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Bi-State Coordination Committee |
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Below is the meeting report for the Bi-State Coordination Committee meeting, held on Thursday, March 31, 2005, from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. at the Clark County Elections/Auto Licensing Building, 1408 Franklin Street, Vancouver, Washington. An agenda for this meeting is also available.
The meeting of the Bi-State Coordination Committee was called to order by Chair Rex Burkholder, at 7:30 a.m. at the Clark County Elections Building North Conference Room 226, 1408 Franklin Street, Vancouver, Washington. Those in attendance follow:
Committee Members Rex Burkholder, Metro Councilor
Lynne Griffith, C-TRAN Executive Director/CEO
Fred Hansen, TriMet General Manager
Eric Holmes, City of Battle Ground City Manager
Addison Jacobs, Port of Vancouver Alternate
Robin McArthur, ODOT Alternate
Royce Pollard, City of Vancouver Mayor
Dave Shields, City of Gresham Councilor
Don Wagner, WSDOT SW Regional Administrator
Bill Wyatt, Port of Portland Executive DirectorStaff Andy Cotugno, Metro
Dean Lookingbill, RTC
Mark Turpel, Metro
Diane Workman, RTCInterested Guests Mike Baker, David Evans and Associates, Inc.
Kurt J. Baser, Bechtel Infrastructure Corp.
Katy Brooks, JD White Company
Bob Byrd, Identity Clark county
Kate Deane, ODOT
Mark Garrity, WSDOT
John Gillam, City of Portland
Chuck Green, Parsons Brinckerhoff
Chad Hancock, WSDOT
Mark Harrington, RTC
Bob Hart, RTC
Bill Hidden, Citizen
Jim Howell, AORTA
Susie Lahsene, Port of Portland Alternate
Kelly Love, Congressman Brian Baird’s Office
Ginger Metcalf, Identity Clark County
Tom Miller, City of Portland
Bill Myers, The Reflector
Philip A. Parker, Labor Round Table
Ed Pickering, C-TRAN
Thayer Rorabaugh, City of Vancouver
Karen Schilling, Multnomah County
Bill Stewart, The Oregonian
John White, JD White Company
Dennis Yee, Metro
David Zagel, TriMetChair Burkholder welcomed everyone and introduced new member Dave Shields, City of Gresham Councilor.
THE DECEMBER 2, 2004, MEETING REPORT WAS APPROVED AS WRITTEN.
Rex Burkholder said that listed in the Committee’s Charter is the task of producing an annual report. Copies of the 2004 Annual Report were included in the meeting packets. Mark Turpel provided a PowerPoint presentation of the history of bi-state coordination along with activities of the Bi-State Coordination Committee. Mr. Burkholder said the presentation is available for presentation to individual member jurisdictions.
Mr. Turpel said that despite the Columbia River, state boundaries, and differing state laws, Southwest Washington and Northwest Oregon share: one economy, one air shed, one international airport, shared marine port facilities, one radio and television market, common history – Lewis and Clark, Oregon territory, one Bonneville electrical power system, and cultural attractions on both sides of the river. The bi-state region has long history of coordination. The Columbia River Association of Governments, a voluntary council of governments, included representatives from both sides of the river beginning in the late 1960s. The Interstate Bridge Corridor Project was done in 1976 with representatives from both sides of the river. In 1999, the Southwest Washington Regional Transportation council (RTC) and Metro created the Bi-State Transportation Committee to address transportation issues that affect the region. Mr. Turpel highlighted examples of issues of bi-state significance for transportation cited in 1999.
Bi-State Transportation committee members, along with business, neighborhood, and environmental representatives provided the local review body for the I-5 Transportation and Trade Partnership. Concurrent to the I-5 Transportation and Trade Partnership work, the Bi-State Transportation committee continued to foster discussion and coordination of other bi-state transportation issues such as freight issues and marine shipping. In 2002, the I-5 Transportation and Trade Partnership Strategic Plan called for the Bi-State Transportation Committee to expand its role to review and advise JPACT, RTC, other councils, commissions, and boards on management plans, interchange plans, and agreements, and transit station plans for the I-5 corridor, and other transportation, land use, and economic development issues of bi-state significance.
Accordingly, in 2004, a Bi-State Coordination Charter was approved by all member organizations during late 2003 and early 2004, and the Bi-State Coordination Committee was created. The charter includes: a wider ranging forum for discussion of bi-state issues; a focus on transportation and land use of bi-state significance; recognition that economic development, environmental and environmental justice issues that are related to bi-state transportation and land use issues could also be addressed; an agreement that jurisdictions would create their own strategies and plans that contribute to managing land uses and economic development to protect transportation investments throughout the corridor. The Bi-State Coordination Committee recognized that while the scope of the committee should be expanded, that there were also important limitations. The focus area would be on I-5 and I-205 from I-405 north to 179th Street in Clark County. The focus would be on policies and not address quasi-judicial applications. The Coordination Committee is a recommending body only with no regulatory authority.
Mr. Turpel highlighted the Bi-State committee’s accomplishments for 2004 including:
- Transitioned to the Bi-State Coordination Committee.
- Approved Bi-State Coordination Committee Bylaws.
- Coordinated Bi-State review of the I-5/Delta Park Lombard Project.
- Reviewed, discussed, and made recommendations concerning:
- Federal funding reauthorization
- I-5 Columbia River Crossing
- WSDOT Congestion Relief Project
- Freight rail update and ORULE coordination
- C-TRAN 20-Year Strategic Plan
- Cascade Station comprehensive Plan Amendment
Mr. Turpel listed some upcoming Bi-State Coordination Committee issues that could be for discussion including:
- I-5 Columbia River Crossing Project
- Freight Rail Forum
- TDM Forum
- Coordination of Population and Job Forecast Updates
- Protection of Transportation Investments
- Environmental Justice Mitigation Measures
- Other Issues of Bi-State Transportation or Land Use Significance
Chair Burkholder said the materials presented were available for committee members to present to their individual boards and committees by contacting Mark Turpel at Metro or Dean Lookingbill at RTC.
Rex Burkholder referred to a handout with a tentative schedule and suggested work plan for 2005. He said that in discussions with Royce Pollard, they would like to make sure that this committee is useful to everyone. A big issue is the Columbia River Crossing and what is being done with the two DOTs. The new Columbia River Crossing Task Force has been appointed and included the Bi-State Committee. He said the thought is to coordinate the Bi-State meetings so that they occur just prior to the Task Force meetings. Mr. Burkholder said two duties that were delegated to the Bi-State Committee that have not had discussion are a Rail Forum and the issue of environmental justice. He suggested those be discussed at the April 21 meeting and asked for discussion.
Rex Burkholder said the Port has a special interest in the rail issue and asked Bill Wyatt, Port of Portland Executive Director, to express some of the Port’s concerns. Mr. Wyatt said he thought it was a very good idea and said the ports of Portland and Vancouver work closely together in their approach to the freight rail issues. He said in the last year, there has been a significant increase in the intermodal freight activity from southern California to the Puget Sound and Vancouver, British Columbia areas. He said this has had an extraordinary impact on the rail system. He said most of this is related to the increase in the velocity of imports to this country, all the China based trade. The system is just not responding very well. The freight rail community tends to describe success in terms of velocity, how quickly is the system moving. As it slows down, there are fewer cars available to carry containers. As there are fewer cars, more are manufactured. As more are manufactured, more go out on the system, which causes everything to further and further slow down. He said today, they are spiraling down. The freight rail system is not able to respond adequately. He said for a long time in this region, the assumption was that the major freight rail problem in this region was the Burlington Northern Bridge across the Columbia. He said that has its own challenges, but there are lots of other improvements to be made to the system, some small, that would have a significant impact on approving congestion here. He said we are as dependent on what happens in the Puget Sound as we are in our own region. Many of those trains come through Portland. This is the western terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad. It requires a broader effort. There are now conversations beginning with the interests of rail in the Puget Sound. He said it is a good topic for discussion of the Bi-State Committee, and said the Port would be happy to help organize that.
Addison Jacobs, Port of Vancouver, said as she drove in this morning, the Vancouver Yard had two or three trains lined up with one that was double stacked with containers. She said there is a real clog on the Vancouver side as well. They are seeing the impact of the incoming China trade in the Puget Sound and it is coming south a great deal because of the capacity issues on Stevens and Stampede Pass. It is a very real issue, and it is a very real issue for the Port of Vancouver that has one access and egress onto that system at the point it Ys and goes south.
Fred Hansen said that in terms of always thinking of the Burlington Northern Bridge as being the choke point, but that Mr. Wyatt had said there were a lot of other things that would make a difference. He asked what some of those other fixes would be. Mr. Wyatt said that a challenge for the Port of Vancouver is the single point of access. These are challenging and expensive problems to resolve. Creating a rail right of way is preferably straight, and that is a challenge. There is not a lot of acreage of undeveloped available land awaiting rail. Mr. Wyatt said the Port of Portland has identified a list of ten projects that would significantly increase the velocity. He said coming down I-84 towards the Willamette, trains are unable to turn left. It would make a huge difference, because they all end up having to go right into the Albina Yard, which is very congested. Creating a left turn there is about a $12 million item. There is a point in Rivergate, which is really the major junction for the two railroads, to increase their speed as they go around the corner by just 10 miles an hour would make a huge difference. This is a $20 to $25 million item. They have an earmark in the House Transportation measure for the Ramsey Rail Yard, which will be huge. Today, there are many enormous trains coming into the Rivergate complex that are 120-car length trains. They are so long that they create their own congestion because they are covering up points along the way that impede velocity. The Ramsey Yard would allow them to essentially store full-length trains off of the main line. This would significantly increase capacity. There are another five or six that are like that. They are building a new lead into Terminal Six. The Union Pacific has very limited access into Terminal Six. They are building a lead that will give them 24-hour access into Terminal Six, which is very important. The huge trains block the access in front of Columbia Sportswear for large parts of the day. This causes pressure to move the train, and as they move the train, they create other problems. Mr. Wyatt said there are a whole series of those kinds of problems. He said on the Washington side, the big thing is creating another point of access for the mainline for the Port facilities, because they run into the same kinds of problems. The bridge is a challenge, and can be a choke point, but it is not the first and most immediate problem.
Rex Burkholder said the plan on this issue is to have a further discussion on this but also some discussion about things that are going on around the rest of the country. Mr. Burkholder said that a representative has been around with a new group called Go-21. This group is looking to build political support for getting the federal government to invest more in our rail system. The representative is based in Oakland, but interested in the work that our region is doing to coordinate transportation. Mr. Burkholder said they would try to get him to come and discuss what they are doing in their area.
Mr. Burkholder said in regard to the environmental justice discussion, the I-5 Delta Park project has done some work and it would be good to have a review of what is going on there.
Royce Pollard suggested that this group be briefed on the impacts of the possible casino just north of Vancouver on I-5, because of the impact on I-5. It may be helpful to hear an overview of what is taking place. Mr. Lookingbill suggested the September time line for this topic.
Fred Hansen said that his staff accuses him of having no fact too small for his interest, so he likes to be briefed on most anything. However, he suggested that it would valuable to do two things when we talk about the agenda. First, to be clear about who else is involved in the issue, and what role institutionally we play. Second, what the outcomes we really want that we can influence. Is it really to get it focused and framed to hand it off to someone else, or are we going to be a decision making group? It needs to be clear in order to help us decide where we want to spend our limited time. Rex Burkholder said that topic alone needs to be discussed and determined.
Andy Cotugno asked committee members to think about issues that they are dealing with in their own organization that might have some relevance to a bi-state audience. He said staff does not know what is going on in each organization. Items such as C-TRAN’s service cuts. Mr. Burkholder said the change in C-TRAN’s service area is an issue that could be of concern to share with the Committee. Mr. Burkholder said he was waiting for the Measure 37 request for rezoning the Portland Meadows, which can have a huge impact. This could overturn the ideas that they are trying to use to control the traffic and protect the capacity on the roads.
Chair Burkholder said this agenda item is two parts. One being the review of the HOV Pilot Project Evaluation, and secondly, the discussion of what is being done on the south side of the river. Dean Lookingbill introduced Chad Hancock, WSDOT, to present the overview of the HOV Pilot Project. Kate Deane, ODOT, would present the Delta Park Project.
Mr. Lookingbill said today’s discussion is to brief the Committee on the performance of the I-5 HOV Lane and second to discuss and to present a staff recommended action on extending the HOV lane into Oregon based on the traffic evaluations of the Delta Park/Lombard EA. In April 2000, the Bi-State Committee passes a resolution identifying key recommendations including 1) pursue an HOV lane in Vancouver, 2) because of safety and operational concerns, an HOV lane should not be pursued across the existing Interstate Bridge at this time, and 3) a southbound HOV lane in Oregon south of the Bridge to the vicinity of Lombard should be pursued as a part of the design for the Delta park project.
The I-5 HOV pilot lane was opened in October of 2001. Prior to the opening of the HOV lane, RTC conducted a series of analysis and HOV policy decisions including a Clark county Regional HOV System Study in 1998 and an I-5 HOV Operational Study in April of 2000. Once those recommendations came from the Bi-State Committee, RTC and JPACT supported the HOV lane, and the southbound HOV lane opened in conjunction with the completion of the I-5 widening project. Copies of the full Vancouver HOV Lane Pilot Project Evaluation Report #6 were distributed to members.
Chad Hancock said the HOV evaluation team recently completed evaluation #6 for the southbound I-5 HOV pilot project. Mr. Hancock said the first five evaluations as well as the base line are available on RTC’s Web site. The project begins at 99th Street on I-5 and is south to Mill Plain Blvd. for a length of 4.3 miles. Mr. Hancock provided a PowerPoint presentation with the information. He said that now that they have six reports completed, they have data points they can use to show trends to indicate the performance of the lane. For each goal, Mr. Hancock provided a trend line chart. Goal 1 is to move more people in the HOV lane than in either of the adjacent general-purpose lanes. The trend shows an increase for a two-hour period and also an increase in the peak hour. Goal 1 was met for the first time in evaluation #6. Goal 2 is to reduce peak period travel time for HOV lane users and reduce the average per-person travel time for all users. The 2-hour travel time for the HOV lane remained relatively stable throughout the project. This half of Goal 2 has been met. The travel time for the general-purpose lane users shows an increase in travel time. This Goal was met for the first four evaluations, but not met for the last two. Goal 3 is to minimize the impacts to other facilities in the corridor. They looked at I-5, I-205, as well as the parallel routes and figured percentages. They all remained relatively stable throughout the life of the project, indicating that goal 3 is being met. Goal 4 is to increase the use of carpool, vanpools, and transit. The trend shows that goal has been met throughout the evaluation. The purpose of Goal 5 is to maintain safety in the corridor by not increasing the accident rate. The information used comes directly from the Washington State Patrol, and the WSDOT response vehicle. The data is split in two categories, on-roadway incidents and off-roadway incidents. The data shows a decrease in the on-roadway incidents. The off-roadway incidents show a slight increase. When the two data pieces are combined, it actually shows a decrease in total incidents in the corridor between 6 and 8 a.m. Goal 6 is to maintain the HOV lane’s effectiveness with appropriate enforcement. The violation rates remained relatively stable throughout the project. The last two evaluations showed an increase, but it is still at or below the national average indicating the goal is being met. Fred Hansen said in a previous chart it showed the increase of the usage, and asked if that was tied to the violation rate. Mr. Hancock that was most likely. Goal 7 is to maintain or improve travel time reliability for carpools, vanpools, and transit. Mr. Hancock said the bus drivers measured the actual times from when they left the 134th Street park and ride to the Interstate Bridge. Over time, the travel times have decreased for shared rides between 6 and 8 a.m. Travel time between the peak hour period also shows a decrease, so Goal 7 is being met. Goal 8 is to maintain or improve public opinion as to the effectiveness of the HOV lane. There has not been a recent public opinion data. The last collection was September 2002. The last two opinion surveys (March 2002 and September 2002) the goal had been met. Between January 2003 and January 2005, there were 25 citizen comments either by e-mail or phone. These were negative or questions surrounding the future of the HOV lane in light of C-TRAN cuts.
Fred Hansen said the work done by the original Bi-State group; they saw that the elasticity of the use of I-205 was controlled much by what the capacity was in the I-5. He said in Goal 2 or 3 talked about maintaining the general-purpose lanes. He asked how they took into account, if the HOV lane was really improving on the general purpose lane performance, the previous information would have said people would be pulled over and kept it at a steady level rather see an improvement in the general purpose lane just by pulling people off I-205. He asked how that was accounted for. Mr. Hancock said the percentages have remained relatively the same. They have seen a general increase in traffic, but the increase is spread over all the facilities. So there is not a big shift from I-5 to I-205. Mr. Hansen said his concern is the ability to be able to criticize the HOV lane because it really is making it worse on the general-purpose lanes. If in fact, over all the system is working better but people are not feeling that in the general purpose lanes because of the migration from I-205 to I-5 you would tend to say the data are not going to show anything significant. He asked if that be taken into account in the analysis. Andy Cotugno said he thought this was saying the opposite. That in the two last recording periods, the travel times in the general-purpose lanes have gone dramatically slower and as a result the share of usage on the I-5 bridge has dropped and on I-205 it increased, so the slower travel times has pushed more vehicles on to I-205. Chad Hancock said the shift has only been a few percentage points, not very significant. Rex Burkholder said the data showed the number of vehicles, and asked if there was also data on the number of persons. Mr. Hancock said they have also seen the number of people per vehicle increase.
Don Wagner cautioned folks as they look at the data. He said to keep in mind that shortly after the HOV lane was opened, the 911 events took place. That dramatically affected all traffic and all travel modes including the I-5 and I-205. He said they saw the number of vehicles go down substantially during that first year. Some of the numbers of vehicles it appears from national trends that some of that first decrease that we saw in the data, was one month after the event and now a steady of increase in the number of vehicles. Mr. Wagner said that is all over, not just this corridor. Mr. Wagner clarified that the ridership numbers are for the I-5 corridor. They do not have that same type of information for the I-205 corridor.
Dave Shields asked if economic impact in terms of economic stability of growth of the area plus cost of vehicle maintenance, fuel cost, he asked if all of that is calculated as a variable impact. He said something is happening to shift to more HOV use.
Don Wagner said they know there are a lot of dependent and interdependent variables in the study. He said they are not trying to determine how they all relate. He said they are just reporting data, that for whatever reason, the actual count is showing these types of trends. He said it is up to the Bi-State Committee, the RTC, and JPACT and ultimately the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration to try and bring it all together to answer the goal questions. He said he believes the economy is having an affect in the last reporting periods. He said the economy of our region is improving, and we tend to see that in the amount of people going to jobs.
Rex Burkholder asked what the next steps would be. Mr. Wagner said the actual process they are in - when they first created the HOV Pilot, they asked the Federal Highway Administration for approval to run a pilot for a limited period of time. At the end of that period of time, they saw some information, but it was not enough to determine if it should be permanent or remove it. They asked the Federal Highway Administration for a two-year extension on the pilot to collect more data. That pilot ended in February 2005. As far as Federal Highway Administration, they have not gone back and asked them for any approvals for the next step. They are now going through the data, and getting comments and having discussions. At this point, they are at the end of the federally approved pilot program and not collecting more data.
Royce Pollard asked if one of the options were to continue the pilot, or must we make it permanent or remove it completely. Mr. Wagner said there are at least three choices: 1) make it permanent, 2) do away with it, and 3) continue to collect data on it, which would require Federal concurrence. Mr. Wagner said when the pilot project was continued two years ago, we acknowledged there were things in the corridor that needed to happen for us to see a major shift, such as an additional park-and-ride lot, and making the lane longer with the Delta Park issue. These have not happened yet. Mr. Wagner said other things have happened that were not anticipated, such as the impacts with C-TRAN changes. He said there is certainly an opportunity for us to ask the Federal Highway Administration to continue the pilot if that were the desire. Rex Burkholder said the process for DOT in terms of making a decision would allow people an opportunity to comment. Mr. Wagner said that was correct.
Andy Cotugno said he thought there were three issues still stirring out there that would affect the affect this question that have not materialized yet, 1) the question of an HOV lane to the south, 2) the transit questions are quite large and the growth of the use of the HOV lane, which has been steady, has been a big part attributable to transit, and 3) another park-and-ride lot at 99th Street. Mr. Cotugno asked Lynne Griffith when the park-and-ride would open. Ms. Griffith said the park-and-ride project is currently in an appeal, but looking optimistic. Potentially, it could open early next spring. She said it is important to factor the pricing on the commuter service. The I-5 Task Force had discussions around premium of express bus service. C-TRAN has structured that with that in mind. She said passes are being purchased. If it works and they don’t see a plummet in that ridership, that will sustain commuter service regardless of what is in the future. That could stabilize in the next couple months, and they will have a better idea.
Kate Deane said ODOT is looking at an HOV lane southbound on I-5 on the Oregon side of the river. They are involved in the process of conducting an Environmental Assessment for a project to widen that section to three lanes, which provides the opportunity to consider whether that third lane should be operated in the morning as an HOV lane. One part of the study is looking at whether or not that should be an HOV lane. In developing the project as a whole, they are looking at a number of policies including, regional policies and state policies for reducing congestion, for providing a safe and balanced transportation system, and for maintaining freight access and mobility. The work they have done is modeling work that was mainly focused towards what would happen in the future if they did put in a lane. The evaluation measures and performance goals for the I-5 Delta Park HOV analysis are consistent with those used in previous studies and evaluations of HOV in the I-5 corridor and are very similar to the things that WSDOT presented earlier.
Ms. Deane said they started out with vehicle counts, and found the vehicle counts that they had done were able to look at what would happen if there were a lane there today. They think that if the lane were open today in Oregon, that it could meet the minimum threshold of 500-600 vehicles using that lane. They also think that the number of people using the general purpose lane versus using the HOV lane, it would follow a similar trend to what has been experienced in Washington where that amount has slowly increased. Looking to the future at 2025, with considerable growth, they are finding that having the HOV lane in the I-5 corridor really has some strong benefits for those goals of increasing the number of people in vehicles, of moving more people through the corridor than if there were three general-purpose lanes. They are achieving for the users of the HOV system quite a benefit to them with a 12 minutes faster time travel than those in the GP lane. There are a lot of benefits of putting that lane in place. The flip side to that is that there would be a loss of benefits to those using the general-purpose lane and where the HOV travelers get 12 minutes faster, the GP travelers get 12 minutes longer. Where that really affects the GP travel is in a couple of places. It is not just commuters who are using the lanes in the morning. There is quite a bit of freight that is in the lanes. Ms. Deane said as we think about this from a policy standpoint, we need to look at the affect on freight movement. Traffic analysis indicates that there will be significant queuing in Vancouver on I-5, SR-500, and SR-14 with an HOV lane in the corridor compared to no HOV lane in the corridor. As a result of the queuing and congestion, the morning peak period is expected to last longer that it would without an HOV lane, further impacting the freight users of the corridor. Ms. Deane said their work in looking to the future shows a strong benefit for some users, and some concern of the impacts to other users.
Rex Burkholder asked what the assumption was on the bridge. Ms. Deane said they looked at a variety of scenarios including what they call a discontinuous lane keeping the Washington lane in place, no lane on the bridge, and have an Oregon lane starting at about Marine Drive to about Going. This is a discontinuous system and that is what the presented numbers were based on. They looked at a continuous lane going from 99th to Going. They found in this scenario that the kinds of delay and queuing that they saw with the discontinuous system gets even more exacerbated although it has greater benefits for the HOV users. This assumes no more capacity on the bridge. All that they are looking at in the Delta Park study they have to assume that the bridge project is not there. If there were a new bridge, that would change things.
Fred Hansen asked the implications on the southbound lanes relative to the current northbound HOV lane. He asked if there were any examples across the country where one has only one direction HOV on a permanent basis. He said if the decision is to not go with a southbound HOV, does it mean you have to eliminate the northbound. Ms. Dean said all the findings that they have on the southbound does not make them question the northbound. The northbound HOV has consistently provided more person throughput than the general-purpose lanes. She said they are having a good number of people per vehicle. There has been nothing that ODOT has been considering in the southbound lane that would make them question the northbound lane. Mr. Hansen questioned the impacts of start times of jobs versus the northbound traffic in the evening. Ms. Deane said in the northbound direction, there is a much greater mix of travelers that the a.m. allowing more to take the opportunity to use the HOV lane.
Don Wagner said to keep in mind the question of a system. He said we refer to our two HOV lanes as a system, sometimes in error. What they both are are queue jumps. He said they know that there are chokepoints out there. From the northbound, the chokepoint is the I-5 Bridge. If that chokepoint were not there, that might cause people to question whether or not there should be a northbound p.m. Similarly, for the southbound, the first chokepoint in the morning is the bridge, with the next chokepoint at Delta Park, then the Banfield. To refer to it as a system, like you might find in Atlanta or some other big community, there is not a comparison.
Mr. Wagner said to keep in mind that we are talking about managing the I-5 system in our area. What we really look at are two elements. One of them is capital, Delta Park, a new bridge, building something. We all know we cannot build our way out of congestion. The next piece is managing. That is what these HOV queue jumps are. They are part of managing the demand out there. Today, they are almost the only tool that we have. In the future, there may be other tools, which would cause us to go back and ask what is the best tool to manage these peak demands.
Rex Burkholder referred to the memorandum included in the meeting packet listing two recommended action items for the Bi-State Committee regarding HOV lanes for Oregon and Washington. The two recommendations are: 1) Recommend to the RTC and WSDOT to continue the pilot project for Washington’s HOV lane with direction to staff to work collaboratively with Oregon to examine prospects and priorities for operating the lane in the future. 2) Recommend to JPACT and ODOT support of operating an HOV lane in Oregon as a part of the I-5 Delta Park project with direction to staff to work collaboratively with Washington to examine prospects and priorities for operating the lane as a managed lane. (Note: Final decisions about HOV will be made as a part of the Environmental Assessment Process.) Chair Burkholder asked committee members if they would like to make a recommendation today, or wait until the next meeting to consider.
Fred Hansen said he would be inclined to say we should take action on this, but further said that he would be more confident if there was more analysis to support our recommendation.
Andy Cotugno said there are a couple of pieces that come into play here. The minimum threshold that Kate Deane referred to was 500-600 vehicles and number of persons equal to or better than the adjacent lanes. We were hitting both of those, but if you were only at 500-600 for the user of the adjacent lane, it looks empty when the adjacent lane is carrying 1,800 – 2,000 vehicles. On the other hand, because of transit, it is not empty. It is carrying as many or more people than that adjacent lane. The effectiveness of that lane is very heavily dependent on the transit component. If you were to take away the HOV lane, you really penalize that group a lot by making them go back into mixed traffic. The best thing would be to get the number of vehicles up closer to 1,200 or 1,500 that is more vehicles, but not so many that you create congestion and delay in the adjacent lane. He said that is the idea of the managed lane. He said the question is if there is a way to manage the lane to allow for more users to come in. One of the options is the park-and-ride lot. Once that is in place, it will allow for 600 more vehicles that can use that lane and increase its effectiveness. Elsewhere in the country, there is movement toward allowing hybrid vehicles to use the HOV lanes as an option. Mr. Cotugno said that Houston and San Diego have both gone to taking HOV lanes that are underutilized and selling the excess capacity through pricing. There are other ways to manage the lane to get more utility for both vehicles. The recommendation is to start exploring those managed lane methods in order to accomplish that. He said the person carrying utility is there. As we move forward into the river crossing, that all depends upon what happens with transit. If transit is the big determinant in the lanes, what will happen with transit, a bus oriented transit, a light rail transit, and many options down the road to address.
Fred Hansen said with Mr. Cotugno’s explanation, he was fine with moving forward with the recommendation today.
Royce Pollard said that they are not collecting more data, and we have a lot of data already. He said that we have been watching this for some time and felt that we should give our opinion to the larger bodies.
ROYCE POLLARD MOVED FOR APPROVAL TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THE TWO RECOMMENDATIONS AS LISTED. FRED HANSEN SECONDED THE MOTION, AND THE MOTION WAS APPROVED.
Dean Lookingbill introduced Mark Harrington, RTC, to present where RTC is in looking at growth forecasts. Mr. Harrington said that Clark County’s land use forecasting process happened in September 2004 when Clark County adopted a new 20-Year Comprehensive Growth Plan under the state’s Growth Management Act. RTC is beginning their process to update their 20-Year Metropolitan Transportation Plan. With that, began discussions of a horizon year for the 20-year plan at the RTC Board over the past few months. With that discussion, a 20-year time horizon was needed which is 2025. It was decided to go further than the 2025 horizon year. There were various things putting pressure on that time, one being comment from federal agencies that said there needed to be a 20-year horizon that reached the end of the plan, which would be 2028. There are also major studies on the horizon that will utilize that analysis such as the I-5 river crossing, and the EA for I-205 projects, as well as looking at SR-14. The RTC Board decided on a 2030 horizon year. Mr. Harrington highlighted the GMA Growth Allocation and Transportation Analysis Framework. He said this process is to take the Comp Plan through a land use allocation process that is used in transportation analysis. They take the land use for Clark County, which has 615 transportation Analysis Zones (TAZs) that they put households and employment into to. He said the growth allocation is the link between GMA Planning and the transportation analysis. Mr. Harrington displayed the population and employment for the 2003 base year, 2023 TAZ Allocation, and the proposed 2030. He said RTC staff is working with Clark County staff on the proposed numbers for 2030 population of 592,000 and employment of 238,500.
Dennis Yee, Metro, distributed three handouts. The first handout displayed charts with growth in jobs, population, and households. The second handout listed historical population estimates, and the third document was a description of the Metroscope, Metro’s regional allocation model. Mr. Yee said their forecast horizon is to the year 2030. The geographic scope of their forecast includes Clark County. They do a total population and job forecast that includes Clark, Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, Columbia, and Yamhill Counties. Over the next 25 years, this six county region is anticipated to have a population increase of 1.1 million. This means an increase of 450,000 households. This is equivalent to squeezing in the same number of people as 2 cities the size of Portland. The growth allocation must find places to live for all these people inside Metro’s UGB and Clark County’s urban growth areas. Mr. Yee highlighted the percentages saying estimates for population are at 1.5% APR, Labor Force at 1.7% APR, and Jobs at 1.8% APR. This is a job increase of 650,000. Mr. Yee highlighted four charts that takes the total job increase and breaks it out into the industries including Non-Durable Industrial Jobs, Durable Industrial Jobs, Transport & Warehousing Jobs, and Service Sector Jobs. Mr. Yee said job growth is fairly strong, but not near as rapid as experienced during the 1990’s. Growth is spread unevenly across industries – service jobs outpace manufacturing jobs by a significant margin. Given the limited amount of time, Mr. Yee wrapped up the presentation.
Andy Cotugno closed in saying they have concerns when they do growth forecasts on first how much growth is coming and second where does it go. He said they couldn’t separate the question of what Clark County’s forecast is from what the forecast for each other county is. Where growth goes is a function of how they think the real estate market will react to various decisions about urban growth boundary, about transportation access, and about what industries are on the ground in those places now. They are in the midst of trying to do that kind of forecast for the whole metropolitan region. They want to coordinate with Clark County’s efforts to do the same horizon year 2030 forecast so they are synced together. The EIS has to be consistent with where it lands on both ends of the bridge. It is very important to have these in sync. Rex Burkholder said it is important to coordinate both sides for the 2030 look. Mr. Cotugno said they have not got to 2030 yet. He said it is not just a technical coordination exercise. It forces us to make some uncomfortable assumptions about urban growth area expansions. The time period goes beyond Clark County’s GMA. Metro’s urban growth boundary expansions go to 2022, but their state law requires doing it every five years. They will have four more rounds to get it out to 2030. There are no decisions on where those expansions are going to be. Assumptions will need to be made, and with or without a bridge will have impact as well.
Mr. Burkholder said the question from staff is if the Bi-State Committee wants to recommend that 2030 be adopted as a joint Bi-State transportation forecast year to the arguments that there is some discomfort out there.
FRED HANSEN MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF RECOMMENDING THAT 2030 BE ADOPTED AS THE JOINT BI-STATE FORECAST YEAR. THE MOTION WAS SECONDED BY LYNNE GRIFFITH AND UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED.
Don Wagner said to keep in mind that this is a good step in the right direction, but for a new bridge that we may be talking about requires a 20-year look past opening date EIS. This assumes a new bridge would be opened in 2010, which is pretty optimistic. We may be back in the future for further discussion.
A handout of TEA-LU Earmarks was distributed by Metro and RTC. Copies of proposed nation-wide authorizations of Federal Transportation Funds were distributed.
Due to limited time this item was not discussed, but will be brought back at the April 21 meeting.
Rex Burkholder said he has agreed to continue as Chair, and Royce Pollard has agreed to Vice Chair the Bi-State Coordination Committee if that is the wish of the Committee. All members agreed on these appointments.
The next Bi-State Coordination Committee meeting will be held on April 21, 2005, at metro.
The I-5 Columbia River Crossing Task Force will meet on May 4, 2005, at the Clark County Public Service Center 6th Floor from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Jim Howell commented on the mega projects. He said that previous studies have indicated the need for another bridge across the Columbia River as well as the Portland harbor. He said that decision was that bridge needed to accommodate three through lanes of freeway traffic in both directions at a minimum. Also, it has light rail and other lanes across the bridge. He said he thought it premature to jump to the conclusion that this has to be a mega project (over a billion dollars). There are other options available that are far less expensive than a billion dollars, and he said they have not had enough consideration. He reminded members that ODOT, over 30 years ago had proposed a mega project without going through all the various options to that project. That project was challenged by citizens’ organizations. They took ODOT to court and ODOT lost, and that project never got built. He said it behooves you to consider some of the lesser costly proposals before going head on into the assumption that a new freeway bridge is needed across the Columbia River.
Fred Hansen said in the debate of the Bi-State Committee, we all know that the EIS process before looking at a crossing is that they look at a whole series of issues. Our decision was not to have one mega project. We talked about the capacity and what the lanes needed to be, but whether that needed to be auxiliary lanes or others things; they have always been a part of the EIS. He said he felt it was not in fact yet being precluded by proceeding as we are, but that it was another step in the process to address other issues.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:05 a.m.
Dean Lookingbill
Transportation Director, RTC
360-397-6067Andy Cotugno
Transportation Director, Metro
503-797-1763
       
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