The City of Bellingham's Community Streets Program has wrapped up its Group A traffic calming installations, completing safety improvements in six neighborhoods across the city. The program is now moving into Group B, launching traffic safety studies in the next set of neighborhoods scheduled for evaluation. Residents in areas not yet studied can find out when their neighborhood is next in line at cob.org/community-streets.
The Community Streets Program is the city's systematic approach to addressing traffic concerns on residential streets. Rather than responding to individual complaints on a first-come, first-served basis, the program rotates geographically across the city, evaluating each neighborhood in turn using a data-driven process that weighs factors like vehicle speeds, collision history, pedestrian activity, and equity considerations.
What Group A Accomplished
The six neighborhoods that completed Group A installations are Cordata, Meridian, King Mountain, Irongate, Barkley, and Silver Beach. Each of these areas received traffic calming measures based on the specific concerns and conditions identified during their study phases. Traffic calming tools the city uses include speed tables, curb bulb-outs, raised crosswalks, signage upgrades, and in some cases lane reconfigurations that slow through traffic while maintaining access for residents and emergency vehicles.
Cordata, in the northwest corner of the city, is one of Bellingham's most rapidly growing neighborhoods, with significant residential development and pedestrian activity near the Cordata Park transit center. Barkley Village, centered on the Barkley Boulevard and Woburn Street commercial hub, sees a mix of residential traffic and customers visiting its shops and restaurants. Silver Beach, on the northern shores of Lake Whatcom, has narrow streets and significant summer recreational traffic that creates speed and pedestrian safety challenges.
The completion of Group A represents a meaningful improvement in residential traffic conditions across a wide swath of the city, affecting thousands of residents who live and travel through those neighborhoods daily.
How the Program Works
The Community Streets Program's annual rotation model is designed to ensure that all Bellingham neighborhoods eventually receive attention, rather than only those where residents are most vocal or well-connected. The equity component of the evaluation process means that neighborhoods with higher rates of pedestrian and bicycle activity, lower incomes, or higher proportions of children and seniors can receive prioritization even if they have not generated a high volume of formal complaints.
Once a neighborhood enters a study phase, the city collects traffic data, reviews crash records, and engages with residents through online surveys and community meetings. The data shapes what interventions, if any, are recommended and where on the street network they should be placed. Residents have input at multiple stages, from identifying concerns to reviewing proposed designs before installation.
The City of Bellingham has been refining this approach for several years, and the program has become one of the more visible ways that city government engages with neighborhood-level concerns about traffic safety. The program's annual structure means there is a predictable cadence to when neighborhoods can expect action, which helps manage expectations and allows residents to plan for public participation.
Group B Studies Now Underway
With Group A complete, the program is launching traffic safety studies in the Group B neighborhoods. The city has not specified in this announcement exactly which neighborhoods are included in Group B, but residents can check the program's website at cob.org/community-streets to see whether their neighborhood is currently in the study phase, scheduled for future study, or has already been addressed in a prior group.
If your neighborhood is in Group B, now is the time to get involved. The study phase is when resident input is most valuable, as city staff are actively gathering information about where people feel unsafe, which intersections and blocks see the highest speeds or most concerning behavior, and what kinds of changes residents would find most helpful. Participating in surveys or attending community meetings during the study phase gives residents the best chance of seeing their concerns reflected in the final design.
Bellingham has a long history of traffic calming advocacy, with neighborhoods like Lettered Streets and Whatcom Falls having pushed for and received speed-reduction measures in earlier eras. The Community Streets Program formalizes that process and spreads it citywide in a structured way. For Whatcom County residents curious about how Bellingham compares to other cities in its approach to residential traffic safety, the Washington State Department of Transportation publishes resources on traffic calming best practices that many local agencies, including Bellingham, draw from when designing their programs. Coverage of previous neighborhood safety improvements in Bellingham offers further context on how the city manages its road network during major projects and routine maintenance cycles alike.
