Center plan identified strategies for extending regional bus rapid transit (BRT) and eventually light rail transit to serve major employers such as Boeing and Paccar. Long range solutions may include a water taxi on Lake Washington to connect to Seattle, Bellevue and other cities on the lake. Strategies to improve connectivity include creating a key north-south pedestrian corridor to connect downtown Renton with The Landing and Lake Washington. This corridor may be considered for a street car or trolley that could connect to regional transit service. The plan also included recommendations to explore possible conversion of the three one-way road couplets to two-way operations. This would promote access to businesses and reduce the need for traffic to recirculate within the community.

This plan was honored by the Washington Department of Commerce with a 2012 Governor’s Smart Communities Award for Smart Vision – Comprehensive Planning. The award recognizes outstanding achievements in creating livable and vibrant communities.