Langley may take a timeout to reconsider its mode of transportation along the Cascade Avenue bluff.

Jeff Arango, Langley’s director of Community Planning who recently resigned, recommended the city take a step back and pursue a new master plan related to the marina at South Whidbey Harbor. Rather than support the bridge-and-elevator Langley Lift as proposed by Paul and Pam Schell, the former of whom died in July shortly after presenting the project to the city, Arango backed the idea of redoing a 10-year-old plan in concert with the Port of South Whidbey.

“There’s a multitude of issues that could be addressed in that plan,” he said at Monday’s Langley City Council meeting.

Renewing the master plan would allow the city to discover a preferred alternative for moving people up and down the bluff, as well as its potential use and long-term costs.

One of the underlying motivations was a sense that the city either had to use $500,000 in county funding for the project, or lose it. Arango assuaged those fears, as having been the city staffer who applied for the county dollars from the Island County Council of Governments, saying that previously there were not a lot of municipalities seeking such large sums.