• The City currently hires traffic engineering consultants for project design to supplement the services provided by City staff.
• The current on-call contract expires April 17, 2021. The City has historically requested consulting services resulting in approximately $100,000-$200,000 of traffic engineering consultant fees per year. There is a large variation year to year due to changing workloads. Recent budget cuts resulted in an unusually small traffic engineering consultant contract use over the last year. Staff anticipates much larger use within the next five years.
• The proposed five year contract will be used for large projects, small projects, and urgent design needs.

Goal 1: Ensure our built urban environment is one of the safest, most environmentally responsible and well maintained in the Pacific Northwest.

Goal 1, Objective 1.1: Develop and maintain a safe, balanced and innovative transportation system that will meet the needs of future generations.

The City regularly requires the services of professional traffic engineers who are experts in the field of fiber optic design, traffic signal design and street light design.  The City has current on-call contracts with firms that provide these professionals to supplement City staff when needed. The current on-call contract will expire on April 17, 2021. Traffic engineering on-call consultants are used for federally funded projects and locally funded projects. Projects include new traffic signals, new fiber optic network design, and new street light installations. In addition to Traffic Engineering and Operations, the following departments will be using the on-call contract: Community & Economic Development, Information Technology, Transportation Development Review, Pavement Management, and Transportation.

The City issued a request for proposals for on-call traffic engineering services on February 3, 2021. On February 24, 2021, the City received three proposals for on-call traffic engineering services. The three firms are: DKS Associates (Portland, OR), Kittelson & Associates, Inc., (Portland, OR), and Global Transportation Engineering, (Portland, OR).

After reviewing the proposals, staff recommends moving forward with a contract with all three firms. The City intends to execute each contract for five years. Each contract is proposed to not exceed $1,000,000.00. This will allow other departments to use the on-call contract as needed for large and small projects.

1. Establishing an on-call contract will reduce staff time needed for hiring consultants for each project, lowering costs and improving efficiency.

2. Establishing an on-call contract will provide consistency of design through using the same consultants who have extensive background and expertise implementing the City of Vancouver design standards.