MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

TRANSPORTATION PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING

Tuesday, June 8, 1999

Council Chamber

CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL

Chair Kvistad called the meeting to order at 3:33 PM and noted that Councilor Bragdon was away on Metro business.

1.  CONSIDERATION OF MINUTES OF THE APRIL 6 AND MAY 4, 1999 JOINT JPACT/METRO COUNCIL TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE PUBLIC HEARINGS AND THE MARCH 16, APRIL 20, AND MAY 18, 1999 TRANSPORTATION PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETINGS

3.  AMENDMENT TO PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE TO MOVE COLUMBIA EXTENSION (INTERSTATE MAX) LIGHTRAIL ALIGNMENT

Richard Brandman, Assistant Transportation Director, noted that there had been four listening posts since the defeat of the South/North Lightrail vote. He said they were hearing a strong message to continue the multimodal emphasis for the region. More specifically, the people were saying they wanted to pursue a rail project to the north, but not to the south. He commented that at the same time as the listening posts, an independent movement led by Dick Reiten, CEO of Northwest Natural, to ask Tri-Met if they could develop a significantly less expensive project with fewer impacts and displacements than the old alignment adopted last July. He reported Mr. Reiten had come to JPACT in April to ask for authorization for Metro and Tri-Met to do further analysis in this corridor as well as in the south corridor for an alternative transportation study that would not include lightrail. He distributed a supplemental draft environmental impact statement they had developed in response to the request for further information. (See copy of the “South/North Corridor Project” supplemental draft impact statement in the permanent record of this meeting.) He said they were now in a public comment period and had received comments in a variety of ways including e-mail, voice mail and public hearings. A citizens advisory committee had been meeting weekly about the new alignment’s impacts and benefits. He said people were generally supportive. The primary issue related to the new alignment was traffic and the reduction of Interstate Avenue from 4 lanes to 2. He said the good news was that even with the lane reduction, the feel of the street would be similar, or even be enhanced.

Neil McFarlane, Executive Director, Capital Projects and Facilities Division, Tri-Met, commented that the Association of Businesses had contracted Davis and Hibbets who did a very large sampling of people focusing on the neighborhood around the alignment. They found regionwide that 63% of the registered voters supported the project but within the neighborhood of the alignment the support rose to 65%. He said the support by county was fairly consistent with the exception of Clackamas County where there was only about 58% support for the project. He said they were encouraged by that. The comments from the public hearing were mostly in favor. He noted there were a number of challenges and design issues if the project were to go forward. The traffic issue was a fundamental one. He showed an artist’s rendering of the Interstate MAX alignment. He said they were going to have another public hearing and were expecting that one to be positive also. He called attention to the Interstate MAX Project Timeline Summary/Community Relations Update. (A copy of this document can be found with the permanent record of this meeting.) He noted that a major neighborhood issue was knowing how different the bus service would be with the MAX. He commented on the timelines and said the final design and construction would begin in March 2000, with completion in September 2004. They believed the schedule was fairly leisurely and hoped to trim some time off of it. He said he and Mr. Brandman had met with Federal Transit Administration staff from Washington DC over the last couple of weeks to review the project as revised. They were very well informed, knew the project and were very impressed by it. They said positive things about the chances of securing federal funding for the project.

Councilor Atherton asked for clarification of previous testimony from a BP station owner.

Chair Kvistad recalled that the business was located on a major intersection and the owner was afraid the construction would significantly and negatively affect his business because of that location. Chair Kvistad said nobody at this time really knew if that was true.

Councilor Atherton asked if there was a process to provide compensation during the 3 year construction period for such owners so they would not lose their businesses.

Chair Kvistad said there was not.

Mr. McFarlane noted that they did undertake programs to minimize the problem and help advertise businesses in the construction zones to compensate for reduced access during construction.

Councilor Atherton asked what kind of zoning changes were being planned for the impact area within half-mile of the lightrail.

Mr. Brandman said the city had already undertaken re-designation of the area between Going and Lombard, the entire area from I-5 to Interstate would be up-zoned fairly significantly when Tri-Met signed their full funding grant agreement with the Federal Transit Authority. He said the plans for west of Interstate Avenue would be revisited if it became apparent that the project would proceed. He added that the Albina plan and the re-designation of the area was a very controversial and long process, but in the end, he thought everyone felt pretty good about it. He could not predict what would happen when the city took another look at the area.

Councilor Atherton noted he had attended a listening post in north Portland regarding this issue. He was shocked at the number of people who testified with regard to air quality and noise considerations. He wondered if having the high density between the lightrail and the freeway would create a containment zone for lower standards of environmental protection and livability. He was concerned because of the number of people who raised those questions at the hearing.

Mr. Brandman said that had been a concern throughout the course of the project regardless of the alignment. He said from the standpoint of this alignment, the citizens wanted to know what the alignment would do, not “for” north Portland residents, but “to” them. He thought a lot of those concerns had been addressed as the process moved forward. He noted the handout showing basic facts of the MAX line (A copy of “Benefits of the Interstate MAX Light Rail Project Downtown Portland to the Expo Center” can be found in the permanent record of this meeting). He noted from the handout that there would be about 14,000 trips per day on the lightrail line by the year 2015. He said that was a conservative estimate, figured that way on purpose because of a long-standing concern by the Federal Transit Authority that some properties were overestimating ridership to get contracts for projects that didn’t meet expectations in the end. He said there was nothing they could do about the freeway that divided the community and reduced the air quality but they were trying to mitigate that by reducing the number of cars on the roads by this lightrail. He noted this project was attractive to new transit ridership because it connected activity centers throughout the region, i.e., the Expo Center, the Convention Center, downtown, the west side, the Rose Garden, and Kaiser in the north, as well as residences.

Councilor Monroe said he had also attended the public hearing in north Portland in November, but got a different reaction from the same testimony. He heard people saying that when the freeway was congested, it put a lot of pollutants into the air. They said the asthma rate along the I-5 corridor was much higher than in other parts of the region, and air quality was a serious health concern. Because of that they wanted lightrail as a way to mitigate air quality problems. He firmly believed that when the lightrail line went to Expo, it would not be long before it went all the way into Vancouver which would take some of the traffic pressure off of I-5, resulting in a lot less pollution to the neighborhood.

Councilor Atherton agreed that reducing automobile and truck traffic was entirely appropriate. He was trying to ascertain the land use changes being contemplated, and understand if a roadway noise and air quality standard could it be met. He said it did bisect the community and create adverse impacts. He wondered if the housing density was necessary to justify the project. He felt they might have to rethink some of their assumptions

Andy Cotugno, Transportation Director, said ridership tests had not triggered the comprehensive plan amendment the city had adopted, so the ridership forecast was predicated on existing development patterns. That was why Mr. Brandman thought the ridership figure was conservative.

Councilor Atherton said people also wondered why this cost so much when in other parts of the country it was cheaper. He asked about using the Interstate route for a bus only lane.

Mr. McFarlane said the cost of the project was substantially less than alternatives they were looking at a few months ago. In fact this alignment was cheaper than the previous LPS. He said they had built alignments for as little as $25 million a mile, the airport for instance, but that example had the right-of-way already with relatively little work. The Interstate MAX alignment contemplated the full rebuild of the street for its full length to create a good environment for the residents.

As to the bus lanes, he said he could not give precise numbers, but some of the basic right-of-way costs would be the same, and you would have to buy more buses more often to run them more frequently for the same throughput. That would have much greater impact on the capacity of the through streets along Interstate. One of the biggest concerns of the neighborhood was traffic capacity and keeping Lombard, Going and Killingsworth as through streets. He added that there was noise and pollution associated with diesel engines.

Councilor Monroe added that labor costs would be much higher because there had to be a driver for every bus.

Councilor Atherton commented that this neighborhood first developed with trolleys and the density supported that lightrail 60-80 years ago. He asked how far people would have to walk to the stations.

Mr. Cotugno said a typical walking area for buses was a quarter mile, half a mile for lightrail.

Mr. Brandman said rail typically generated higher ridership because it was more reliable and easier to see where it went, as opposed to buses where people sometimes did not even know where the stops were, much less where the buses went.

Councilor Atherton asked about reliability in icestorms.

Mr. McFarlane said they still had problems at the ends of lines, but they were working on it. During the last couple of years they had developed some patterns that worked very well.

Councilor Atherton asked if the Vancouver alignment was set up to commit to a new bridge or to use a simple expansion of the existing bridge.

Mr. McFarlane said there they could use the existing bridge or build a separate lightrail bridge over the Columbia.

Chair Kvistad said there was also the possibility of a replacement bridge which would include both, although it would be a multi-million dollar endeavor.

Mr. Cotugno said the original DEIS work found that Clark County’s major concern had been whether this route was competitive route to get downtown quickly, or would it have lots of stops which would slow it down. He said this route as proposed had the same travel time from Kenton to the arena as the route previously picked that went by Emanuel Hospital.

Chair Kvistad said this would be an action item and needed to go to JPACT and then before Council. He said because of the timeline it would not go back to committee. He said staff would brief the committee members if needed.

4.  RESOLUTION NO. 99-2795, FOR THE PURPOSE OF AMENDING FY 00 UNIFIED WORK PROGRAM TO ADD THE SOUTH CORRIDOR TRANSIT OPTIONS STUDY AND AMENDING THE TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT PLAN (TIP) TO AUTHORIZE FY 99 SURFACE TRANSPORTATION PROGRAM (STP) FUNDS

Mr. Brandman said the citizens in this area reported they needed help to address their transportation problems but they were not interested in pursuing lightrail. They wanted to look at other options less expensive to construct, HOV or bus lanes, commuter rail, even river transit, as well as a general expansion of the transit system. He said in the last 2 months Tri-met had advanced a concept for a rapid bus for that corridor, and ODOT was in the middle of designing viaducts. When this concept of a busway or an HOV lane was developed, ODOT was asked to hold off on the redesign of the viaducts in the event their design might need to incorporate the HOV or bus lanes. He said ODOT had agreed and they were hoping Metro’s process would integrate well with theirs. He said this resolution would also amend the unified work program so they could apply for federal money to undertake the study. He said this study was not looking at I-205 although it could because the work plan had not been adopted. But, he said Clackamas County had not expressed an interest. He said there were some Tri-Met bus expansion plans for the I-205 corridor which could be independent of this study,

Ross Roberts, Manager of Lightrail Studies, Transportation Planning, explained his handout which he called a thumbnail version of the work plan. (A copy of “South Corridor Transportation Alternatives Study” can be found in the permanent record of this meeting.) He said it was important to keep in mind that even though the South/North lightrail vote did not pass, the problems were still very real. He said he would recap a few items that help put that in perspective.

Chair Kvistad advised him that the committee knew quite a lot about the subject already.

Mr. Roberts said the weightiest statistics were that in 2015 there would be about a 3-fold increase in miles of congested roadway and an 8-fold increase in the time people were stuck in traffic. He said there was a big travel demand problem and the purpose of this study was to address transportation alternatives for that problem. He said the plans would not include lightrail options. He said the study would address the diverse travel and transportation needs in 3 segments and the goal of the study was a comprehensive transportation strategy that integrated the segments into the corridor. The heart of the study was the corridor teams who focused specifically on alternatives in various segments. The technical resource team was made up of Metro, Tri-Met, and ODOT. The jurisdictions would address the problems of the various segments. A policy committee would be composed of elected officials or executive level staff to help resolve issues and guide policy for the project. Then there would be final recommendations from JPACT and decisions adopted by the Metro Council. He reviewed the list of alternatives from the handout. He said the outcome of the study would be an integrated corridor with strategies developed for each segment and tied together in a way that staged them for implementation and ways to identify funding plans. Metro Council adoption would occur no later than December 2000.

Councilor Atherton felt as part of the region not served by the intense investment in transportation, the people of Clackamas County would want to know what they were giving up for this.

Chair Kvistad responded that the issue was being expedited at the request of Clackamas County and JPACT.

Mr. Cotugno reminded the committee that last month they had finalized a year long MTIP allocation process and part of the final decision was to allocate money to Tri-Met so they could start doing bus service expansion immediately, and not wait for this study process to be completed. He said they had choices of how much to spend towards bus service expansion, with the clear recognition that their first priority on expanding services was in the McLaughlin corridor. They would start this September. Their second priority was up the Barbur corridor, and connecting to the corridor from either side. That would start in 2 years.

Chair Kvistad said that was his first priority, but he deferred to the needs of the Clackamas County partners.

Councilor Atherton said Chair Kvistad would be delighted when he found out what low cost and exciting ideas would be presented to him.

Chair Kvistad will carry the resolution to full Council.

5.  RESOLUTION NO. 99-2799, FOR THE PURPOSE OF AMENDING THE METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT PLAN (MTIP) TO PROGRAM THE PORTLAND REGIONAL JOB ACCESS PLAN

Mr. Cotugno said this resolution amended the TIP and was necessary for Tri-Met to get a grant they had applied for from the federal discretionary programs distributed on a national level though a competitive process. He said this region had applied for 2, one of which was coordinated by Tri-Met and covered the Tri-Met service district, collaborating with other service providers in the corridor. The second application covered the Wilsonville area and connected to points south. That area was not covered by Tri-Met because it was out of the district. He said the grant was part of the transportation element of the national Welfare to Work program. This action was necessary to allow the first year increment of funds. He said this was a one year commitment in anticipation of 5 years of funds although there was no guarantee of getting future funds.

Councilor Atherton asked about in-kind match funds.

Mr. Cotugno said there was a series of in-kind matches included, some were City of Portland money and some was Tri-Met’s own operating funds which would supplement this special funding. He said these programs tended to have the most flexible federal guidance on in-kind match and allowed volunteer time to be counted towards that match as well.

Councilor Atherton will carry the resolution to the full council.

7.  FUNDING

Mr. Cotugno gave an overview of financial ideas for pursuing both a north project and a south project. He said the north project was very specifically designed and was going through a very detailed environmental impact process. That project was ready to start preliminary engineering. In the south, on the other hand, they didn’t know what the project would be yet. He said there were plenty of good ideas and some had been examined. He felt the most important funding strategy was to get the most federal funds back into this region. He said the MTIP funds were going to come back on a formula basis and the funds would get allocated at council’s discretion. He mentioned there were discretionary funds for lightrail to the north and for bus improvements to the south that should be aggressively pursued. He said, as Mr. Brandman had indicated, the proposal for a north lightrail project was well received by the Federal Transit Administration and there was reasonable expectation they would be successful in securing those federal funds. He said that could represent as much as a 70-75% share of the project. He said the ability to get that funding was a significant opportunity and what was driving the timeframe Mr. McFarlane had passed around.

Councilor Atherton thought the match was 50/50.

Mr. Cotugno answered that they had been seeking 50/50 funding previously for the Town Center to Kenton project because it was a big project. On this project they were looking for closer to 70%.

Mr. Brandman said the project would be receiving almost 75% federal funding if you looked at that project by itself, but it didn’t play as well on the national level because they were looking for 50/50 projects. However, the feds would count all the transportation projects in the region toward the 50/50 funding amount.

Chair Kvistad said 80% funding would be a 50/50 technical match. He said the more money we received from the feds, the more money we would have in our own constrained funding pool to put back into other packages.

Mr. Cotugno said getting federal lightrail funding for the past several decades was a big deal for the region because we were successful in both the east and west side funding. That tended to obscure the fact that federal bus money was available for discretionary purposes as well. He said while lightrail funding was appropriate to pursue for the north, bus funding was appropriate for the south. Chair Kvistad’s principal applied here also, i.e., the more success we had in accessing the federal bus funds, the less it tapped our own funds and gave us flexibility to spread our funds in other directions.

Chair Kvistad said the bigger the pot grew over time, the more projects we would be able to help with. It would still be a regional fund but it could be prioritized.

Mr. Cotugno said the first funding objective was to get as much of the lightrail funding for the north and as much of the bus funding for the south corridors as possible because those would be new dollars for the region. He said if two corridors were funded with those two sources, the region would not be giving up anything, they would be adding money to the regional pot. The third piece of the equation was the STP funds. He said the amount allocated from that was predicated on already having set aside $55 million for the south/north corridor. He explained that the $55 million was a stream of money over a decade. He said local contributions were also a major source of funding, and Clackamas County was prepared to commit funds to the town center area. He said ODOT already had the viaduct replacements funded. It was not known if ODOT would be a source for funding other than the viaduct replacement.

Chair Kvistad said they had been asked by Clackamas County’s representative to JPACT not to do anything in terms of planning alternatives to south/north when that was being looked at. At their request, nothing that could look like a fallback was planned. He said now, having gone through that process, some alternatives were needed. Tri-Met had developed some and Metro was working on some. He said it was all in the same funding basket and there was still work to do.

Councilor Atherton said he had something in mind he wanted to talk about, but not yet. He said it was predicated on maintaining the maximum flexibility for future options to have a funding source for some new and exciting options that could come if they played their cards right.

Chair Kvistad said now that there was a tentative agreement with Clackamas County, the City of Portland, Metro and Tri-Met, it would be crafted and sent to JPACT next Thursday to be voted on, and then come back to be ratified at council. He said there were several different options, the alignment package, the financing plan arrangements, and the south bus work program.

2.  REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION PLAN (RTP) UPDATE

Mr. Cotugno noted the adoption timeline in the agenda packet. To put things in context, he reviewed that in 1996 the Council adopted the overall policy framework for the RTP. Since then, council had adopted the 2040 Growth Concept, the Regional Framework Plan, and the Urban Growth Management Functional Plan which had adopted directions that affected the RTP. He said they would be bringing forward some minor amendments to the RTP document. They had also already adopted a series of system maps which defined the functional intent of the street. He said added information was the projects that were needed. He said the maps identified various projects they felt were needed to implement the policy direction. These were the first comprehensive set of projects identified for this RTP update. He proposed a resolution process to release them for public comment now, and then they could come back in the fall as ordinances to adopt the complete RTP. He said they had attempted to better communicate what all the projects were, and had taken pains to show all the purposes by color coding. He shared a mock-up of the information they had developed, which they hoped would be more user-friendly to the public, that would come forward for resolution. He said this 2-step process was a result of work from JPACT/MPAC about 6 weeks ago. Financial information they had at this time was purely cost and revenue sources. They hoped to have the focus in July be whether these were the right projects to be put out, and have the focus in the fall be whether they could afford the projects.

Chair Kvistad said he wanted to save the bulk of this presentation for when Councilor Bragdon was present because it was important for him to also have the overview.

Mr. Cotugno said the agenda packet of today’s meeting contained a draft of each of the 7 informational newsletters they were working on. He distributed a packet of maps associated with the newsletters. (See 11” x 17” color map packet in the permanent record of this meeting.) He said there was time for modifications if needed.

Chair Kvistad commented on the good quality of the maps in the packets.

Tom Kloster, Transportation Department, noted that the back of the Adoption Timeline sheet had an 8 week calendar with the principal meeting dates for the committees they would be talking to. He emphasized that the tabloids would not be printed until after council resolution. He said the goal was to give the elected officials a chance to see them before they were published.

Chair Kvistad said when Councilor Bragdon returned they would have a more comprehensive presentation.

6.  COUNCILOR COMMUNICATION

Councilor Atherton described noise barriers he had seen in Japan. He said they were about 30 feet tall, curved at the top, with windows so you could see the scenery on the other side from time to time. He said the Japanese took the noise protection of people living close to the roads very seriously.

Chair Kvistad commented that pollutants were another big issue.

ADJOURN

There being no further business before the committee, Chair Kvistad adjourned the meeting at 5:12 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Cheryl Grant

Council Assistant

Attachments to the Permanent Record of the June 8, 1999

Transportation Planning Committee Meeting Minutes