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Bi-State Transportation Committee |
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Below is the meeting report for the Bi-State Transportation Committee meeting, held on Thursday, June 26, 2003, from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. at the Clark County Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin Street, Vancouver, Washington. An agenda for this meeting is also available.
The meeting of the Bi-State Transportation Committee was called to order by Vice Chair Rex Burkholder, at 7:30 a.m. at the Clark County Public Service Center 6th Floor Training Room, 1300 Franklin Street, Vancouver, Washington. Those in attendance follow:
Committee Members Rex Burkholder, Metro Councilor
Matt Garrett, ODOT, Interim Region 1 Manager
John Gillam, City of Portland Alternate
Lynne Griffith, C-TRAN Executive Director/CEO
Eric Holmes, City of Battle Ground, City Manager
Bill Kennemer, Clackamas County Commissioner, Alternate
Susie Lahsene, Port of Portland, Alternate
Larry Paulson, Port of Vancouver Executive Director
Don Wagner, WSDOT SW Region AdministratorStaff Dean Lookingbill, RTC
Mark Turpel, Metro
Diane Workman, RTCInterested Guests Ed Barnes, Washington State Transportation Commissioner
Kate Deane, ODOT
John Fratt, Port of Vancouver
Bob Hart, RTC
Jim Howell, Citizen
Aaron Isenhart, ODOT
Patrick, Lee, Clark County
Mary Legry, WSDOT
Dale Miller, C-TRAN
Rod Monroe, Metro Councilor, Alternate
Thayer Rorabaugh, City of Vancouver
Karen Schilling, Multnomah CountyRex Burkholder asked everyone in the room to introduce themselves.
Vice Chair Rex Burkholder asked for approval of the April 24, 2003 Meeting Report. The Meeting Report was approved as written.
Patrick Lee, Clark County Long Range Planning Manager, distributed copies of a memorandum to the Clark County Board of Commissioners on the Preferred Alternative Decision-Making Process for the Comprehensive Plan Review. Mr. Lee said the deadline for completion of the Review is December 2003. The Clark County Board of Commissioners and the County Planning Commission have held work sessions and public hearings to begin the final decision-making process for the comprehensive plan review. Once direction on the preferred alternative is received from the Board, staff will develop a map reflecting the direction and begin the process for developing a capital facilities plan that supports the preferred land use alternative. The Land Use, Transportation, and Capital Facilities Elements of the comprehensive plan will be revised and responses to comments on the Drat Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) prepared for inclusion in the Final EIS. These will be the subject of Planning Commission hearings in September and make formal recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners in October. Final action is anticipated before the end of 2003.
Mr. Lee said there were five alternatives that were addressed in the EIS. Mr. Lee had aerial display maps of the five alternatives. Alternative 1 is a projection of the existing Comp Plan policies. It assumes a higher growth rate than some of the other alternatives. Alternative 2 reflects the latest direction that they received by the Board in 2001. It assumes a 1.5% growth rate. Alternative 3 holds the urban growth boundary steady and assumes a 1.5% growth rate, and higher employment densities. Alternative 4 has two versions. Alternative 4a is what the Cities have submitted to the County as their preferences last year. It accommodates 1.5% growth rate but it bumps up the jobs creation totals. The County has recently received feed back from the EIS where the cities have adjusted their recommendation. This is shown in Alternative 4b. The basic distinction is that along the northern urban growth boundary where there is a lot of employment, instead of bringing it into the urban growth boundary, it is kept as urban reserve at this point. Alternative 5 focuses new employment creation along the I-5 corridor, fair grounds area, Ridgefield junction, and La Center junction area, referred to as the Discovery Corridor, and has a 70,000 job creation.
Mr. Lee referred to the handout stating it held many if the key factors that may determine what the preferred alternative may look like. He noted that something that may be worthy of presentation at a future meeting is the 2003 Focused Public Investment Plan Infrastructure Cost Report. This looked at 17 potential employment areas around Clark County what were relative to what job creation potentially would be, what estimated costs might be to bring them on line and show their status. Mr. Lee highlighted other significant milestones that have been completed in the Comp Plan Review Process and summarized the legal requirements.
The handout listed the decision factors/policy discussions that will be strong determinants of the preferred land use plan. Mr. Lee summarized those decision factors, which include:
- Fulfill legal requirements of seven and ten-year reviews.
- Validate or revise planning assumptions used to calculate urban land need.
- Prioritize economic development as the number 1 policy priority.
- Pursue a focused public investment strategy.
- Accommodate only a “fair-share” of the forecast population growth within the larger Vancouver/Portland metropolitan region.
- Realistically assess “affordable levels of service” for hard concurrency issues.
- Consider tax-base equity among taxing jurisdictions when allocating population and employment growth.
- Consider market forces when allocating population and employment growth to cities.
Mr. Lee said that in Washington State, when allocating population, they must choose between the range of population growth rate that the state Office of Financial Management (OFM) provides to them. At the low end is a growth rate of 1.36%, and at the high end the growth rate is 2.52%. The mid range that OFM suggests is the most probable is currently 1.95%. Since the direction in 2001, Metro’s forecast of population growth for Clark County was about 1.58%. The Growth Management laws allow for a market factor for unforeseen circumstances, and Mr. Lee highlighted what these percentages were for the different projections.
In conclusion, Mr. Lee said many tradeoffs cannot be determined until the preferred alternative is selected. A major question will be the role of mass transit. Location factors for potential employment and uses will certainly play in to driving the boundary, but perhaps more in to location of the boundary expansion.
Rod Monroe wanted to clarify what Mr. Lee said in that even though for the last couple decades Clark County has been taking far more than its “share” of housing for this area, that they want that to stop and are willing to take a proportionate share but not a greater share than is occurring in the tri-county area of Oregon. Mr. Lee said yes. It is a policy position that the Board adopted at this point. Mr. Monroe said that he also heard that jobs had grown slower than housing in Clark County over the last couple decades, and they would like to have at lease as many new jobs as new population in the next couple of decades so the percentage of people who work in Oregon does not increase. Mr. Lee said yes, that is a goal. Mr. Monroe said he hoped that those goals could be accomplished. He felt if these happened, and a transit network was in place, we could manage this whole region better.
Rex Burkholder referred to a handout distributed from Mark Turpel listing Job and Household Capture Rates – the amount of growth (jobs or households in this case) that have located or are assumed or projected to locate within selected areas of the Bi-State area (the Metro Urban Growth Boundary, Clark County, etc.) Mark Turpel said that Metro also has to make assumptions for its urban growth boundary decision. The memorandum lists five different time periods of five-years from 1980 to 2000 with the historic, projected, and assumed rates of future location of households (and also for jobs) as a percent of total 4 County area for Metro area and Clark County. He highlighted the capture rates and said the assumed rate for households for 2002-2022 is 68% and the assumed rate for jobs for 2002-2022 is 75%. The memorandum also showed graphs for both households and jobs with a base case projection (What if present land use trends continue?) and a Centers Projection (What if more growth is accommodated in mixed use centers?). It was noted that there are some differing assumptions from each side of the river.
Rex Burkholder welcomed Bill Kennemer, Clackamas County Commissioner, who is the new alternate for Oregon’s County representative. Also welcomed was ODOT’s new representative, Matt Garrett, Interim Region 1 Manager.
Kate Deane, ODOT, introduced Aaron Isenhart also with ODOT. Ms. Deane distributed copies of the Delta Park Widening Project Target Schedule, Purpose and Need, Goals and Objectives, Evaluation Factors, and Alternatives Screening Report. Ms. Deane referred to the project schedule. This spring they have worked with their two advisory committees, the Citizen Advisory Committee and the Environmental Justice Work Group, which is a bi-state group. Two public meetings have been held. Through that process they have developed and adopted a purpose and needs statement, developed and adopted evaluation factors, and developed and adopted alternatives for further study. They are currently in an analysis phase. Over the summer they will be working on the design elements of the alternatives, traffic, cost, and right of way analysis. In the fall they will look at the environmental impacts of the alternatives. January/February 2004 they will be writing the environmental assessment document. That will be distributed in May 2004 and a public hearing will be held. The environmental assessment is planned to be completed by fall of 2004.
The adopted Purpose and Need statement states that the purpose of the I-5 Delta Park to Lombard project is to relieve southbound congestion problems and to improve safety, operation, and efficiency of the existing highway in the project area. Ms. Deane also noted the importance of the Goals and Objectives of the project. She referred to the Alternatives Screening Report. These four screening criteria were used to identify a limited set of alternatives that should be studied further in the Environmental Assessment: 1) Does the proposed alternative meet the Purpose and Need of the project? 2) Is the proposed alternative consistent with the I-5 Partnership Strategic Plan recommendations? 3) Is the proposed alternative feasible to engineer? and 4) Does the proposed alternative allow consideration of a wide range of alternatives in the I-5 bridge influence area (Columbia Boulevard to SR 500) in the future? Nine alternatives were screened along with three study additions. Four were recommended for further study: The first alternative is the No Build – Transit/TDM Only. In the public outreach process, the public very consistently said they wanted to see what would happen if light rail was extended to Vancouver prior to having the Delta Park project done. They are working in the No Build alternative. They will be assuming that light rail will go to Clark County up to Clark College as it is in the Portland Metropolitan Regional Transportation Plan. In their Financially Constrained Plan, they call for that recognizing that the Clark County area Regional Transportation Plan does not call for that in their Financially Constrained Plan, but has it in their Strategic Plan. Ms. Deane said if when they get to the conclusion of this process and select a no build option, it does not mean that they are able to go out and begin to build light rail to Vancouver. What it means is that from a policy standpoint, attention would first need to be directed toward light rail and not to the highway. They will not be evaluating the environmental impacts of building light rail to Vancouver, but they will be analyzing the traffic impacts if they do or don’t build it first.
Ms. Deane distributed copies of aerial maps of the alternatives and they were also displayed as on-screen slides. The first alternative is called Partnership, because this is the alternative that was studied in the I-5 Partnership process. This widens I-5 southbound to 3 lanes with the possibility of HOV and re-constructs southbound on-ramp in existing configuration/alignment. The second alternative is called Go East. This widens I-5 to the east with the same elements as the “Partnership option.” The third alternative is called North to Schmeer. This widens I-5 to 3 lanes southbound, eliminates Columbia Boulevard interchange, and relocates access to and from I-5 via a bridge over the Columbia Slough to Whitaker Road and the Victory Boulevard interchange, and a possibility of HOV. All three alternatives have three common factors, 1) in the southbound direction a third lane is added, 2) all widen the shoulder area in the northbound direction, and 3) all have reconfiguration in the Columbia Blvd. and Delta Park on and off ramps.
Aaron Isenhart explained the lane configuration on the slide of each of the alternatives. Rod Monroe said he could not see the benefit of option two and asked why it was being studied since it was more costly and had several technical problems. Kate Deane said this was a discussion of the Citizen Group, and said that they had recommended to the Group that option two not be pursued. The Citizen Group felt that there needed to be a comparison for the east to the west options to prove to people through an analysis and show them the differences between the two. This would allow them to show the reasons for the choice of the alternative. Ms. Deane said that they have heard requests from the trucking community to have Columbia Boulevard be a full interchange. For the neighborhoods in the area, the controlling factor is to get the trucks out of their neighborhood. The trucks use the neighborhoods because Columbia Boulevard is not currently a full interchange; you cannot get on going all directions from the interchange, and consequently, trucks go through the neighborhoods to get to the other interchanges of Victory and Lombard. Alternative three (North to Schmeer) is a broad look to consolidate, ultimately. It would close both the Victory and Columbia Blvd. interchanges and make a new interchange at Schmeer in a phased approach. This would provide full directional access from Columbia Boulevard, not at Columbia Blvd. but in the near vicinity. This would allow for less interchanges on the freeway, which is better for traffic flow, and also take the trucks out of the neighborhoods.
Kate Deane said alternatives will be analyzed this summer. She said that today’s presentation is a check in point for the Committee. They are looking for feedback on the proposed alternatives and ideas concerns to take in to consideration. Another presentation will be presented to the Bi-State Transportation Committee in October/November for updates.
Rex Burkholder said the Land Use Accord Steering Committee has met and staff has interviewed all the consultants. They will share their evaluations with the Steering Committee on Monday, June 30, 2003, at noon at Metro. The Steering Committee will select a consultant to begin the Land Use Accord Intergovernmental Agreement process for the Bi-State Coordination Committee. The Coordination Committee will review land use and transportation decisions.
Rex Burkholder said the Metro Council took action the previous week to adopt Metro’s Transportation Priorities for 2004-07. Mr. Burkholder distributed handouts of Transportation Priorities 2004-07 100% Cut List Development Narrowing Policy Direction from JPACT and Metro Council. The approved policy direction to narrow the Transportation Priorities First Cut List to a 100% Cut List was as follows:
- Honor Prior commitments
- Metro Planning Funded
- Land Use and Economic Development Direction:
- Invest in all types of 2040 mixed-use and industrial lands
- Emphasize non-road/bridge projects to maximize development and multi-modal objectives in mixed-use areas.
- Screen all projects and programs on their relationship to the implementation of mixed-use and/or industrial area plans and development (2040 technical score, qualitative issues/public comments.)
Three projects in particular include: 1) TDM in the I-5 Corridor at $112,000, which, was half of the request. They will be looking for a local match of $26,000 and then come back to this committee and ask for a commitment from Clark County, C-TRAN, or WSDOT for a similar match to fully fund that program; 2) Interstate Avenue TravelSmart a TDM project that has been piloted in SW Portland with a personalized marketing and a direct connection with the people that live in the area to help them with travel decisions; and 3) Regional Freight Data Collection.
There was no public comment.
Larry Paulson, Port of Vancouver Executive Director, said he had the opportunity to testify before Metro on their Metropolitan Transportation Improvement Program Process and thanked them for that. He said in the last couple days, the states of Oregon and Washington issued water quality and Costal Zone Management Act compliance permits to the U.S. army Corps of Engineers for the Columbia River Channel Deepening project. The project deepens the Columbia River three feet. The ports of Kalama, Longview, Woodland, St. Helens, Portland, and Vancouver, the sponsor ports of the Columbia River Channel Coalition thanked the states of Oregon and Washington and their citizens for their hard work on permit approvals. They are very pleased, and have more challenges to face, but this is a step forward. A copy of the press release was distributed.
Dean Lookingbill said that at the next meeting in September, agenda items to be discussed may include the TDM activity, the Land Use Accord and Steering Committee Update, and discussion of the Rail Committee as proposed by the I-5 Partnership Committee.
The meeting was adjourned at 9 a.m.
Dean Lookingbill
Transportation Director, RTC
360-397-6067Andy Cotugno
Transportation Director, Metro
503-797-1763
       
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