MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE MEETING

Thursday, April 18, 2002

Metro Council Chamber

Members Present:  Rex Burkholder (Chair), Bill Atherton (Vice Chair), and Rod Monroe.

Members Absent:  None.

1.  CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL. Chair Burkholder called the meeting to order at 10:01 a.m. He informed the committee that he needed to excuse himself early, and he asked Vice-Chair Atherton to preside then.

6.  TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENT TASK FORCE. Executive Officer Mike Burton spoke to the committee regarding a provision in his proposed budget of $50,000 to help fund staff work on the Transportation Investment Task Force. The basic intent of this, he said, was for Metro, in its responsibility as the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), to formulate with community effort possible referral to the voters of an initiative or initiatives that would accumulate, hopefully, some funding for transportation issues. Mr. Burton said the needs were known – the issue for the Task Force would be to determine where the emphasis would be and how it would be applied. His hope, he said, was that this Task Force would hand to the council, possibly sometime in November, some proposed measures that could have some ability for acceptance by the public, and that also would be coordinated with other regional efforts. Mr. Burton spoke of the specifics as outlined in Draft 5 (included in the agenda packet).

Councilor Atherton and Mr. Burton discussed who subsidized projects and how, and the benefits of such, as well as existing vs. proposed new systems. Mr. Burton said that part of his reason for this Task Force was that this would do little more than maintain the existing system, that it would be “catching up.” Councilor Monroe added that the region had a good transportation plan with no way to pay for it and a regional transportation funding mechanism was sorely needed. He applauded Mr. Burton for introducing this and said he hoped to work closely with him on it. Councilor Monroe said whatever was taken to the public would need to be specific; people will not accept, “Transportation needs, give us money,” but they may accept specific projects.

Mr. Burton closed by saying he was beginning this process but the council would need to finish it since he’d be out of office before it concluded, that the decisions would be theirs. If approved, he said, Richard Brandman, Deputy Planning Director, and his staff would draft the Request for Proposal (RFP) should the council decide to move forward with this proposal for the staffing.

2.  CITIZEN COMMUNICATIONS ON NON-AGENDA ITEMS. None.

3.  RELATED COMMITTEE UPDATES. There were no committee updates.

4.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE APRIL 4, 2002, TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE MEETING.

5.  RESOLUTION NO. 02-3183 – For the Purpose of Revising Regional Transportation Management Association (TMA) Policy to Provide Additional Regional Funding Options for TMAs.

Mr. Andy Cotugno briefly reviewed the legislation from the material in the agenda packet since this item had been reviewed by this committee at their April 4^th meeting, and was recommended for adoption by the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation (JPACT). Mr. Cotugno asked for this committee’s approval to pass this resolution on for Council adoption.

Chair Burkholder mentioned the recent report received from the Lloyd Center TMA and their success, his point being that the minimum investment in TMAs was very worthwhile and he would like to see more dollars invested in them. This resolution would be heard by the Metro Council at their meeting in Gresham on May 2^nd, he added, and Gresham wanted to discuss TMAs.

Councilor Atherton said he had been studying the transit service as well as the possibility of a TMA in Lake Oswego. There was need and there was opportunity, but it needed to be worked out, he said.

7.  TRANSIT INVESTMENT PLAN. There was no briefing on this item.

8.  TRAILS AND TRANSPORTATION – STATUS OF DESIGNATIONS. Chair Burkholder talked about the trails plan and the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), and how their priorities meshed. He referenced them both regarding MTIP funding, and their coordination. Mr. Bill Barber, Senior Transportation Planner, Planning Department, said the coordination was good. Ms. Heather Nelson Kent, Planning and Education Manager, Regional Parks and Greenspaces Department, agreed that coordination with the Planning Department had improved greatly and she gave some of the credit for that to the GreenStreets program, developing transportation systems more sensitively, and being more aware of the points of intersection between the two. As she spoke, Mr. Barber distributed a copy of the 2002 Bike There! map and Planning for bicycles, Implementing the regional transportation plan, 2001 (included as a part of this record). During the review of the RTP prior to its adoption, the Parks Department did review the document, she said, and were able to provide comments that were incorporated, including new transportation facilities trying to mitigate impacts to the parks and greenspaces system and natural areas generally. The updated Regional Trails Plan would become a component of the RTP once it was updated by the Council, through an amendment process. The next step would be to bring the trails projects that qualify as transportation facilities into the discussion of funding priorities for the region. That was not one of the components used for the analysis of the preferred or financially constrained system, but was a goal of the Parks Department, she added. Congressman Blumenauer's office also held the trails system as a high priority, she said, and Metro's transportation staff worked closely with them.

Mr. Barber spoke about the MTIP funding solicitation process, the consistency of the design guidelines, the GreenStreets master plan, and the Trails master plan being broader than the RTP. By focusing on a seamless network of bicycle lanes on streets, on multi-use paths, and on-street bikeways such as bicycle boulevards where cars and bikes share the road, he said, the strong feeling was that all of these were needed in order to have a bikeway system. Other points Mr. Barber covered were increasing bike ridership and trip-end facilities to help encourage biking, bikes on transit, and bicycle safety and education. Staff would continue to focus on gaps in the system and coordinating with regional centers, as well as "connecting the dots" on existing paths and trails. Regarding future MTIP applications, Mr. Barber said staff had been and would continue to work with Congressman Blumenauer’s staff in putting together a draft “15 trails in 15 years” plan, and were looking at the next few rounds of federal authorization and how they could work on completing the bikeway system over two or perhaps three of those authorization processes. Mr. Barber explained the "15 trails in 15 years" concept in more detail.

Chair Burkholder said he’d like to see some time and support put into this, to get it going and to make it happen in a coordinated fashion with the involved jurisdictions, despite their varying levels.

Ms. Nelson Kent added that another obstacle in completing trail corridors was landowners who would not sell, that no one liked to grapple with that, but it was a reality. Mr. Barber said that was true on the on-street bikeway system, as well, and there were some serious gaps in it which would be very difficult to fill. Additional discussion took place on bike safety and, again, the federal funding allocations.

9.  COUNCILOR COMMUNICATIONS. None.

There being no further business before the committee, the meeting was adjourned at 11:07 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Rooney Barker

Council Assistant

ATTACHMENTS TO THE PUBLIC RECORD FOR THE MEETING OF APRIL 18, 2002

The following have been included as part of the official public record:

TESTIMONY CARDS. None.