With growth comes increased traffic. One city experiencing significant congestion due to development is Chelsea.
Since 2010, the City of Chelsea’s population has increased by 17%. A study into the city’s increasing traffic woes revealed future planning will be critical to finding solutions.
Chris Zull is Transportation Practice Leader at Progressive Companies. He says with one major street providing north-south connectivity, for many people, just getting to work has become a huge challenge.
“Based on the data, we show about 5,000 people commuting into Chelsea to work on a daily basis and about 2,000 people leaving the city. And there's about 400 folks that live and work, only about 5% in Chelsea.”
Chelsea Hospital indicated 80% of their staff travel more than 30 minutes to work. Zull says this is in part due to supply and affordability of housing. He recommends the city rethink its approach to land use, density and multimodal transportation.
A presentation regarding Chelsea's growth and traffic concerns will be made to the Washtenaw Area Transportation Study (WATS) in November.
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