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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, February 15, 2007, from 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 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, 1408 Franklin Street, Room 226, Vancouver, Washington. Those in attendance follow:
Committee Members Katy Brooks, Port of Vancouver Alternate
Rex Burkholder, Metro Councilor (Chair)
Jeff Cogen, Multnomah County Commissioner
Jeff Hamm, C-TRAN Executive Director/CEO
Fred Hansen, TriMet General Manager
Thayer Rorabaugh, City of Vancouver Alternate
Steve Stuart, Clark County Commissioner
Jason Tell ODOT Region One Manager
Don Wagner, WSDOT SW Region AdministratorStaff Andy Cotugno, Metro
Dean Lookingbill, RTC
Mark Turpel, Metro
Diane Workman, RTC
Interested GuestsInterested Guests Ed Barnes, Washington State Transportation Commissioner
Jack Burkman, WSDOT
David Cusack, Clark County
Lynda David, RTC
Kim Ellis, Metro
Mark Harrington, RTC
Bob Hart, RTC
Bob Hillier, Portland Department of Transportation
Carolyn Long, Washington State University - Vancouver
Sheila Martin, Portland State University
Scott Patterson, C-TRAN
Phil Selinger, TriMet
Karen Shilling, Multnomah County
Jeanne Stewart, City of Vancouver Council Member
Walter Valenta, CitizenChair Burkholder welcomed Jeff Cogen and Jeff Hamm, both new members of the Bi-State Transportation Coordination Committee. Jeff Cogen is a newly elected Multnomah County Commissioner. Mr. Cogen said Serena Cruz Walsh would continue representing Multnomah County on the Columbia River Crossing Task Force until mid year, and then he would be the representative. Jeff Hamm is the new C-TRAN Executive Director/CEO. He said prior to that he was seven years in Salem as the General Manager of Cherriots.
STEVE STUART MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF THE NOVEMBER 16, 2006, MEETING REPORT, AND THE MOTION WAS APPROVED.
Dean Lookingbill referred to the memorandum included in the meeting packet. Mr. Lookingbill said this agenda item addresses the coordinated 2030 forecast of households and jobs for the draft EIS for the Columbia River Crossing Study. The Bi-State Committee is being asked to approve this forecast. In March of 2006, the Bi-State Coordination Committee approved an interim 2030 forecast for Phase I of the CRC project. This interim forecast was used to analyze and screen a set of 12 alternatives down to a set of three that are being recommended to go into the DEIS. At that time, it was understood that a revised forecast would need to be developed for the DEIS. Mr. Lookingbill said the primary change in the new 2030 forecast is that it better reflects the preferred alternative for Clark County’s proposed Comprehensive Plan update as documented in the Draft Final Environmental Impact Statement. The numeric difference is 19,428 more jobs in Clark County than used in the earlier forecast approved by the Bi-State Coordination Committee in 2006. The increase in jobs is about one percent of the total number of jobs expected in the region. This is well within the margin of accuracy of the forecast of total jobs in the four-county area.
Mr. Lookingbill said Clark County, City of Vancouver, Metro, and RTC staff have all worked together to revise the four-county forecast for jobs and housing. Staff recommends that the Bi-State coordination Committee approve the following Year 2030 forecasts for the Columbia River Crossing DEIS process:
Total Clark County Households: 246,848 Total Clark County Employment: 283,875 Total Metro Households: 877,285 Total Metro Employment: 1,399,908 Total Four County Households: 1,124,133 Total Four County Employment: 1,683,783 Rex Burkholder said this is necessary for the Columbia River Crossing draft EIS process. Chair Burkholder asked Steve Stuart if he had any comments. Steve Stuart said these numbers are reflective of a preferred alternative that is in a final EIS process that will be released within a month, so the numbers are as close to final as they are going to get without having the capital facility dollars attached to them.
Fred Hansen questioned that of the 19,428 jobs that were added, it wasn’t really because of the revision of overages of jobs expected but because of the land use plan, it is being added, and because it is within the one percent margin of accuracy we can do that. Mr. Lookingbill said the new preferred alternative that Commissioner Stuart mentioned provides for additional land that would provide for the additional employment. Andy Cotugno said the change in Clark County’s land use plan would support the resulting attraction of more jobs. The numbers on the Oregon side are in use, and they would like to keep those numbers consistent. He said since this is a small change in terms of how much of a change on their side, he said they thought it best to just add at.
Jeff Hamm asked if the forecasts were disaggregated geographically; did they know where those 19,000 are going? Mr. Lookingbill said yes; there are 650 geographic areas (zones) in Clark County and about 2,500 zones on the Oregon side. This gets allocated out to those 3,200 zones. The 19,428 can be identified by looking at the previous forecast and making the comparison. These can also be identified by looking at the previous Comp Plan map alternative and the preferred Comp Plan map alternative as well. Mr. Lookingbill said it is distributed. Steve Stuart said in north Camas there is a major industrial proposal north of Lacamas Lake. There are more jobs north of the SR-503 and 119th Street interchange, with large parcels for industrial development. There are more in La Center and Ridgefield as well. It is largely in the outlying regions.
Rex Burkholder said part of the issue is that there are two different growth models that are used by Metro and RTC for the forecasting, so they have slightly different answers. Chair Burkholder said the question for the committee is if that one percent something to worry about or are they comfortable with that slight difference in the projections. He said the CRC working group is asking the Bi-State Committee if this is the forecast that they should use in the DEIS.
Steve Stuart asked Don Wagner if these jobs are added in, would that hurt the timeline for the CRC process. Don Wagner said if it is added now, it is fine as they move into the DEIS. If it would be changed a year from now, it would cause some modeling difficulty.
FRED HANSEN MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF THE LISTED 2030 FORECASTS TO BE USED IN THE COLUMBIA RIVER CROSSING PROJECT FOR THE DEIS. THE MOTION WAS SECONDED BY JEFF HAMM AND UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED.
Rex Burkholder said he and Mayor Pollard thought this agenda item would be a good item for discussion. Metro is going through a major update to their Regional Transportation Plan, and RTC is doing a Transportation Visioning Study, which is looking at the future and what might be needed. Mr. Burkholder introduced Kim Ellis from Metro to present Metro’s New Look of the Regional Transportation Plan. She distributed copies of the Executive Summary. Ms. Ellis said since June of last year, they have been conducting a variety of different research looking at different elements of the transportation system and how they are performing. They have also conducted several outreach activities that include a series of stakeholder workshops, with business and community groups, members of the professional health community, active seniors, and people with disabilities, and a host of different organizations. Collectively, all of that research and the discussions that they have had with Metro’s advisory committees since last June have really informed development of the draft Regional Transportation Policy Framework. She said the Executive Summary of that draft was distributed. They are working to release a recommended draft later today that will be discussed by MTAC, their land use technical advisory committee and TPAC, the Transportation Policy Advisory Committee, then to JPACT the following week. She said a part of those recommendations is approval of the general policy direction that this is establishing, and for them to then use the policy framework to develop the rest of the Regional Transportation Plan over the next eight months. Their timeline is such that they plan to have a discussion draft Plan out for formal public review next fall in September, and then have the Metro Council and JPACT approve the Plan in November. They then can conduct the air quality conformity analysis they need to do in order to demonstrate that it meets federal requirements. Their current Plan expires in March of 2008. Ms. Ellis noted that the last two pages of the Executive Summary lists the Table of Contents.
This Plan is being done differently in that it focuses on what the outcomes are they are trying to achieve over the Regional Transportation Plan and how it can best support the 2040 growth concept, which is their region’s Comprehensive Plan. She pointed out the list of nine RTP Goals they have defined. They have specific measurable objectives that they have been working on with the committees. They will evaluate the Plan as they develop it, but then have measures that they will be monitoring over the implementation of the Plan in between RTP updates in the future. Ms. Ellis pointed out on page four of the Executive Summary are two conceptual diagrams. They emphasize the importance of having a well-connected multi-modal transportation system on the arterial side but then also to help support the freeway system, which they define as being the Interstate highways in the region, I-5, I-205, and US 26. She said the Throughway and Arterial Network Concept approach is based on basic transportation planning and engineering principles for building a complete and well-connected system. They continue to emphasize having all the arterial streets multi-modal, providing and serving bicycle and pedestrian travel and providing access to transit in support of the land use. The Regional Transit Network Concept continues what is in the current RTP that has high capacity transit in between the major centers in the region, which includes Vancouver. That is supported by a dense network of different types of transit service of different frequencies throughout the region.
Rex Burkholder said this is very theoretical, and asked what the next phase was. Ms. Ellis said with the approval of the Policy Direction on March 1 at JPACT and the Metro Council on March 15, they would then move into Phase 3 of the process. This would then be applying these principles to define transportation needs in the region, and then go through a system analysis that would be using the measurable objectives that were defined to assess how well the system is performing. It is using a variety of performance measures that they already use including volume and capacity ratios of the major corridors. Also, they are trying to bring in travel time and look at market areas within the region and how much households have access to jobs and employers to the work force as well. They will try to bring in some new measures to look at how well the system is performing from a broader level that is not just on the transportation performance but also the impacts to the environment, if parts of the region are being disproportionately burdened with transportation investments as well. There are a host of different measures that they are trying to integrate for mainstream within the document itself. Rex Burkholder said that is a piece that a lot of their partners in the region are looking at how this will affect their projects that they would like to build and how it is applied.
Thayer Rorabaugh asked Ms. Ellis to summarize their outreach to the business community. Ms. Ellis said they had a series of five stakeholder workshops. One of them was specifically with the freight and business community and also some large employers and some of the universities in the area. They operated each of the workshops in a similar way, asking what would the regional transportation system look like if we achieved the 2040 fundamentals, healthy economy, vibrant communities, healthy environment, and fiscal stewardship. In the small group discussions, they had about 30 folks who attended each of the workshops. There were similar themes coming up across all of the workshops, regardless of what interest or perspective of the citizens were. It said that system connectivity is really important. The region really needs to look at the impacts of congestion on the ability to move freight in the region, but then also how you do that you need to also need to be supportive of providing compact communities and not destroy their communities and try to address those needs. There was a system connectivity, which is what a lot of the principle of the framework is really built on, a well connected system that is serving all modes of travel for all trip types throughout the region.
Andy Cotugno said in addition to those target stakeholder groups, they also have the Freight Master Plan process going on. There is a freight advisory committee that is meeting on a monthly basis to develop an overall freight program in parallel and then pull that in. Mr. Rorabaugh asked if they saw consistency in the comments that were made through the two processes. Ms. Ellis said yes they did have consistencies. Katy Brooks said she sat on the Task Force for the Metro New Look process. She said this topic was brought up last month for the first time. She said like any new policy that is significantly new like this one, there was some pushback, but that is inevitable any time you put forth something that is so different than the way it has been done for a while. It was put in front of the business and freight groups that are helping with the New Look. She said there is just a lot of discussion that will need to take place. She did not think any one should expect total embracement at something this new when it is first rolled out. Kim Ellis said they have been having special subcommittees looking at the policy chapter. She said they are considering it a provisional draft and they will get it to a place that people can feel comfortable enough moving on to Phase 3. When they come back next summer, based on what they have learned through the system analysis, they will be making refinements to the Policy Framework to respond to what they have learned. It is not set in stone that this is how it will be through the rest of the process and when the plan is adopted. She said that they know that they will need to circle back based on what they learned.
Jeff Cogen asked how this was significantly different from what has been done in the past. Kim Ellis said there are a number of ways. The process itself has been very different. In the past, they have talked about projects first, to define and set out what the financial amount is, and matched up the projects to the amount of money that was available. She said they have spent the past six months doing more research on the front end of the update to inform what some of the barriers are to walking and biking in the region, and how things are performing. Their roadway system profile is just being finished. They are looking at the extent of congestion in the region and if there are places that are expanding beyond just the normal peak periods that they need to be more worried about. They’re focusing on outcomes, what the goals are that they are trying to achieve for the region, if it supports the 2040 growth concept, and also have a transportation system that will support what that vision entails. What this is calling for is that there will be a need to have a lot of infrastructure investment to support existing areas of the region, but then also areas that will be developing. It is also trying to distinguish within the region that there are different parts of the region that are at different places. There are some that are very built up and have a system in place, but you have Washington and Clackamas Counties that are not at the same place as the City of Portland. There is a lot of infrastructure that needs to be achieved to help provide a multi-modal system. Andy Cotugno said the basic system message that they are trying to communicate is captured in the diagrams that were previously presented. He said the message that they are trying to say is that just because you see congestion on the freeway doesn’t mean you necessarily can solve that congestion on the freeway and you should be focusing on the whole network around that freeway system. If you have a good network, the network can absorb a lot more of that shock of the peak hour congestion than just the facility itself. There are places that they will need to expand the freeway system, but there are other places where you just cannot expand the freeway system, and therefore, managing the freeway system, by metering it or pricing it so it actually functions during the peak hour and expecting a parallel network of both streets and transit to absorb more of that peak period. It needs to function as a complete system. They should be measuring the performance of those corridors in terms of how the whole network functions rather than just how one individual facility functions. Jeff Cogen said it is a system approach instead of just looking at individual choke points and projects. Mr. Cotugno said that was correct.
Rex Burkholder said he was at the Gresham Chamber of Commerce the previous day, and the four cities out there had a big discussion about a north/south corridor study. There is a lot of reluctance of any community to agree to it, because they are all afraid it will become the next freeway. Troutdale and Wood Village do not want a freeway. This idea of saying all we need is a dense network that can absorb this like the more developed areas of inner Multnomah County. It disperses it and reduces the impact. Mr. Cogen asked if we knew what implication that has in terms of where investments will end up going. It was noted that that is the next Phase.
Fred Hansen said he thought it important to be able to focus not on the transit transportation system as the goal; that is not the end point. The transportation system delivers mobility for a lot of things, whether it is the transit, or ped/bike, or the roadways. Mr. Hansen said we need a clear objective of what we want. His favor would be on the passenger side, it is to be able to reduce travel times. On the freight side, it is the ability to get throughput and mobility within the region for delivery. He said if those are the objectives or goals that we want to achieve, then we can come back and say that the grid system allows us to be able to have that freeway. It frees up some by auto traffic moving to some of the grid work, yet being able to have some of the throughput for freight on the freeway. We then make better choices. Each project that goes against that objective doesn’t really achieve that. He said the land use goals are a much broader set of goals. We need to get jobs and housing closer together and other essential services. Then you end with the goal of reducing trip lengths in that process.
Steve Stuart asked if there was a system map that was associated with this. He said in discussing the grid system, and the developed versus the underdeveloped areas around the tri-county area, he was curious as to what the system looked like close to Clark County. He said there are some areas that there is an understanding that there is no more highway capacity left to build out, so they were looking toward the grid and transit options. He asked if there was a map for Multnomah County that shows how that would interface with Clark County. Kim Ellis said the current Plan has a motor vehicle system map. As part of Phase 3, they will be refining that to apply this so it defines the principle arterials, major and minor arterials, and collectors of regional significance. As part of this they are proposing that collectors would be more of a local responsibility. Andy Cotugno said this will have them re-look at that and see if it provides a good complete grid system or if they need to augment that with something. Rex Burkholder said one issue that they want to put down, is what the integration between the two sides of the river is. With that, he asked Dean Lookingbill to present a look at the Washington side.
Dean Lookingbill said if Metro’s is called the New Look, RTC’s is called New Vision, and if Metro uses an Eye as a symbol, RTC uses binoculars. Metro is looking at a 25-year framework and focused around a set of projects and a land use plan. RTC is looking at a 50-year framework and comes with a “how would we “ approach to doing something. Mr. Lookingbill said the scope of the New Transportation Corridors Visioning study was generated around the question of “How would we get around within our own community in the longer-term future if our County reaches one million in population?” Mr. Lookingbill said the GMA forecast for 2024 has about 600,000 people in Clark County. This look would add another 400,000 people. The study will focus on connecting places and nodes of growth in Clark County. One concept to be addressed in the study is to look at a circumferential (beltway) corridor providing connections between the cities of Ridgefield, Battle Ground, and Camas/Washougal. The study will also analyze the need for future crossing of the Columbia River.
Mark Harrington used a slide presentation to display the information. He said they started with one million people to place in Clark County, and instead of asking where they wanted to grow next, it was where don’t they grow and where can’t they grow in the county. They looked at the capacity of the land, and began with the land below 800 feet elevation for the county. He said above 800 feet, most of the land is state forestland, privately owned forestland, and the slopes start to become unreasonable. They looked at the land below 800 feet, the character of the land outside the Urban Growth Area. He displayed a map showing the countywide land inventory and highlighting the vacant or vacant and underutilized (from an urban perspective) land. He said a single farmhouse on 20 acres is a huge parcel, but it is underutilized from an urban standpoint. Mr. Harrington highlighted the land inventory. He said 21% was in conservation areas, 40% was vacant underutilized without any constraints, 30% was vacant and underutilized with some possible constraints, and the remaining 10% was either built, existing roads, public/private open spaces, or high value properties. This amounted to 120,032 buildable acres available outside the existing UGA. Fred Hansen asked why Mansions and Condos were listed as a category. Mr. Harrington said that is a part of the County’s vacant and buildable land model when they look at their 20-year future. He said in the county rural area, there are a number of areas that have five-acre lots with multi-million dollar homes on them. He said what they don’t want to say is that that five-acre lot, given the value of that structure, is in the realm of possibly being available for building. If that was five acres and a value of $150,000 structure, someone there are likely to portion that parcel. High value properties that may have land that could subdivide, but most likely given the type of property would not. This comes from Clark County’s Vacant and Buildable lands model.
Mr. Harrington said they looked at the gross acreage and the relative growth capacity under current density assumptions of the county’s 20-year plan. He said in comparing land capacity versus forecasted growth, they looked at employment first. They were looking at 241,000 jobs, and forecast 186,000 in households. The growth capacity once they accounted for all the jobs was only for about 170,000, so they were short land under the current density assumptions of the comp plan of about 16,000 households. The density assumptions are about six per net acre. The constrained lands will reduce that net, so there is more calculations within that. He said, as they got higher in elevation, at 600 to 800 feet, the yield is not as high. The Portland metro area has a little higher density at 10 per net acre. Mr. Harrington said they talked with local jurisdictions, and had a steering committee for the process. They came to some assumptions. To assume that the current urban areas will not change at all is a big assumption. They wanted to bring back in some densification through redevelopment, infill, some higher density yields overall. He said as the land becomes more and more constrained, there would be a push towards some greater densities throughout the region. They went back and looked at land inventory at less than 400 feet. In looking at that, they then came to some goals. He displayed a map with the targeted boundary area for a potential future urban area, along with existing urban centers and potential future centers. From that they asked from what centers are they going to connect and how. These are areas where there is not much of a grid system besides a state highway.
Dean Lookingbill distributed copies of a series of four maps. He noted in this Visioning process they would be running a travel demand forecast on the potential future map and ask how to connect the centers. He said for today’s discussion, at some point in connecting these corridors, there may be need for additional Columbia River Crossing. The set of historical maps distributed included an adopted Major Street Plan, Vancouver 1957. He noted the crossings in addition to I-5 fit an alignment similar to I-205, an alignment at Vancouver Lake, and an alignment near Blandford Drive. The next map was from 1978 of the Lower Columbia River Potential Crossing Corridors Vicinity Map for Portland-Vancouver Urban Area. The map showed seven potential crossings, but did not show the corridors. The Portland Vancouver Metropolitan Area Transportation System 1990 Transportation Plan map was adopted in early 1970. This map had some Columbia River crossing concepts, but as the maps progressed, I-205 emerged with the west side discussion continuing. The most recent history map was the Bi-State Improvement Concepts which resulted from an activity after the 1995 Light Rail vote in Clark County that defeated the light rail proposal. The elected officials stepped back and said if that isn’t what the people want, what do they want. They established the citizen-based Transportation Futures Committee. They had a lot of issues, but one of their conversation points was back to a Columbia River Crossing Concept. The map showed a west side corridor and crossing, improvements/expansion on I-5, and the continued east side crossing. Mr. Lookingbill said when this 1996 map was made, it was assuming a 2015 travel demand forecast. The cost to do the I-5 expansion was estimated at about $670 million. They had asked how many all day river crossings that investment gave them. It was about 28,000 vehicles. The west corridor was about a $1 billion investment. Once you crossed the Columbia River and through the Bybee Lake area, the alignment required a lot of bridge structure. The net change in river crossings was about 5,000 vehicles. People really wanted to be on I-5 depending on what it connects to on the west side. If there was a new land use scenario, they use it, but as a bypass, it did not do much. The issues to the east reflected more and more growth. The east corridor was a $750 million project, and netted about 17,000 vehicles. Mr. Lookingbill said that is where the Bi-State Columbia River crossing has been left, other than with the CRC, but it did not have a lot of traction. He said the Futures Committee had about 30 citizens that participated. Mr. Lookingbill said the discussion is as they begin to look at future growth beyond the 25 year plan out to the 50-year growth, what do they begin to talk about for Columbia River Crossings.
Rex Burkholder asked what the Bi-State Committee could add to the discussion. Dean Lookingbill said they are not just looking to the south. He said they are charged as part of the study to look within the county, but to also look across the river. He said they vested that charge with the Bi-State Coordination Committee, because it is the only bi-state committee for that discussion. Mr. Burkholder asked how these are to be knit together, and how do we coordinate the two studies that are taking place. If Clark County is 1 million, Portland/Metro area will be 3 or 4 million. He asked if there were issues that the committee could identify that they would like both of the studies to consider, as they are moving along. Mr. Burkholder asked about the Ports issues since they both were impacted.
Katy Brooks said one observation between the two studies when developing the arterials and corridors, obviously there is a lot of intuitive connections, a crossover between corridors. She said maybe not to look at the crossing as they traditionally looked at it with the Columbia River Crossing project, not necessarily as a freeway, but as a connection of the arterials. In fact, if Metro does go forward with that kind of system, to some degree we will have to look at that on the north side of the river and how it connects. She said that is an obvious overlap. For freight, the influence at first blush, with the freight group for the Task Force was, there is a lot of social engineering that will have to take place when you look at putting freight on arterials and in front of people’s houses. It is a huge policy discussion that cannot be distracted from this discussion. From the Port’s standpoint, they will be looking at the best ways to get to the freeway for the short term, but they may want to look at what the best ways are to get around not necessarily on the freeway network or bi-pass a certain section of it. That is a big policy discussion, but if Metro moves forward with their plans, we will need to look at it in Vancouver as well.
Steve Stuart said one of the things that this study group is doing is looking at parkways, expressways, not necessarily the grid system itself. Looking at ways to truly move people with limited ingress-egress opportunities so you can actually get shorter commute trip times and shorter throughput times as opposed to just more opportunities for sprawl, which is obvious with I-205. He said every time a bypass is created, everyone wants to connect to it. That is the first thing they are looking at. The second thing is that this is somewhat being tied in with the High Capacity Transit Study that is underway. The High Capacity Transit Corridor Study is looking at more toward existing corridors where we have the densities to support high capacity transit, but it also feeds nicely into an analysis of corridors as well. If you look at the land use map, if they continue the development patterns, there is one big urban area. He said that would be ridiculous and unsustainable. He said this is to start prompting the land use discussion to start that social engineering. He said that conversation will take place sooner or later, because people will get stuck if we don’t reengineer of how we move, where we move, where we work, and where we live. Weaving that into the tapestry of the Portland-metro region will need to take place.
Fred Hansen asked what other tools there are to keep the freeway from getting clogged. He said there are a lot of induced demands. Every time we take something off whether it is transit or ped/bike, it produces demand. He said ramp meters take people out of the short trip on the freeway system. He asked what other tools there were that essentially preserve the space on the system. Dean Lookingbill said it can be argued transportation facilities are under priced now, in the sense of how people actually use them, that is they don’t pay for the price of congestion. If you price the roadways during the peak period, you will at least spread that peak of demand. He said pricing is not very well accepted, but an immediate tool that leaves land use patterns, etc. as they are. Mr. Hansen said the tolling on the East Coast, it is distance space. He said you still jump on it for short trips, which we would still rather not have on it. Jason Tell said there are no easy tools. He said they are doing all of the easy things. He said the ramp metering, the incident response, and other things that try to keep the traffic that uses the system moving as efficiently as possible. He said the ramp metering right now does not deter trips, it just spreads out the travel in a way that makes it function more efficiently. He said the timing of the meters could be set so bad that it backs up on local streets, and it makes people maybe reach a point that they don not want to wait to get on the freeway. Fred Hansen said then it does not divert traffic. Mr. Tell said it is not as aggressive as it could be right now. He said that is something that could be looked at again. He said you have to look at the impact to the local system. Mr. Hansen said as the grid system was discussed, how you deliver the benefits that they hope to get from that is impacted and needs to be thought of as well.
Andy Cotugno said he thought there were two ways to think about it, priced and non-priced. These are two different discussions. If pricing is not on the table, then what are all the other things you can do? You can manage it more aggressively that we are managing it now. The ramp meter rates are really designed now to just spread the individual cars out. That is just one function of ramp metering. Metering the volume to restrict how much goes on could be more aggressive, but if you are going to be more aggressive, then you need to look at where the queue backs up to, and if there is a safe place provided for that to happen. When the queue backs up and you have four minutes before you get to the head of the line, then where would the traffic go, and have you provided for those parallel arterials with the traffic to go on. He said a more comprehensive approach can be done than what is currently being done, but we have not gone in that direction yet. Partly, he said they have not gone in that direction, because ODOT says they are going to crank the ramp meters down, and the city traffic engineer says “not on my street”, so there needs to be that cooperation for it to work. If the city traffic engineer has the motivation to crank the meters down so that the truck lane next to the meter is open and the trucks have the access, then there are multiple objectives to handle the traffic. Mr. Cotugno said HOV is another piece. He said in the HCT discussion here about 18 months ago, they talked with the man from the east coast and asked him what a managed lane means. A managed land could be just what they are doing now with the two-person HOV, it could be ramped up to a three-person HOV, small trucks could be added in, big trucks could be added, hybrid vehicles could be added; it is all a matter of selecting who that preferential access is being provided to. He said the notion of HOV is you will be dealing with congestion and who and where you want to have just one lane not congested. That is another approach to managing the system. On the pricing side, he said there are many different ways. The traditional tolling approach to pricing for trucks, would say if a car is tolled a dollar, a truck is tolled two or three dollars. He said if we are thinking of maintaining our freeway system for trucks, that would be reversed. It would be higher priced for cars and not have the penalty for trucks. He said if it were based on distance, there would be some way of accounting for by multiple locations by tracking ons and offs. If you want to get the short trips, he said you would do it on only some places. He said there are many different ways to apply pricing. It is not a standard approach; it is tailoring it to which markets you are trying to attack.
Rex Burkholder said a key thing to recognize is that crossings in theory are a great idea, but we know that it is really expensive because it is a big river. The issue that both plans need to look at is how to treat that throughway capacity as the valued resource that it is. A key lesson is that there will not be very many of those so you need to manage them pretty aggressively. He said a lesson in the bi-state area is recognizing that in their planning right now. He said for the Ports, it will be even more important to manage it, because both of the Ports are located right in the middle of this major metropolitan area. How they move in and out will be critical. Steve Stuart said that is already being seen. An example is the Mill Plain extension that was done for the Port. There is currently additional truck traffic that will need to go somewhere else. He said it is a difficult issue.
Dean Lookingbill said the cost is a major consideration. He said in looking at the maps with the Steering Committee, he was asked why they haven’t done this. He said his response is we haven’t answered the why (land use) would we do that, given the land use side and the economic development side. He said freight is another piece to consider. He said there is cost. He said what really are we accomplishing by way of land use and or economic development. He said the scale of this study is not down to that finer set of land use assumptions, but certainly in a broader economic way they should be able to assess that.
Thayer Rorabaugh said as much as he is philosophically against the public support of railroads, he said he thought as we look at our corridors around our nation, we really seriously have to consider what kind of investment are we going to make publicly. He said in referring to Mill Plain, he said they are seeing a substantial increase. He has been talking with Todd Coleman at the Port about what they are going to have to do to find a new corridor into the Port, given all of the Ports plans. He said in Southern California, they build the Alameda Corridor, but yet the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach are at capacity. He said they are even looking at creating literally transfer points in Salt Lake City, where they literally take it off the boat, put it on a train, and send it to Salt Lake City, and it comes back by truck, because the corridors are so incredibly congested. He said the Port of Vancouver is growing. If they would do nothing today, the classification area at the port would be at capacity by 2015. He said as we look at our corridors and how we move traffic, he said as Mr. Cotugno said, maybe we need to create the disincentive for the cars, and it is the trucks that we allow to use the freeways and look at other options to move the automobiles, such as the arterial system. He said we need to consider how we will deal with that.
Jeff Hamm asked if they had started to allocate the growth to those centers; what proportion of that increase in population and jobs is going to be in the centers versus less urbanized areas of Clark County? He asked if that turns out to be significantly different than the Portland metropolitan region, does that matter. Mr. Hamm said he was thinking in terms of the success of high capacity transit and its productivity in serving the needs. He said if transit is going to be less productive and efficient if you have the development dispersed more throughout Clark County. Mark Harrington said the notion with this as they add the additional 400,000 employees and 240,000 jobs is not to define an area, because there are going to be areas of concentration. He said they are looking to the city of Vancouver growing up and getting denser and look at how that expands. He said when you have urban areas, you will have some density occur around urban centers.
Jeff Cogen said hearing about the congestion pricing, he said he thought it made sense from a transit concept in terms of this system. He said the incentives for trucks and disincentives for cars also makes sense, but he said we have a huge public education challenge. He said the people around the table might be there, but the people outside the room are not. It was agreed that that was very true.
Don Wagner said he wanted to note that in regard to the west corridor, WSDOT does own the right-of-way for that.
Ed Barnes noted that with the Sportsman’s Show at the Expo Center the previous weekend, he said the traffic was terrible. He said it is also terrible when there is an event at the Convention Center or the Clark County Fair Grounds. The traffic impacts drivers headed to or from work as well. He said he thought it would be a good opportunity for the transit providers to approach the show sponsors and ask them to pick up the tab to provide a free ride to the event. He thought that needed to be promoted more. Also, he noted the open/close times could be set so they did not interfere with the drivers trying to get to and from work or the freight mobility. Fred Hansen said he understood that more folks should use transit. He said the limitations at Expo are such that it is not easy to park as many people as they take. Mr. Hansen said TriMet does actually get quite a bit of ridership on light rail from Portland to Expo for the major events. He said there are very few, maybe four, events a year that spill over the weekend. Mr. Barnes said places like the Rose Garden need to be convinced that they need to pick up the tab in order to get some of that congestion off the freeway.
Ed Barnes also noted that Battle Ground Mayor John Idsinga was the one who initiated the visioning for a new corridor. Mr. Lookingbill said part of the study looks at how you connect the new nodes of growth. He said that Battle Ground sees themselves as a node of growth, and how they connect to Camas.
Rex Burkholder said at the last meeting in November, the Bi-State Committee agreed as a group to support a study by Portland State University and Washington State University Vancouver to look at issues of bi-state significance. Mr. Burkholder introduced Sheila Martin and Carolyn Long. Ms. Martin said she appreciated some of the comments, especially what Mr. Hansen had said about keeping in mind what the ultimate goals are in terms of transportation improvements. She said that is what they are trying to focus on, the ultimate goals that we share as a region, economic vitality, getting people where they need to be, and public safety. Those basic services that we are trying to provide for our population as a region, along with what kind of institutional arrangements that are going to be most effective in helping us do that. Ms. Martin said as a reminder from the discussion in November, this is a follow up of some of the key findings from the Bi-State Conference that was held last March with both Governors. Both Governors put their support behind better mechanisms for bi-state cooperation. That was also reflected in some of the small group conversations that took place at the conference. At the request of Councilor Burkholder and Mayor Pollard, they put together a proposal for pulling out from some of the key stakeholders what they think some of the key leverage points might be and doing some background research on the benefits and costs of different institutional arrangements for bi-state cooperation. She said last week Committee members should have received a letter from the two Chairs of the Bi-State Coordination Committee asking for support for the study. She said they could answer any questions that members may have about that request. Fred Hansen said he thought it was more than a request. He said he thought they had agreed as a group that they would all support that. Members agreed that was the agreement. Ms. Martin said an invoice was included with the request letter. Jason Tell said he was not at the last meeting, but he had received the invoice. He said he had some questions, but would follow up on those later. He said if the feeling of the group that was there was for all to endorse it and pay it, he said that was fine, but that he did not totally understand it yet at this point.
Ms. Martin said the five key questions that they are going to answer include: 1) What are the key policy areas that can benefit from better arrangements for bi-state cooperation? 2) What problems and barriers can be addressed by any new tools that we would develop? 3) What is the structure and scope of current agreements between the two states? 4) What have we learned from agreements between our states and among other states about what the factors for success of these kinds of arrangements are? And 5) What are the not so good things; what are the burdens that are imposed on the parties in entering into these kinds of arrangements? Ms. Martin said they are also looking for resources that they can draw on to help states that are trying to put together these kinds of arrangements.
Carolyn Long said currently they are working on the research, collecting the information. The next step is to start identifying stakeholders in the public and private sector to talk about some of these issues. She said they would like to find out from committee members, whom they could appoint to an informal task force to aid them in the process. She said in the next two weeks, they would like to have members or have them identify someone who can serve on the informal task force to help identify the stakeholders. She said this will not require much time, possibly one meeting where they go over the list, the criteria and who they have identified, and then get their feedback. There would then be another meeting several months after they have collected the data in order to present it to the group before they come back to the Bi-State Committee to present their report. She said they would like to start the data collection in two weeks, which should take about eight weeks. Ms. Martin asked if there were any questions. She had copies of the summary sheet that was sent with the invoices. She said ultimately, they would like this to lead to some decision by the Bi-State Committee to endorse or not some new kinds of institutional arrangements to promote the bi-state cooperation. Ms. Long or Ms. Martin would phone or e-mail committee members in the next two weeks to identify the participant. Mr. Burkholder said Congressmen Baird and Congressman Blumenauer were both very interested in the progress of this. He said he thought it would be good to send a brief update to their offices saying that we are still pursuing this idea, and let them know that work is being done. Andy Cotugno said it is important to try to think as comprehensively as possible about all the kinds of institution arrangements there are out there. He said for example, the bridge agreement, traffic operations agreement, and transit operating agreement. It was noted there were emergency services response agreements. Steve Stuart said they are working on legislation to allow them to work with Multnomah County to partner on mental health at Wapato. Ms. Martin said they have been searching the state archives to identify all of those agreements that exist. She said if there were other places that they should search, they would appreciate some heads up on that. It was noted that payment of the invoices would be appreciated as soon as possible.
Don Wagner said he and Jason Tell have the same issue. He said they have talked with Dean Lookingbill and it is being worked on. He said currently, the way that paper was written, there is no transportation nexus. He said they need to change the document to include that before WSDOT can legally contribute. He said they support the concept.
Don Wagner said there is a new program in the Federal Highway Administration that is trying to generate interest in corridors of the future. They were generally supposed to be bi-state in nature and multi modal in nature. Oregon and Washington went together and defined a corridor called I-5. He said it is longer than the Columbia River Crossing. He said it goes from south of Wilsonville up to where I-205 and I-5 connect, about 30 miles in length. Mr. Wagner said the first round of competition is complete. He said they were 1 of 14 selected to go into the second round. He said that interestingly, California on I-5 also was selected to move into the second round. The indication they are receiving from the federal partners is they would really like to see all three states come together. He said they have had some conversations with California. He said they have not made any decisions at this point. The next phase applications need to be done in April. He said there is not a lot of money involved. They have heard recently that there might be $100 million in this program, and that would be between eight different corridors. He said they are going to move forward. He said for them, getting named as a Corridor of the Future is more important than the dollars that come with it. He said that is what is driving them to keep moving forward. Rex Burkholder asked if there was potential in the next authorization of the transportation bill that Corridors of the Future actually becomes a federal policy focus. Don Wagner said it could, but most of these types of programs are at the interest of one or two influential Congressmen or Senators. He said they know that there are very few dollars available in the federal transportation trust funds. Jason Tell said that more than the money, is to get USDOT and the other federal agencies to have a short list of projects that there is some attention and accountability from the tops of their agencies that they are going to work with the states involved to streamline, to expedite, to be creative. He said it is validating that this is a corridor of national significance not just a local or regional issue. By getting named, we could get some resources in the headquarters of these federal agencies that are being told to help these states; figure out a way to do that. He said we have a multimodal project, and it is not always easy to get those federal agencies to work across those modal lines. He said we really do need help. He said that is what he is focused on and hope to get out of it, and that he thought there was some potential for that.
Chair Burkholder said due to the time, the Annual Report would not be highlighted, but that it contained a summary of 2006. He also noted the meeting schedule for 2007 was distributed.
There was no citizen comment.
Steve Stuart noted that the following day at the Port of Portland, the Transportation Commissions from Oregon and Washington legislatures would be getting together to discuss the Columbia River Crossing project. The meeting is 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. He also noted that same afternoon, the State of the County speech is at 3:45 p.m. at the Clark County Event Center on the Fairgrounds Complex.
The Port of Vancouver Port Report is on February 21, 2007, at 7:30 a.m. at the Quay.
Don Wagner said some good news for those in the construction business. They just let their contract for the new interchange at SR-502 going into Battle Ground. They actually got a bid under the engineer’s estimate for the first time in a long time. It was ten percent under. He said that asphalt prices were down substantially in the bid, because they put a no risk clause in for the contractor. He thought that helped a lot. The ground breaking for the SR-502 project will be within the next 30 days.
The next Bi-State Coordination Committee meeting is scheduled for March 15, 2007, at Metro. The March meeting was later cancelled. The next meeting is May 17 at Metro.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:07 a.m.
Dean Lookingbill
Transportation Director, RTC
360-397-6067Andy Cotugno
Transportation Director, Metro
503-797-1763
       
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