MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

TRANSPORTATION PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING

Tuesday, November 16, 1999

Council Chamber

CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL

Chair Kvistad called the meeting to order at 3:57 PM.

1.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE NOVEMBER 2, 1999, TRANSPORTATION PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING AND THE JANUARY 12, 14 & 21, 1999 TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PUBLIC HEARINGS

Councilor Bragdon noted a typo in the January 12, 1999 Public Hearing minutes, page 9, where it stated that John Leper “appreciated the listening pose” rather than the listening post.

2.  RESOLUTION NO. 99-2864, FOR THE PURPOSE OF SELECTION AND FUNDING ALLOCATION OF $1 MILLION TO TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATIONS FOR FY 2000 TO FY 2003.

Andy Cotugno, Transportation Director, said in the recently adopted STIP, approximately $250,000 a year was set aside, for a total of $1 million over the 4 year period, for establishing seed money for Transportation Management Associations (TMAs). He reported the solicitation process to pick which TMAs would get funded was completed. This resolution, setting the policy direction for how to consider funding for TMAs was predicated on several important principles. Before any commitment to start up a TMA, the applicant had to know who their members would be and their objectives, as well as what sort of dues structure and programs they might implement. They also had to know who would have long term financial obligation for it. He also noted a resolution establishing that our funds would be provided on the basis of a scaling down level of funding. That funding would start out at 90% for the first year, scale down to 2/3 funding for the second year, and 1/3 funding for the third year. He said the money was specifically intended to be seed money with the expectation that after 3 years they would need to be on their feet and have private sector, and probably some other aspect of on-going government sponsorship either from Tri-Met or their local government. He referred to Exhibit 1 in the staff report for a summary of the selection process (see copy of report in agenda packet with permanent record of this meeting).

Councilor Atherton arrived at 4:03 P.M.

Mr. Cotugno continued that the Lloyd TMA was doing quite well and noted that Tualatin and the Washington Transportation Alliance (WTA) had a rocky time at first but had improved quite a bit in the last year. He said they still had work to do and he did not have a problem with them receiving the money to get on their feet. He said this resolution proposed to recognize the on-going support issue that needed to be reexamined.

Councilor Bragdon asked if this was the same subcommittee that had been reconstituted a couple of weeks ago. He asked if Metro was the sponsoring organization in the MTIP process.

Mr. Cotugno said Tri-Met was the sponsor but Metro allocated the MTIP funds to run Tri-Met’s core rideshare program.

Councilor Bragdon asked who had the responsibility for performance review.

Mr. Cotugno said that was also Tri-Met. He said Tony Mendoza had been to JPACT with his report and it contained some pretty impressive results. He offered to get a copy for the committee.

Councilor Bragdon asked what the money covered for the different projects.

Mr. Cotugno said the money was to get the organization established. It covered basically one staff person to organize the TMA. The money was not intended to run the service. He said they had also allocated $1 million worth of 2040 initiatives in the same MTIP process and that money was to run the service.

Councilor Bragdon said he had been hearing of some good alternatives. He felt they should be doing more of this kind of thing, which was why he asked about the institutional sponsor.

Mr. Cotugno said Tri-Met had been the sponsor of the ride share program in general, but they did it heavily with the regional funds that Metro allocated to them. He said this level of oversight from Metro had a few more strings attached than there would be on something Tri-Met did independently.

Councilor Atherton said he would have to abstain from the vote because he was not present for the presentation.

Chair Kvistad assigned Councilor Bragdon to carry the resolution to full council.

3.  RTP WORK SESSION/UPDATE

Chair Kvistad said his recommendation to Mr. Cotugno and JPACT was to have a resolution in place and be done by the end of the year, which may mean moving JPACT a week or TPAC having an additional meeting so they could meet the schedule.

Councilor Bragdon was not aware that TPAC had asked for a delay.

Mr. Cotugno said they had asked for two more work sessions at their meeting last Friday.

Chair Kvistad added that TPAC had not asked for a delay on the decision, but were concerned that their last work session was 2 days after JPACT. They were concerned that JPACT would have to push the decision to January. He repeated that they would try to get TPAC to meet before their normal meeting time or move JPACT to a week later.

Councilor Bragdon asked whether either of those alternatives would satisfy TPAC

Chair Kvistad said they just wanted a little more time and he was working with Mr. Cotugno to accommodate them. He said it was his goal to get this done by the end of the year.

Mr. Cotugno said he and his staff would compile the major issues needing feedback from the committee. They would take everything they received comment on and compile the issues into two packets, a discussion packet and a consent packet. They recommended adopting the consent items as a blanket and only taking up specific issues from that packet if someone wanted to remove the issue from the list for discussion. He said the complete list would be complied and ready for the December JPACT and Transportation Planning Committee meetings.

Councilor Bragdon commented that most people on TPAC worked for jurisdictions also represented on JPACT so they would be having the discussions also.

Mr. Cotugno continued, regarding the timeline issue raised by the Chair, that JPACT would modify their proposal to suggest TPAC move up or JPACT delay a week to stay in the December timeframe.

He said the resolution vs. ordinance issue was important. He said the document before them was the full draft RTP (a copy of this draft document can be found with the permanent record of this meeting) that TPAC had recommended as the adoption draft. It would be from that baseline that they would add or subtract, based on the issue comments. He said adopting by resolution represented a statement of policy intent, not law. In order to adopt by ordinance, it would need to be supported by land use findings addressing all of the identified transportation planning rule requirements. In addition, for federal purposes, they would need findings related to the TEA-21 planning requirements, and would need to repeat the conformity determinations on this RTP as distinct from the old one done last month. He and his staff proposed adopting this RTP by resolution, complete the findings related to the issues, bring the ordinances with the findings back for final adoption and incorporate whatever amendments needed.

Councilor Bragdon asked about a copy of a letter to Mr. Cotugno that he had received from DEQ.

Mr. Cotugno said the letter pertained to the conformity issue he had just raised. He said DEQ disagreed with the approach and wanted the conformity determination done before the first draft was adopted. He said when he and his staff had tackled the question of how to approach the RTP a year ago, they received direction from Council, JPACT, MPAC and TPAC to define the RTP they wanted, not the fiscally constrained RTP they would have to live with. He said for federal purposes they had to come back and say now we know what we want, how much will we have to live with and does that conform. Staff’s recommendation proposed doing what DEQ wanted as a second step and DEQ wanted to see it as an integrated step.

Chair Kvistad said that discussion had taken place with DEQ a while ago and their letter was to reiterate their position. He said he preferred to stay on track with the timeline already established.

Councilor Bragdon asked if this issue would be resolved before the deadline.

Mr. Cotugno said if this committee or JPACT said so, then it would be put off 6 for months in order to do the conforming analysis.

Chair Kvistad did not think that was JPACT’s intention.

Mr. Cotugno said the analysis of where they wanted to go was clearly established in the RTP. How far they could get within existing resources was valid, but simply a second issue. He said a big issue that needed revisiting as well was how to finance all this stuff. .

He continued that they had incorporated Title 6, the Transportation section of the Urban Growth Management Functional Plan, into the RTP. He noted some proposed modifications to the old Urban Growth Management Functional Plan: regarding performance measures, the old Functional Plan proposed a 2 tiered level of service standard. In this RTP had a third level for the alternative modes. He said they proposed a refinement to the old Functional Plan in terms of connectivity. The previous requirement was to plat the necessary streets to accomplish 10-16 streets per mile for every contiguous area of 5 acres. The suggestion for the new RTP was still 10-16 streets per mile but the local government should identify the key connections and the developer should come through with the rest of the street connections needed for the complete plat.

Councilor Atherton asked about some wording in the last sentence. Mr. Cotugno explained it was a typo and should read “simplify” instead of “simply”.

Mr. Cotugno said a fundamental question was whether the strategic system was the right balance. He said they were not challenging that, but it was an issue for some. He noted timing was an issue, when should improvements be made in the Urban Reserve areas, and how did it relate to the needs of areas inside the UGB in the future. He said they had received a number of comments regarding why the lightrail in Clackamas County was in the RTP. He noted it was called for as a long-range project. In the meantime bus rapid transit improvements would be implemented and they would revisit when to do lightrail sometime in the future.

Councilor Bragdon asked if the comments about lightrail came from government or citizens.

Mr. Cotugno said the Clackamas County Commission said they thought it should stay in the RTP for long term consideration.

Councilor Atherton asked how it fit in the scheme of the preferred alternative vs. the strategic.

Mr. Cotugno said the preferred RTP included lightrail to the town center and Oregon City, and the strategic, which he said represented the priorities, included lightrail to the town center but not to Oregon City, but was part of the unfunded strategic system. He reminded the committee that 2/3 of the strategic, road and transit, was unfunded. He said in his judgement, the biggest issue was funding the RTP, which raised the policy question of whether it was even reachable. He felt the level of dollars was very much in line with historical level expenditures.

Councilor Bragdon commented that the trend seemed to be going the wrong way. He asked if that was comparable to historic levels.

Mr. Cotugno said the actuals had been coming down. This RTP said they had to spend more than they had been, but it was not as high as it used to be.

Councilor Bragdon asked if people’s expectations would be raised to think “x,y,z” was going to happen and then it would not down the road.

Mr. Cotugno said the plan did not commit to do “x,y,z”, it had preferred, strategic and committed plans.

Chair Kvistad reminded the committee that this was an ever-changing document, a snapshot of what was happening now and where they were going. He said it would never be completed as it was not a stand alone, but a transitional document. It would evolve, depending on the makeup of the council, other governments, the legislature, the voters, all of that.

Councilor Atherton said what he and Councilor Bragdon had been talking about was reflected here in some of the issues, like did the strategic system represent the right project balance. He argued that it created an aberration when automobiles did not pay the full cost of driving. He said his proposal sought to reflect the imbalance and charge drivers for that

Chair Kvistad responded that registration fees and gas taxes were those charges.

Councilor Atherton agreed, but said it also provided a greater allocation for alternative transportation, which used to predominate.

Chair Kvistad and Councilor Atherton agreed that alternative transportation should pay for itself.

Councilor Bragdon left the meeting at 4:30 P.M. for a previous engagement.

Mr. Cotugno said the character of this conversation was indicative of his dilemma. He felt the RTP was good, and if some sort of “reasonableness” test were applied, it would show they were headed in the right direction. He felt it should be used as a means of saying they agreed where they should head, now how would we finance it. He noted the same frustration with DEQ. He was not sure how to tackle the problem. He said MPAC’s finance committee had been pretty constructive in tackling the issues, and JPACT had also tackled finance issues in the past. He was not sure because the nature of the legislative process was a very difficult one last time and they had to do it again next time. He was unsure of how to get to the conclusion of all of the finance issues in a logical and productive way, but felt there needed to be more a concerted attention to the issue.

Councilor Atherton felt how this would be paid for and how it related to growth were very important issues. He wondered, if growth stopped tomorrow what kind of system would be needed for right now. He was excited about making his funding proposal meaningful, but felt the only way it could be was to seriously address the fiscal part.

Chair Kvistad wondered about equity in terms of expanding and paying, if those that have gotten their infrastructure would pay for the fair share of those that did not.

Councilor Atherton agreed that this was a useless exercise unless the funding part was taken very seriously

Mr. Cotugno also agreed that funding needed to be taken seriously. He hoped there would be a commitment from Council and JPACT and MPAC, who all had slightly different angles because of their specific interests, to take the funding issue seriously. He did not think they could “solve” the problem, rather they could make progress towards the problem. He felt they were headed on the right path and could make legitimate and logical progress for the next 5 years based on an expectation of where they were heading in the next 20 years. The course would be reevaluated in 5 years, and he said he could guarantee that the course for the following 15 years would be different than now. He said they should not set the goal at getting to 100% solution, but to get to 100% conceptual direction.

Councilor Atherton paraphrased in terms of his model. He made the analogy to personal health: when you want to weigh a certain amount or have a certain bicep size, you would not do it with surgery you could not afford, but the most practical strategy would be to eat the right food and get the right exercise. Then you could trust that the system you had set in place would bring you to the outcome you wanted.

Mr. Cotugno continued that the draft RTP included recommendations from the Traffic Relief Options (TRO) taskforce.

Councilor Atherton asked about comments he had made that did not appear in the draft RTP

Chair Kvistad said those were things they talked about in committee but were not necessarily part of the plan. They were things the committee wanted to start dealing with so Mr. Cotugno put them on paper. They were not part of the RTP, but part of the discussion as the committee moved into the next cycle

Mr. Cotugno said prior to adoption by resolution, every issue would be listed with recommendations, for instance to add or don’t add language to the adoption draft. It would then be up to Council to decide which way to go. He continued with Policy No. 19.2, which related to peak period pricing. He said it was an issue because some people wanted to keep it and some wanted to drop it.

Tom Kloster, Transportation, said it had been recommended to move the financial part to be a policy discussion following the RTP adoption itself.

Chair Kvistad said the committee understood why it was in front of them today for discussion, because they had concerns and wanted to talk about them as a group. He said it hadn’t been to TPAC yet because it came to committee first.

Mr. Cotugno said TPAC recommended adopting this RTP as a statement of what we would like to accomplish and then get started on the funding agenda.

Chair Kvistad said they had to remember that the funding was very unclear at this time because of a certain referral (AAA).

Mr. Cotugno said the most important question was how to have a meaningful discussion on this because after Council, JPACT and MPAC, it was the community that needed the discussion. That was a much more challenging exercise.

Chair Kvistad felt the opposite. He felt the community needed to determine what they wanted first. He felt they needed to do more listening than telling which was not always the case. He said voters know what they want, and part of the reason they keep voting things down is we don’t give it to them, we give them what we think is good for them.

Councilor Atherton disagreed. He said there had been consensus to use gas tax to maintain the existing infrastructure.

Chair Kvistad said that was the governor’s plan, not the people in the general community. He felt the people wanted to know about projects and why they were not finished or fixed. The bigger discussion, which was used to stop some of the debate, was that more people would come here and more people would drive.

Councilor Atherton said some people were saying the reason the roads were not being fixed was because the bureaucrats in Salem were not doing their jobs.

Chair Kvistad said people were saying that because they were not getting what they wanted. He said he heard a general willingness to pay for infrastructure projects for roads but people did not trust government to do them unless there was a project list involved.

Mr. Cotugno said these kinds of global issues were tough to solve.

Councilor Atherton said he had been thinking about things and had put them on paper. He wondered when he could get some thoughtful response to his ideas.

Mr. Cotugno felt Councilor Atherton should introduce his proposal to council for a policy debate. He suggested soliciting reactions from JPACT and/or MPAC for feedback. He said that was what the discussion of issues was all about

Chair Kvistad said he had no problem at all with general philosophical discussion of how to pay for existing infrastructures and other needs.

Councilor Atherton asked about taking the proposal to council to set direction.

Chair Kvistad said the problem now was that council was having issues in terms of bringing things forward. He said he did not have a problem discussing issues, but the bigger, conceptual things were tough to deal with because of the diverse views and approaches of the council, JPACT, and a very angry electorate.

Councilor Atherton said he went to lot of trouble to write out his option and was prepared to defend it. He wanted to know the proper forum. He felt it was their job to bring consensus and find a way to get some clarity.

Mr. Cotugno reiterated that every comment and/or issue they received would be included in a document listing the comment, who made it, and staff’s recommended response to it. The council would have the final say.

Councilor Atherton asked, under the assumption it was wise to deal with the “big one” first, which would that be, performance measures or funding.

Mr. Cotugno answered funding.

Chair Kvistad agreed. He said RTP stuff was never-ending and this was not the last they would see of it. He thanked the committee for attending the meeting.

ADJOURN

There being no further business before the committee, Chair Kvistad adjourned the meeting at 5:17 P.M.

Respectfully submitted,

Cheryl Grant

Council Assistant

Attachments to the Record

Metro Transportation Committee meeting of November 16, 1999