MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

TRANSPORTATION PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING

Tuesday, April 18, 2000

Council Chamber

Members Present:  Rod Monroe (Chair) and Susan McLain

Members Absent:  Jon Kvistad (Vice Chair)      

Also Present:    Bill Atherton      

CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL

Chair Monroe called the meeting to order at 1:40 p.m.

1.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE MARCH 21, 2000, TRANSPORTATION PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING

2.  RESOLUTION NO. 00-2936, FOR THE PURPOSE OF AMENDING THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT WITH WASHINGTON COUNTY FOR THE WILSONVILLE/BEAVERTON TRANSIT CORRIDOR STUDY.

Richard Brandman, Metro Transportation Planning Department Assistant Director, said the resolution would increase the total budget of the Washington County commuter rail project by $439,454. The figure included approximately $394,000 of federal STIP (State Transportation Improvement Program) funds that JPACT (Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation) allocated to the project and approximately $45,000 of local funds contributed by Washington County. The JPACT and Metro awarded $1 million to the commuter rail project during the last STIP update process. The first approximately $600,000 had already been received by Washington County through a grant from the FTA (Federal Transit Authority). Resolution No. 00-2936 would amend that grant to provide the remaining funds necessary for the county to proceed to the next phase of the project. Future project tasks included developing a project management plan, more coordination with the railroads, improving the detail of the engineering and traffic analysis, and continuing with community outreach and coordination with other federal agencies.

Councilor Atherton asked if there was any discussion of extending the scope of the project to include a rail line running through Lake Oswego and over the bridge into Milwaukie.

Mr. Brandman said there was discussion and analysis of that particular rail line. The Transportation Department was conducting that analysis through the South Corridor study. However, Washington County had not included that rail line in the commuter rail project.

Councilor Atherton asked why it would not be integrated. Putting aside all the bureaucratic limits of the South Corridor study, it seemed a natural.

Mr. Brandman said Washington County could better answer his question because it was their project. However, the county wanted to demonstrate that a commuter rail project in the corridor could be completed rather quickly and inexpensively (within the 4-year process), and facilitate good potential for ridership and future extensions (to Salem, Lake Oswego, Milwaukie, etc.)

Chair Monroe believed a successful commuter rail project would make future extensions (including a rail line through Lake Oswego to Milwaukie) a reality.

Mr. Brandman said there were significant issues in the South Corridor that did not exist in the Wilsonville to Beaverton corridor. Several houses were close to the alignment in Lake Oswego, on the way to Tualatin, and would have changed the entire nature of the analysis required.

Chair Monroe assigned the resolution to Councilor McLain to carry to council.

3.  UPDATE – REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION PLAN

Andy Cotugno, Metro Transportation Planning Department Director, said he had two issues he wanted to cover. One, was the schedule on content for the final version of the RTP (Regional Transportation Plan) outlined in a handout, RTP Update: Spring 2000 Adoption Timeline. (A copy of this document can be found in the record.) It was the overall schedule the department drafted to move toward the point of creating a final version of the RTP, adopted by Metro. Most of what was in the document had already been adopted by resolution in December 1999. The document would be their building foundation. Therefore, they were adding several critical items to it. The document covered the current adoption process by ordinance. Therefore, they reserved time for first reading, second reading, discussion of findings and other issues.

Mr. Cotugno discussed milestones laid out in the document. The complete draft the department planned to provide to TPAC (Transportation Policy Alternatives Committee) on April 28, 2000, would include all the revisions that needed to be incorporated, including public comments the department collected during the last six-month review period. It would be the benchmark document. The first milestone would occur in May, when the department planned to present the same document to MPAC (Metro Policy Advisory Committee) and JPACT for release and public comment. On May 15, when the 45-day RTP comment period would begin, they planned to complete the ordinance and the findings of support and have them available. Options to proceed would be included in the May 15 document. The findings would be the second major component included. Beginning in June, the department planned to present the financial information and gauge how people would be prepared to proceed with the financial decisions. The RTP would reflect these decisions, whether basic or expanded. Decisions made during this period would be included in the RTP document at that time. The committee and council needed to approve the proposed agenda for the council meeting on June 29, 2000, because it was the fifth Thursday of the month. He proposed using the fifth Thursday approach to close the 45-day public comment period. From then on, they would address all the comments generated during that period.

Chair Monroe instructed John Houser, Senior Council Analyst, to request that Presiding Officer Bragdon schedule a council meeting on June 29, 2000, and include the activities, described above by Mr. Cotugno, on the agenda.

Mr. Cotugno said the sequence from June 30, 2000, through July 27, 2000, consisted of acting on the changes that would develop during the public comment period until the final adoption. Assuming it was adopted on July 27, 2000, the department would proceed with an air quality conformity analysis of the recommended system. At that time, the department would also submit the ordinance to the LCDC (Land Conservation and Development Department) for state approval. He did not know what their timeline would be. If the process required further amendments, the department planned to handle those concerns as they developed. They submitted to LCDC the

draft Metro adopted in December 1999 to indicate where the agency was heading. If possible, the department wanted to be able to receive and analyze comments from LCDC now instead of dealing with them later. He suggested Metro approve the general operations timeline and requested feedback from the committee. He wanted to share the comments with TPAC and JPACT so they would know where the agency was headed.

Councilor McLain said the only problem with the public hearing in June was it was a little too late and there would be so many other public hearings. She hoped Presiding Officer Bragdon would approve a council meeting on June 29, 2000, to avoid scheduling so much business in July 2000. She asked how many years Metro had been working on the RTP.

Mr. Cotugno said five.

Councilor McLain thought it was longer and said October was a good time to discuss the issue because it correlated with the land use decisions that the council planned to make. Therefore, it was important too have the RTP done so the council would know how it would affect those other decisions. She thought it was good timing, but if the department fell behind it would be a problem. She hoped it would be published in October 2000.

Mr. Cotugno said the department would actually be scheduled to receive the finished product on July 27, 2000. They would not print it until the state and federal government concurred. If there was anything that needed to be incorporated, based on their reviews, it could be added.

Councilor McLain said the council received questions concerning whether the transportation and infrastructure systems could support Metro’s land use plan. If the RTP was final and available to the council, it could help them make important growth decisions. The timeline looked good.

Councilor Atherton discussed how to make the land use-transportation connection. He asked which timeline was driving which. He did not have a good answer. He asked Mr. Cotugno if it would be possible for the council to develop a Plan B in early May 2000, with guidance to JPACT to formulate a financial strategy. He knew about the options the department had already produced. He asked if what Mr. Cotugno provided the committee was a complete list.

Chair Monroe said no, they were probably not all the options that everyone had thought of.

Councilor Atherton wanted to try to reverse things and arrange for the council to set some broad policy direction with guidelines for JPACT to work with. Then, JPACT could return before the committee with combinations of options. For example, transportation planning needed to relate to land use planning and funding. If the committee required growth-neutrality or growth to pay its own way, it would shape the committee’s think on the issues. So far, the concepts had not been popular in the region. That might change, especially after the vote on Ballot Measure 82.

Mr. Cotugno said the department tried to pose their options to encourage such a conversation. They sized the alternative funding mechanisms around different types of approaches. One approach involved system development charges (SDCs) and growth paying its own way, at least. Those issues were central to the discussion. It was the committee’s decision regarding whether it wanted to discuss the issues before or after JPACT. Within the time frame there would not be final decisions, but maybe some basic directions people would commit to. He asked how final a decision the committee might adopt. He just wanted to make progress on the issue.

Councilor Atherton said Metro was being pushed forward by reality and the citizens of Oregon.

Mr. Cotugno agreed.

Councilor Atherton said, for communications, the outline was excellent, but each option needed an easily identifiable name. For example, the User Pay Option, or the Growth-Neutral Option

Mr. Cotugno said those were value-laden terms.

Councilor Atherton said he loved those values. He wanted to find a way to break apart the large, complex and indeterminable problem into smaller, more manageable pieces, and establish direction to address these concerns. The sooner the better. He cited the growth-neutral option, which the department included in Strategic Option 2, for the most part (minus regional SDCs). He had conversations with Dick Reiten and Roger Graybeal and was developing a Plan B for Measure 82 before the election. The citizens needed to realize the government listened, and there were alternatives if the measure was not approved. There was a regional option. He cited the existence of a Plan B when the light rail measure was defeated.

Mr. Cotugno mentioned a second handout, Summary of RTP Supplemental Revisions, which included the areas of the RTP document, adopted in December 1999, in which the department incorporated various amendments. (A copy of this document can be found in the record.) The changes were based on public input.

Councilor McLain asked if an update she received from Mike Hoglund, Transportation Planning Department Manager, on the Tualatin Valley (TV) Highway was included in the document.

Mr. Cotugno said yes. It was part of the map edits, numbers 3 and 4, for street design and motor vehicles. There was a similar design for the Tualatin-Sherwood Expressway described in the document. The department anticipated adopting the findings needed for the Tualatin-Sherwood connect and the Sunrise Corridor, particularly because the two went outside the urban area. There were special findings needed for that situation.

Councilor McLain asked if he believed the TV Highway fix addressed any of the issues expressed by Steve Lawrence and his organization regarding the functional level.

Mr. Cotugno said the big unresolved question was what the actual scope of the design of a project, feasible in that area, would be. The general principle that TV Highway function like a highway with curb cuts in its middle section, but more like a boulevard in the two downtown sections, was pretty close. However, within the general principle were a lot of design details and questions that involved location of interchanges and frontage roads that would not be addressed and answered until the actual engineering design process. That required a lot more money (approximately $2 million to $4 million) than Metro was currently spending. There was as much difficulty associated with the engineering as with the community impact assessment. The department thought that was the kind of refinement plan work that needed to be performed in that corridor. But the department had not included it in their budget.

Mr. Cotugno said his department was currently quantifying and trying to complete the boxes for each of the transportation pieces. He reviewed a third handout, Strategic Transportation System Funding Options that contained an outline of components of some of the financial analysis the department was conducting. (A copy of this document can be found in the record.) The document described the five different categories of needs contained in the RTP and four strategy options. Efforts to address the first two rows of the document (City/County OM&P and Highway OM&P) had not worked because of problems passing gas tax increases through the legislature. Therefore, the document provided a further strategy to emphasize local sources for maintenance needs and maintain the state strategy for capital needs, supported by some other funding sources, or vice versa. These were the general set of choices the department tried to describe in the document. Now, they were filling in the boxes with details and waiting to review the outcome. He reviewed the document. Eventually, the region would receive more than enough funding for road maintenance and preservation. In approximately 15 years, because Metro had met the

regional need, the agency could start shifting the resources to capital or not raise the tax as much as before. The document also included three local funding options.

Councilor McLain said Washington County’s Road Maintenance District and plan separated into two units - urban and rural. Many thought that strategy was very unsuccessful in the rural area because they converted the roads to gravel and did not maintain them to current standards.

Mr. Cotugno said that happened because they didn’t have the necessary funding.

Councilor McLain said her point was equity. If it was going to be the model she wanted to ensure it would be more equitable than Washington County’s model. She asked if Mr. Cotugno said that the model was only applicable to urban areas. She also asked if it gave each road equal status regarding usage or classification.

Mr. Cotugno said the needs are the costs for all city and county roads. The model showed how far the region could go toward meeting the need (about halfway). It also showed that the growth rate, with property taxes kept at 3 percent per year, would actually be slower than inflation.

Councilor McLain asked if there were criteria that accompanied the charts that showed the distribution to urban and rural roads.

Mr. Cotugno said there were 1,000 permutations. The document was trying to quantify, generally, the order of magnitude.

Councilor Atherton and Chair Monroe suggested the document pages should have had numbers and titles to identify differences among the charts.

Councilor McLain suggested that important figures on the document be in bold type.

Mr. Cotugno reviewed two options based on the Street Utility Fee used by the cities of Tualatin and Wilsonville. The fee would be added to a citizen’s utility bill, with portions allocated for sewer, water and street maintenance. The fee would be based on the trip generation rate of the different land uses. There would be different fees for commercial, industrial, single family and multi-family. The rates, similar to Tualatin, indicated what level of funding the region could generate. The $17 annual fee, if paid monthly, amounted to $1.50 for maintenance. It would cost 2 ½ times that, approximately $4.50, to meet the entire regional need. The second option was a more aggressive Street Utility Fee funding strategy.

Councilor Atherton thanked Mr. Cotugno and his department for the research. Metro could deal with the maintenance and preservation costs of regional, county and city roads with a mix of very reasonable, relatively easily implemented fees. According to the theory of taxation, Metro would not want to affect economic decision-making every year. Instead, the agency should keep the amounts small and related to the service that was provided. It was good news for him and related to creating a possible Plan B scenario if or when Measure 82 fails.

Chair Monroe agreed.

Mr. Cotugno noted the department just started detailing the top row of funding options. Other possibilities might include SDCs, congestion pricing revenue and VMT (vehicle miles traveled). They planned to have an updated report for the committee/council later.

Councilor McLain said one of the department’s best presentations included charts that described the amounts of the different options, clearly and concisely.

Mr. Cotugno and Chair Monroe agreed.

Councilor Atherton asked if the department could provide guidance, in terms of city street utility fees. Some people did not contribute much to the gasoline tax but still needed and used the road(s). He asked what percentage of the overall maintenance budget these people should be responsible for just based on the fact that they own the real estate. The commission/council had discussed the number, which was between 10 percent and 50 percent.

Mr. Cotugno said he did not know. In general, there was a lot of road maintenance research, but the department had not been involved in road maintenance issues. Instead, it had been focused on the capital side of the RTP, and the improvements that were necessary to support the growth in the RTP. The main reason they were currently dealing with maintenance issues was because nobody would discuss expansion of the road system until the maintenance issues had been solved. Local Government had to move beyond maintenance to address funding improvements.

Councilor Atherton asked about a strategy that distinguished between six levels (federal, state, regional, county, city and LID (local improvement district) of roads, each tied to their own revenue source. The strategy would include 4 to 6 different revenue sources that could be allocated for road use. For example, the federal gas tax for the interstate system and the state gas tax for the state road system. He referred to the concept of regionalism. Allowing the state to be closely involved in local transportation financing had not worked. He said it could be an opportunity for Metro to shine.

Mr. Cotugno said the principle Councilor Atherton described was fraught with problems. There tended to be an attitude that the interstate must be the most important part of the transportation system. Metro could not talk about the state system, which was the second most important, until the federal system was funded. The agency could not talk about the regional system until the state system was funded. In fact, the most expensive part of the federal interstate system was in the region and 95 percent of the traffic it carried was regional not interstate. It was debatable whether that was a regional or federal need. A strict schedule of federal funding for interstates, state funding for state highways and regional funding for regional roads, would prevent the agency from ever getting the opportunity to address regional needs. He asked if the region wanted to fund the freeways, but none of the arterial or collector roads, transit and bike paths. The only federal funding the department controlled was not typically spent on the freeways. Instead, the agency used it for city and county arterial roads, bike paths and flex funding for TOD (transit oriented development) programs. It was the only flexible funding category that the agency had the discretion to decide how to spend. Metro used the money to fill in the areas that did not get funded. Constitutional limitations meant the region could get gas taxes only for road improvements, so flexible federal funds were important. A strict schedule would deprive the department of that flexibility. Metro could only build interstates with all the federal funding.

Councilor Atherton said the flexibility had also resulted in an interstate that was not an interstate. In some areas of the region it was Main Street.

Mr. Cotugno said in most urban areas of the country it was Main Street because they decided to route it through the metropolitan regions instead of around them.

Councilor Atherton said in New York and Connecticut the interstate was located out of town.

Mr. Cotugno sited similar situations in Oregon (Salem, Eugene, Medford, etc.). However, urban areas had criss-crossing interstate systems that were full of regional, not interstate, traffic.

COUNCILOR COMMUNICATIONS

Councilor Atherton anticipated the defeat of Measure 82. Therefore, he contacted Roger Graybeal and Dick Reiten concerning developing a Plan B option before the election. They suggested Metro consider providing some clear direction on the issue. He suggested themes,

which included growth paying its own way or a user fee system, and region-wide funding sources. Some of the options provided by Mr. Cotugno were much more interesting than he anticipated.

Chair Monroe said he had been involved in the transportation funding issue a long time (6 years at Metro). The governor had requested agencies back off on their regional funding proposals to prevent Balkanizing the state, because there were statewide transportation needs that required everyone’s cooperation. However, it was clear the state had failed, once again, to meet statewide transportation needs. Metro had to find ways to fund the region’s transportation needs. Otherwise, the whole 2040 Growth Concept, or any concept for managing growth in the region, would fall apart. The system had to be as fair as possible, but also simple enough for voters to understand and accept. He was encouraged that Metro was reaching consensus, though it would not be achieved before the vote on Measure 82 in approximately three weeks. However, through the JPACT process, he believed the council would develop a plan the voters would accept.

Councilor Atherton said he was encouraged by Chair Monroe’s comments, which encapsulated the issue of regionalism, which he favored, and the Governor’s concern regarding the Balkanizing of the state. However, the future was real regional government. There were regions in the state that should be semi-autonomous in how they conducted their affairs, especially their transportation needs. The state should let the residents and beneficiaries of that system plan, fund and manage it. He said Metro might have the opportunity to send that message to the state and achieve clarity regarding the conflict surrounding that issue, which had not been resolved.

ADJOURN

There being no further committee business, Chair Monroe adjourned the meeting at 2:28 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Andy Flinn

Council Assistant

Attachments to the Record

Metro Transportation Committee meeting of April 18, 2000

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