MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

TRANSPORTATION PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING

Friday, March 3, 2000

Council Chamber

Members Present:  Rod Monroe (Chair), Susan McLain

Members Absent:  Jon Kvistad (Vice Chair)

Also Present:    David Bragdon

CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL

Chair Monroe called the meeting to order at 3:06 p.m.

1.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF DECEMBER 7, 1999, AND FEBRUARY 8, 2000, TRANSPORTATION PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING

2.  RESOLUTION NO. 00-2904, FOR THE PURPOSE OF APPROVING THE FY 2001 UNIFIED WORK PROGRAM.

Andy Cotugno, Metro Transportation Planning Department Director, said that annually Metro adopted a resolution that adopted the Unified Work Program. It described how the various transportation planning grants would be used in the coming fiscal year, and was a very large share of his department’s budget (approximately 90 percent). The Unified Work Program timing was always out of sync with the Metro budget process. The program was developed before the Metro budget process was completed. So the Metro always adopted the resolution that recognized that changes might be necessary later during the Metro budget process.

The Unified Work Program included items that went beyond Metro’s portion of the budget. There was a variety of significant transportation planning activities that ODOT (the Oregon Department of Transportation), Tri-Met, the Port of Portland and some of the local governments were responsible for. It also integrated the work program for the Washington State Regional Transportation Council and showed some of the activities that crossed over between the two. The Unified Work Program was adopted now so that in the next three months his

department could process the grants and have them ready to be awarded by July 1, 2000, the beginning of the department’s fiscal year.

3.  RESOLUTION NO. 00-2905, FOR THE PURPOSE OF CERTIFYING THAT THE PORTLAND METROPOLITAN AREA IS IN COMPLIANCE WITH FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION PLANNING REQUIREMENTS.

Mr. Cotugno said this was a companion to the Unified Work Program for the various grants. The resolution documented how the department complied with the various federal requirements regarding the department’s organization; how decisions were made; how the public was involved in their process; whether they met air quality, contracting and grant requirements; and other issues. It also certified that the department met those requirements. The department certified itself every year. The federal government audited that certification every three years. The last audit occurred last summer, so they wouldn’t be back for a couple of years. The resolution was another prerequisite for receiving federal grant funding. The department and ODOT jointly adopted the resolution as certifying those requirements.

Chair Monroe assigned the resolutions to Councilor Kvistad to carry to council.

4.  RESOLUTION NO. 00-2906, FOR THE PURPOSE OF AMENDING THE TOD PROGRAM PROCEDURES TO FACILITATE TOD PROJECTS INCLUDING THE ROUND AT BEAVERTON CENTRAL.

Mr. Cotugno said the resolution amended the procedures that council adopted that established the TOD (Transit Oriented Development) program by Resolution No. 98-2619. That resolution adopted the work plan that was attached to the resolution and provided the procedures under which the department would be involved in the TOD programs, select projects, make decisions, establish criteria that would be used to make decisions.

In its original form, when it was originally adopted in 1998, it provided for involvement in TOD projects through land acquisition and subsequent resale of the land for development purposes. The amendment added to the method of being involved, not only through land acquisition, but also in capital improvements (sidewalks, plazas and other things that might be built) that would facilitate a TOD as well. It was an improvement-oriented approach rather than a land acquisition-oriented approach.

The criteria for when and why the department would be involved, how they would make selections, what criteria they would use remained the same. They simply added a second technique to be involved in those projects. The amendment was necessary and would allow the department to be involved with The Round. They had conversations with Beaverton and the developer concerning paying for the plaza as part of The Round costs, much like the public sector paid for Pioneer Square, which is a nice plaza in downtown Portland. The Round would be Beaverton’s downtown plaza and a public sector project. Resolution No. 00-2906 would allow the Transportation Department to be involved as a site acquisition or sight improvement, rather than a land acquisition. But the resolution was not limited to The Round at Beaverton. It could be involved with other TOD projects up and down the light rail corridor.

John Charles, who represented the Cascade Policy Institute, said he spent time observing construction of TOD projects and the behavior of people who used these facilities. He also called Tri-Met and the city of Gresham to request empirical evidence that indicated that people who lived in the TOD projects demonstrated transportation behavior patterns that were different than other people. He was amazed how little evidence existed.

He saw just large expenditures of money. He cited The Round in Beaverton and called it a fiasco in the region. Why was the region supporting these projects with CMAQ (Congestion Management Air Quality) funds? Was there any evidence that the TOD projects would reduce congestion or air pollution? He said no. In fact, the reverse was likely happening. Unless the transit mode split as a result of the TOD programs skyrocketed, quadrupled, quintupled, or unless all the people who lived in them didn’t own cars, it would be impossible to reduce congestion or lower air pollution.

He also said that spending money on the pedestrian to MAX program in Gresham, wider sidewalks and The Round in Beaverton was silly. He questioned what pouring money into these projects, that the market didn’t support and were currently subsidized by Metro, would do for the region. He mentioned the Gresham Central Project as another problem. Fourteen years after east side light-rail opened, Gresham still had never surveyed the people who lived in the high-density TOD developments to analyze how they travelled.

City officials told him no, said it was a very interesting question and told him to ask Tri-Met.

He requested information (surveys or other empirical evidence) from Tri-Met three times during the past three years. He looked for anything that analyzed the strategy and produced positive results. So far, he hadn’t received any such information. Literature from around Oregon and the country didn’t support the strategy. He cited BART (Bay Area Regional Transportation) as an example.

He didn’t understand why Metro was spending money on a project like The Round at Beaverton, that most people would want to avoid, when there was no demonstrated public benefit or comparison to other strategies that might accomplish the same goals at a far lower cost. Some other strategies had been analyzed by Metro extensively. He mentioned the Traffic Relief Options Study and congestion pricing. They could reduce congestion without one penny of public subsidy. Road pricing could result in net social benefits of more than $100 million annually for the region and result in saved travel time, less energy consumed, and lower CO2 emissions and air pollution. Metro did the analysis and knew this, but the agency wasn’t putting enough commitment into alternative strategies that would work.

He asked Metro to analyze the entire TOD program and ask what the region is getting for the public investment. Could those public dollars have gone elsewhere and achieved a bigger bang for the buck? The success of the TOD programs was mythology because the evidence of success almost never existed.

Chair Monroe said Councilor McLain would carry the resolution to council.

Mr. Cotugno said first council on Tuesday, and then JPACT (the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation) on Thursday, discussed development of a fiscally constrained RTP (Regional Transportation Plan). He gave committee members a copy of the presentation that the department provided for both the council and JPACT. There were a couple errors in the original that had been corrected.

The RTP Project List indicated it was not quite completed. There would be one or two more unfinished projects. The department was finalizing both the revenue numbers and the project list. But it was about 99 percent complete. What it showed was the projects that were part of the RTP Preferred, Strategic and/or

Financially Constrained systems lists. Everything the department was working on was drawn from the larger list that they developed and adopted in December 1999. They didn’t create any new projects. The department simply determined

which portion of the project list would move forward if Metro were limited to existing constrained resources.

Councilor Bragdon asked about the qualification of the 2040 Growth Concept link on the project list. He asked if it was just geographic.

Mr. Cotugno said they categorized them all by the 2040 Growth Concept design types (regional centers, main streets, town centers, etc.) and then added the totals to determine levels of funding.

Chair Monroe discussed his resolution, which supported Ballot Measure 82. Soon it would be introduced to the council, reviewed by the committee on Tuesday, March 21, 2000, and then, sometime before the end of March, would be sent back to the council. He encouraged the committee members to provide possible amendments or tweaks to the resolution, if necessary.

COUNCILOR COMMUNICATIONS

None.

ADJOURN

There being no further business before the committee, Chair Monroe adjourned the meeting at 3:23 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Andy Flinn

Council Assistant

Attachments to the Record

Metro Transportation Committee meeting of March 3, 2000

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