Introduction
The City of Fountain (hereafter, the City) Transportation Master Plan 2022 (TMP 2022) represents the first comprehensive update of the City's vision for transportation planning in 20 years. its predecessor, the 2002 Traffic Master Plan, was developed to complement the City's 1999 Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) and provided a major thoroughfare plan for the City and the extended surrounding areas.
Purpose of the Transportation Master Plan
TMP 2022 serves several purposes. Foremost among these, the plan establishes the vision for the long-term transportation system that will best meet the City's future needs. The plan also provides policy direction for the transportation system decision-making process and the financial framework to pay for transportation
infrastructure improvements. The plan also prioritizes project implementation to meet short-term deficiencies while working towards the City's ultimate transportation system.
Goals, Principles, and Policies
Community Vision and Goals
The Comprehensive Development Plan identified goals to guide planning for the City’s future transportation system. The following goals were used to guide the development of TMP 2022:
· Develop an adequate transportation system to provide for the safe and convenient circulation of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians throughout the City of Fountain.
· Emphasize multiple transportation modes and improve traffic safety and circulation.
· Ensure that growth pays for itself and that developers contribute a fair share toward needed infrastructure improvements.
· Participate in cooperative transportation planning with other local, regional, and state agencies and develop effective partnerships with other planning agencies, most notably, the PPACG, CDOT, El Paso County, and the City of Colorado Springs.
· Implement consistent street standards to ensure that facilities that cross municipal boundary lines are compatible.
· Incorporate alternative transportation systems, including increased bus service, improved bus stops and transfer facilities, path and trail system connections between neighborhoods and destinations, and carpool programs to encourage the use of modes other than the single-occupant vehicle.
· Give priority to the maintenance and improvement of existing roads.
· Address identified critical needs, including: developing east-west connectors; preserving right-of-way, improving access to and from I-25; creating safer truck routes; and signalization or grade-separation of existing at-grade railroad crossings.
Design Criteria and Standards
TMP 2022 establishes updated roadway functional classifications and design standards for city street. The functional classifications are designed to balance the function of the City's streets to carry traffic and to provide access to adjacent property and to provide the hierarchy that is needed to allow safe and continuous travel and access. Streets are divided into categories based on their function within the overall transportation network. Different design criteria, as detailed on the following page, are associated with each functional classification to maintain, and protect the roadway's primary purpose.