MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

TRANSPORTATION PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING

Tuesday, October 19, 1999

Council Chamber

CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL

Chair Kvistad called the meeting to order at 3:38 PM.

1.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE SEPTEMBER 21 METRO COUNCIL TRANSPORTATION PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING.

2.  RESOLUTION NO. 99-2843, FOR THE PURPOSE OF ADOPTING THE PORTLAND AREA AIR QUALITY CONFORMITY DETERMINATION FOR THE FY 2000 METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM

Andy Cotugno, Director of the Transportation Department, said there was a requirement for Metro to demonstrate that their TIP and their RTP conformed to federal air quality standards. He said this action would establish that fact. The TIP adopted last month funded a series of projects new to the TIP. This process re-conformed all of the old RTP. He noted it was a federal requirement that both were done together. The current plan of record is the old plan, not the new plan until the new one is adopted. He explained conformity involved 2 components, the qualitative evaluation and the quantitative evaluation. The qualitative evaluation involved demonstrating that all of the transportation control measures we have adopted were being implemented. He noted that included the 2040 growth concept itself, the parking standards, certain levels of transit service expansion, or a certain number of miles of bike and pedestrian improvements that were adopted, and others. He said the documentation provided at this meeting demonstrated progress on all those fronts.

Chair Kvistad noted that the final numbers were not in the packet. He said those numbers would be ready before final determination was made at the council level.

Mr. Cotugno continued that the second half of the analysis was the quantitative analysis. He said the air quality plan the DEQ adopted for the metropolitan region set out a budget level of emissions available for the transportation side, and a certain level of emissions available for the industrial side. He said Metro had to fit within the budget for vehicle emissions on the transportation side and it was that quantitative analysis they were still producing. He said they certainly expected to have it in time for next Thursday’s council meeting. He hoped the committee would recommend it to the full council, recognizing that the numbers would have to be ready when the council considered it next Thursday.

Councilor Atherton confirmed this was dealing with the TIP and the RTP they would be dealing with next year would had to do with the land-use/transportation/air quality connection.

Mr. Cotugno said yes. He said they were required by the feds to conform the TIP and the RTP at the same time so this was re-conforming the old RTP. He said this RTP would be null and void as soon as a new one was adopted, then they would have to demonstrate the new one was in conformance. He said the expectation was that it would actually be easier to demonstrate the new RTP’s conformance because it had more alternative mode and land-use oriented actions that should reduce emissions.

Chair Kvistad will to carry the resolution to the full council.

3.  RESOLUTION NO. 99-2853, FOR THE PURPOSE OF ADOPTING A LAND USE FINAL ORDER AMENDING THE LIGHT RAIL ROUTE, LIGHT RAIL STATIONS AND PARK-AND-RIDE LOTS, INCLUDING THEIR LOCATIONS, FOR THAT PORTION OF THE SOUTH/NORTH LIGHT RAIL PROJECT EXTENDING FROM THE STEEL BRIDGE TO THE EXPOSITION CENTER.

Richard Brandman, Transportation Department, announced that staff had been working weekends and nights to complete the FEIS, and he was happy to say the document was complete, signed off by the FTA, and at the printer. He said the Department was pretty excited that 5 years of planning and working on the South/North project was finally completed. He said that would meet the deadline that had been set in March. He met with officials from the FTA in Washington D.C. last week and the report there was that this project looked to be in very good shape. He said they couldn’t give a commitment to the project, but they had given every indication it would happen next year when they looked at the national picture. He felt this project would compete very well for federal funding. He said today would be a briefing on the LUFO because, according to statute and regulatory requirements, the committee was not being requested to make a recommendation to the council. A hearing, required by statute, would take place a week from Thursday at the council meeting.

He said this LUFO was the consolidated land use decision for the IMAX Project to the Expo Center and was comparable to the federal action last June when council adopted the locally preferred strategy decision. The LUFO does not get into design detail, just locations and the footprint for the alignment. He said it was the steering committee’s duty by law to recommend to Tri-Met what should be contained in the LUFO and then the Tri-Met board applied to the Metro Council for adoption. He said the steering committee was formed of top ranking officials from Metro, Tri-Met, the City of Portland, ODOT, Clackamas and Multnomah Counties whose unanimous recommendation was to move forward.

Councilor Kvistad asked for an explanation of the process from the LUFO to the federal government.

Mr. Brandman said the significance of the council adopting the LUFO was 1) it would officially adopt the alignment. That would be the time when it was possible to challenge the alignment. It is significant also, in that we would forward things that have happened in the region in October, like the City of Portland passed another resolution committing funding through a contract to Tri-Met as well as Tri-Met action specifying the actual mechanics for their contribution to the project. Then we would be able to show the feds on October 29 that all local sections had been completed and financing and land use approvals were in place,. November 1 is their cutoff for actions that can be described in their report to Congress for FY 2001. By federal statute they have to supply a report to the Congress. They evaluate all of the projects in the country and could see that we met the challenge and did not fall apart in the planning process..

Mr. Cotugno said the federal approvals were a series of steps. They had just approved the final EIS, which is their announcement to the world that they are satisfied we have met all our requirements. Within 30 days the FTA is expected to approve the record of decision. That means the project has been approved and they agreed they can fund. The next step would be release of the President’s budget on February 1. Whether they recommend to Congress that the project gets funding is identified in that budget. That starts the Congressional budget process. Then negotiating a full funding contract gets into the terms of the funding. and concludes with a funding contract where Tri-Met is applicant and the FTA is the grant awarding agency. They can’t sign until it has been submitted to the Congressional house and senate authorizing committee for approval. He said the FEIS was important, but not end of line.

Chair Kvistad said it was interesting and good to know.

Mr. Cotugno said they were hoping to have the full funding contract signed by end of May next year.

Mr. Brandman said Gordon Linton, the current administrator of the FTA, had announced he would be leaving the end of October to start his own consulting practice in the private sector. He had been with the FTA longer than any other administrator. Mr. Brandman did not think his leaving would change the dynamic for this project as the Deputy Administrator who would be taking over in the interim was familiar with the project and seemed friendly towards it also.

He continued that this resolution adopted the LUFO and resolved one and would adopt the findings of fact to be supplied by Mark Greenfield. He noted a new “Whereas” that the Metro Council was acknowledging that Tri-Met had agreed to complete final designs for an alternate station location at the Expo Center north entrance near Marine Drive. He introduced Ron Higby, the applicant from Tri-Met.

Chair Kvistad thanked Fred Hansen from Tri-Met and Andy Cotugno, Richard Brandman and the Metro staff for the work on this resolution. He added this was not the final siting decision. He said Tri-Met had agreed to do the design and engineering work so when the final siting decision came a year or so in the future, both alternatives would be engineered the same and a decision could be made based on the project and the cost.

Ron Higby, Project Director for the preliminary engineering phase of the IMAX project, clarified that this LUFO was an amendment to the LUFO adopted for the overall South/North Project. He noted the maps he would be using were different from the ones in the agenda packet (A small copy of the map he used is included with the permanent record of this meeting.) His new maps showed changes from the “adopted LUFO” to the “amended LUFO”, as he would refer to them in this presentation. He showed some minor alignment “tweaks” on the amended LUFO and explained the subtle differences between the two.

Chair Kvistad commented that the major change in the alignment was the new bridge and the underpass. He said the big discussion would be the park-and-rides as current policy did not permit them. He asked Mr. Higby to walk though the thought process that changed the alignment and why they were not crossing the bridge as originally planned.

Mr. Higby said as they looked into the design for that area and started to consider what it would take to rebuild the existing Columbia Slough bridge for lightrail, they found that the significant limitations and time constraints on “in-stream” work made rehabilitating the existing structure unfeasible. Those factors and others led them to look at constructing a separate lightrail-only structure across the slough and leave the existing bridge alone. He said that alternate plan turned out to save somewhere in the range of $5-11 million and helped with the time schedule for the project.

Councilor Atherton asked the distances between stations in the other parts of the alignment.

Mr. Higby responded they were roughly ½ mile apart. He said they typically used a ¼ mile radius around the station as the draw area for ridership and development. Spacing the stations at ½ mile made those radiuses barely touch.

Chair Kvistad added that the 2040 Growth Concept had the same circles of development.

Councilor Atherton asked about the timing of the trains.

Mr. Higby said there was a balance between the operating speed of the train and the spacing of the stations. The rule of thumb, very generally, was the higher the train speed, the farther apart the stations were. He said the goal was not to have stations too close together, but access was important.

Mr. Brandman reminded the committee that no action was needed today and this was informational only today.

Dean Phillips, attorney for Tri-Met, said HB 3478 required the Metro Council only to adopt the LUFO so it would be Metro’s own internal procedure to refer it to council. He said it could be treated as informational only.

Chair Kvistad clarified that when it came out of committee, it had to go before council unless the council had voted otherwise. Therefore, the committee would take action and move it forward. He called for a motion to accept Resolution No. 99-2853A as amended.

Chair Kvistad assigned Councilor Bragdon to carry the resolution to the full council with a do pass recommendation.

4.  COUNCILOR COMMUNICATIONS

Mr. Cotugno outlined the upcoming public RTP meetings and thanked the councilors for participating. He shared the informational packet that would be handed out.

Chair Kvistad thanked Councilor Washington for chairing the LUFO Steering Committee and reminded the committee to check their schedules for the RTP hearings.

ADJOURN

There being no further business before the committee, Chair Kvistad adjourned the meeting at 4:24 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Cheryl Grant

Council Assistant

Attachments to the Record

Metro Transportation Committee meeting of October 19, 1999