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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, July 19, 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 Public Service Center 6th floor Training Room, 1300 Franklin Street, Vancouver, Washington. Those in attendance follow:
Committee Members Katy Brooks, Port of Vancouver Alternate
Rex Burkholder, Metro Councilor (Chair)
John Gillam, City of Portland Alternate
Alan Lehto, TriMet Alternate
Scott Patterson, C-TRAN Alternate
Jason Tell ODOT Region One Manager
Don Wagner, WSDOT SW Region Administrator
John Williams, City of Battle Ground Alternate
Bill Wyatt, Port of Portland Executive DirectorStaff Andy Cotugno, Metro
Mark Harrington, RTC
Dean Lookingbill, RTC
Mark Turpel, Metro
Diane Workman, RTCInterested Guests Ron Anderson, Columbia River Crossing
Ed Barnes, Washington State Transportation Commissioner
Jack Burkman, WSDOT
David Cusack, Clark County
Jim Evans, David Evans and Associates
Warren Fish, Multnomah County
Sheila Martin, Portland State University
Sharon Nasset, Citizen/ETA
John Osborn, Columbia River Crossing
Thayer Rorabaugh, City of Vancouver
Karen Shilling, Multnomah County
Kris Strickler, Columbia River Crossing
Stacy Thomas, ODOT
Walter Valenta, Citizen/Bridgeton Neighborhood Assoc.
Bill Wright, Clark CountyChair Burkholder asked if there were any corrections to the May 17, 2007, Bi-State Coordination Committee Meeting Report.
Don Wagner had a correction on page 3, 4th paragraph from the bottom. The line should read: “Don Wagner answered that, out of the 9.5-cent increase in the gas tax, 1 cent goes to the cities and counties (0.5-cents each).”
BILL WYATT MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF THE, MAY 17, 2007, MEETING REPORT WITH THE NOTED CORRECTION. DON WAGNER SECONDED THE MOTION, AND THE MOTION WAS APPROVED.
Chair Burkholder introduced Stacy Thomas, ODOT Community Affairs. She said the Delta Park Project is to widen portions of I-5 between Victory Blvd. and Lombard St. It is scheduled to start construction in the spring of 2008 and go through the fall of 2010. Ms. Thomas introduced Jim Evans with David Evans and Associates, the project manager on this project. Mr. Evans noted the three handouts that were distributed: the latest copy of the I-5: Delta Park Newsletter, a pictorial look of the schedule, and a mobility impact spreadsheet. Mr. Evans said they have been working with the trucking community at length. They realize that they will have issues when they widen I-5 and try to reconstruct it that they will have to close I-5. He said he would explain some of the closure information.
Mr. Evans said the Delta Park project will widen I-5 to three lanes. During construction, all three northbound lanes and two southbound lanes will be kept open during peak hours. They will need to close the freeway at certain times during construction at night from 11:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. Mr. Evans said the Mobility Chart is the most important feature that they have been using with the trucking community. He presented a large display map with the actual detour location throughout the project. Mr. Evans referred to the schedule noting the job will be let in January 31, 2008, and will be awarded in May. They will build for two years and complete in the fall of 2010. He said this is the schedule that they have produced, but they are looking for a contractor that can aggressively build this job a little quicker than what they have shown.
At this time, the project is on schedule; they are addressing 90 percent comments, and they will have final plans produced by August 15. Those will be reviewed, and they will produce PS & E plans in November and let the job on January 31, 2008. To answer a question regarding the HOV lane, Mr. Evans said they are going to maintain the HOV lane that is northbound throughout the duration of the project, restripe it, and sign it for HOV at the completion of the project. They do not currently have intent to stripe or sign the southbound lane. Although they are adding a lane, it does not preclude potentially designating that as an HOV lane and adding signage in the future. One of the bigger things they are doing to enhance the project is that they are taking four sign bridges that touch down in the median, and they are going to span the freeway so that will have the ability to lane manage from Lombard up to the river and shift traffic over if need be in the future. That could be a potential mix with the CRC project and potentially lane management in the future.
Mr. Evans said they have been coordinating with WSDOT to use the Variable Message sign at I-205 and also the Variable Message sign at I-205 south to notify the trucking community of what is happening at night and how to detour around if they are heading totally north. Once the project proceeds, the main detour will be on MLK. This will take trucks off Marine Drive, put them on MLK, and bring them back on Lombard. This is both northbound and southbound travel. They will have 22 night closures on the freeway in Phase 1. Phase 1 will construct the southbound side first. What is driving this is the new ramp. A contractor may decide to build the northbound first, but there are certain criteria that they need to do to complete on a certain point of time. Of the 22 nights, there will be 4 nights that are full closure of the freeway to place the sign bridges to span the freeway. It will take about one half hour to one hour to set the sign bridges, but it will probably take two to three hours to get all the traffic control and everything set up. The traffic control will actually trickle into the state of Washington. They have done this before when they did Marine Drive. They have been coordinating with WSDOT to make sure their traffic control is conducive to what is happening on the freeway. They will have portable message signs in Washington as well. The night closures will not begin until 11:30 p.m. Phase 2, the northbound build, will have 19 closures, but those will only northbound or southbound, not a full closure freeway.
Mr. Evans said they have been meeting with the trucking community to keep them informed. Some of the issues that have come up are the turn movements. They have put truck turning movements to all the turn movements to show the trucking community that they can make the turns. The big issue has been MLK and Lombard, so they will probably have to traffic control that and put flaggers out for four different nights. The big issue is when they have two-way traffic and they have trucks meeting at two intersections and not enough room to get around.
Mr. Evans said they are on schedule. This has been an aggressive project, and they have had a lot of public involvement. They have had a lot of input, and the public seems to be more concerned about Phase 2. This is all of the side street type of work. With the freeway, the biggest issue has been sound walls. They are going to limit the ability for the contractor to open it up and lay those sound walls down. They will have to maintain the sound walls and limit the time that they have a gap.
Dean Lookingbill said while there are traffic plans, it will be two lanes; he wondered how much turbulence that may cause further up stream and to what extent will it affect traffic on the north side of the river. He said the Washington side might want to think about some traffic mitigation measures as well. This could possibly mean boosting transit service. He said it seems that construction will be more restrictive in an a.m. commute than it is today, which means there will be even more backup in Clark County. Mr. Evans said they are not going to change the roadway capacity, but the reality is with construction, people will slow down. It will impact traffic. He said their intent is to maintain three lanes northbound and two lanes southbound in all the critical times. The narrow shoulders will get a little narrower so they can build the job, but when all is said and done, they will have full standard shoulders and a three-lane configuration.
Rex Burkholder asked what kind of public outreach would be done north of the river regarding the construction impacts once it starts, for the users of the facility versus the trucks. Ms. Thomas said they have been doing extended mailings and newsletters. They are trying to get people to sign up for an e mail list that will go out every Friday with the following week’s construction impacts. They are advertising on the morning radio just prior to the start of the impact. They will have advertising in the newspapers. They will have an open house with the contractor once he gets on board to discuss the schedule. They will be advertising on both sides of the river.
Rex Burkholder said Sheila Martin would give an update on the work that she and Caroline Long have been working on regarding the issues of having a state border between a metropolitan area. Ms. Martin distributed a handout that contained an outline of the draft final report, a list of the questions that they asked for the local stakeholders interviews, a list of the key themes that they are beginning to see coming out of the interviews, and a list of the stakeholders that were interviewed. The interviewees list is two-part. One set of interviewees is the local stakeholders. The second set is the set of interviewees that they interviewed over the phone in order to get a national perspective on issues between states that share a metropolitan area.
Ms. Martin said that the Summary of the Key Themes is still draft. She said that she and Caroline are checking each other’s work, in the sense that she is reading all of the interviews that Caroline did and Caroline is reading all that she did in order to make sure that their individual biases are not coming into the summaries of their interviews. That is not yet completed. These are the most frequent responses that they found. Not every single comment is summarized.
Ms. Martin highlighted the Summary of Key Themes. They asked folks what projects that they have been involved in that they consider successes. People consider the I-5 Corridor and the Columbia River Crossing Project to be pretty successful and that the states have worked together well on this project. With respect to economic development, the formation of the 4-county EDC is considered a success. There was a lot of agreement with respect to what people consider the factors for success in the projects that they have been involved in and what they would consider important to success in the future. Some of those include a shared recognition of the problem, understanding of joint benefits/aligned interests, political leadership, and personal relationships. Transportation, economic development, higher education (primarily in Washington), and planning were all issues that need to have better cooperation. The challenges break down into organizational or legal challenges, which has to do with the fact that we are in two different states and have different legal structures. Differences in the tax structures were seen as both a barrier and benefit. Informational barriers are seen as a lack of understanding of each side’s political situation. The physical barrier has to do with traffic and the distance between the two state capitals as well as the difference in the states legislative schedules. The advantages from closer cooperation include efficiency, using economies of scale to save public resources; influence, the ability to pull both congressional delegations together to be more effective in getting federal funding; information, learning from each others experiences and sharing information; and the regional imperative, many issues can only be effectively addressed at a regional scale. In regard to perceived disadvantages of bi-state coordination, some felt that there were none. Some were nervous about the prospect of each state losing its individual identity, losing control or uniqueness. This becomes particularly important when more formal institutional arrangements are concerned. The institutional arrangements to be explored included everything from completely informal processes to more formal regional arrangements such as MOUs, interagency agreements with a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities. Ms. Martin said the message that she received was to make sure that the solution fit the problem. Each situation needs to be looked at individually to identify the problem to be solved and then what the instrument is that is required in order to make cooperation easier to do.
Ms. Martin said they have an Advisory Committee that was put together at the start of the project that helped develop the list of interviewees and the list of questions. She said the information will be e-mailed to them asking for comments as well as the Bi-State Coordination Committee Members. Ms. Martin said she and Caroline are still checking each other’s work, and they still have a few people that that they would like to interview. They are also still pursuing executive directors of organizations in other states. She asked members for their comments.
Jason Tell asked in regard to the Key Policy issues of transportation, if there were specific issues that were common or if it was a range of different ideas, or just transportation alone. Ms. Martin said it depended on who was being interviewed. She said it is universal that because the joint infrastructure is an area where there is no way to do it well without mistakes, but with respect to the problems that people see, that varied. She said they didn’t identify specific projects, but there were issues with respect to differences in the institutional structures between the two states, Commissions, and the governance of transportation and the funding.
John Gillam asked how the cooperation was for education. Ms. Martin said that was an interesting one, because in SW Washington for a long time there has been a perceived real lack of service. Now with WSU Vancouver being a four-year university, they’re feeling that the future of higher education service in SW Washington is very strong. However, since there are limited resources, why should they be duplicating things like graduate level programs between the two states when they are in a single metropolitan area and serving similar groups of students. However, there are a lot of institutional issues that get in the way of allowing for example, Washington State students to be served on the Oregon side of the border and vice versa.
Dean Lookingbill asked if anything came to the surface through this such as a project or a specific area for an MOU, something that we could begin with. He said often times with something like this, it is talked about and thought about, and agree about it, and then two or three years later it’s talked about and thought about again. Ms. Martin said she didn’t want to bring up specifics at this point. She wanted to confirm issues before bringing them forward. She said she did recall that some of the planning information could be better shared between the two states. How the way that Washington does forecasts and the way that Metro does forecasts maybe could be better coordinated with respect to the timing and the way the information is developed and shared. She said she talked with the folks at OFM about the possibility of starting conversations about that. She said that leaks into the areas of transportation planning/land use planning and those areas. Mr. Lookingbill questioned if there was something out of this information that someone might take on to move this to a success of a new area of bi-state coordination. Ms. Martin said there are a number of opportunities that will probably be listed in the final report. There were some public safety issues when interviewing the two sheriffs. They both agreed that there is a lot of cooperation going on already, because of the necessity, but also recognition that some of the agreements could be broadened in scope.
Rex Burkholder said this project also helps organize the information in such a way that if we want to address a problem, we will be able to address it. He said he is looking forward to the final report. He said it would have next steps, some of which will include the Bi-State Coordination Committee and some outside of the transportation and economic development area, which is the Committee’s charge. He said members should be thinking how we might distribute this information, how to get it to the decision makers that do not sit on the Bi-State Committee.
Ms. Martin said the Institute is planning another Bi-State Conference, possibly November. Some of what comes out of this could lead into the discussion that happens at the conference.
Rex Burkholder said the Columbia River Crossing project is a very large project that many have put a lot of their time into. He said each individual jurisdiction will be wrestling with various pieces in terms of how it affects their community, how to manage the transit, and many other big decisions they will have to make as part of the project. Today’s discussion is to look at the upcoming schedule, with a staff recommendation tentatively set for November 2007. There will not be another meeting of the larger stakeholder group until that time. Mr. Burkholder said the question is how we share among our various jurisdictions the issues, concerns, and desires that we may have in terms of what may come out of the project. He said a big part is the coordination and understanding of each other’s needs and desires so it is clear where we stand.
Dean Lookingbill referred to the memorandum included in the meeting packet. He noted the purpose of the CRC project is a bridge, transit, and highway improvement project to address the congestion and mobility problems on I-5 between Washington and Oregon, a mix of transit and highway solutions are needed. The DEIS process is now well underway and is studying the following alternatives: replacement bridge with bus rapid transit, replacement bridge with light rail, supplemental bridge with bus rapid transit, supplemental bridge with light rail, and no build. The CRC project is in the process of refining the details and analysis for each of the alternatives. Key issues to be addressed include: public transit, freight improvements, efficiencies, pedestrian and bicycle improvements, effects to air, soil, and water, HOV lanes, tolling, and bridge type, appearance, and alignment.
Mr. Lookingbill said the Bi-State Coordination Committee is set up as a standing advisory committee both to RTC and to JPACT/Metro to advise them on all issues of bi-state transportation significance. In the CRC discussions this fall, the Bi-State Committee has a roll of providing an advisory recommendation on the locally preferred alternative, both to RTC and to JPACT/Metro.
Key issues to address in this project include: replacement or supplemental bridge, number and type of lanes, transit mode and owner/operator, tolling, and funding. Local government actions include: amend transportation plans, transportation investment programs, and land use. Mr. Lookingbill noted a matrix that would assist jurisdictions in this process would be distributed and discussed later in the presentation.
Mr. Lookingbill said the meeting packet information also included a memo from the Columbia River Crossing to the Bi-State Committee that details what is included in the locally preferred alternative, an overview of the schedule, and an example of what the City of Vancouver has planned to brief their Council and address some specific issues.
Mr. Lookingbill introduced John Osborn, Columbia River Crossing Co-Director. Mr. Osborn said the background to this project began with the I-5 Partnership Project. There were specific recommendations that came out of that work that they have used as a basis to start the Columbia River Crossing project. This was the third project that came out of that work. There was a recommendation to take care of I-5 in the Salmon Creek area, which has already been done. The other project that was a recommendation was the Delta Park project. The Columbia River Crossing project is really how to connect those two other projects in the I-5 corridor. The regional policy said there needs to be three through lanes through the corridor, which is what the Delta Park and the Salmon Creek projects did. There was a recommendation that came out based on the information at that time of the I-5 Partnership to have five lanes in each direction across the river. Specifically, there was a light rail transit recommendation to cross the river and to make TDM and TSM in all of the alternatives looked at. Also, there was a recommendation to establish a Community Environmental Justice Group. He said all of that has been done as a basis, except he said, on light rail. There is also another viable alternative in bus rapid transit. Since the work that has been done on I-5, it appears now as a much more viable option. He said they are exploring that to make sure that all options are looked at.
Following the I-5 Partnership recommendations, there were changes made in the Long Range local and regional plans where folks adopted some of those recommendations in the long range list if not on the fiscally constrained list. Those ideas were incorporated in the comp plans for both cities of Portland and Vancouver.
Milestones include: work to identify the problems, the vision of what they would solve with the Columbia River Crossing project, what they would use to measure the ideas, identify the large range of potential solutions, screen those ideas and narrow down, produce alternative packages, and move five alternatives in to the DEIS.
The CRC project is in the process of refining the details and analysis for each of the five alternatives. In November, they plan to have a staff recommendation. Essentially, this will say they have analyzed the alternatives and this is what they have found and this is what they recommend. Mr. Osborn referred to the project development schedule included with the memorandum. During November, December, and January, they will work to refine the staff recommendation. In February, they will publish the DEIS and Draft LPA (Locally Preferred Alternative). In March they will have public involvement, and try to get Task Force adoption of the Locally Preferred Alternative. They will then work with the signatories of the EIS in May to get adoption of the Locally Preferred alternative. Following the transit agencies and the cities adoption in May, RTC and Metro will address in June. The next step is the FTA New Starts Application in August. They will then work to prepare the Final EIS until mid 2009, when they hope to get their Record of Decision. Mr. Osborn said there would be a finance plan that is in the locally preferred alternative.
Mr. Osborn distributed a chart/table listing local governments and key CRC project decisions they will need to make as related to the CRC project. This is an example to assist jurisdictions in making those decisions and give feedback to the CRC Staff. The key decisions include: which HCT mode will be used, bus rapid transit or light rail; what is the alignment; will it be a supplemental or replacement bridge; and what strategy will be used to put together the funding? Toll rates will be addressed a couple years out. If they have tolling, they will produce a report with the benefits and impacts.
Rex Burkholder noted that as stated in the memorandum, the number and type of lanes is also a key issue decision. Mr. Osborn said that regional policy is set as such that the capacity is three through lanes in the corridor. He said staff will look at the operational and safety aspects, and look at what it will take to achieve that. He said they would recommend five or six lanes if that is what it needs and it is safe. Rex Burkholder said the decision of who the owner/operator will be would also need to be decided.
Don Wagner referred to the CRC schedule for the Vancouver City Council. He noted that this was just one agency that will be taking action, and the numerous days they will be meeting in 2007. The CRC staff will be meeting every other week with the Vancouver City Council to discuss different aspects of the project to make them comfortable with it. This is so a year from now, they are comfortable enough and educated enough about the project to be able to make a decision in a timely fashion to move the project forward. This is only one of several agencies; CRC staff will be very busy going before several city councils, county commissions, and boards to make certain that everyone has an opportunity to fully understand what is happening. He said they would be receiving input back from the workshops that will be filtered into the LPA.
Mr. Wagner noted as a benefit to this region, that on the previous Monday, the first electronic tolling project in the State of Washington opened successfully. He said there have been discussions in this region about electronic tolling versus tollbooths. He said the goal on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was to have 60,000 transponders in vehicles by opening day. They had over 107,000. There were no lines at the tollbooth. He said part of that was the tolling structure; it is a one-way toll, $1.75 if you have an electronic toll. If you want to stop and put your toll in, it is $3.00. He said Washington now has electronic tolling, and people are getting used to it. He said the reports after one week of operation in the Seattle and Tacoma papers has been great. He said they really seem to have bought off on electronic tolling. He said that we can benefit with local experience with tolling. That toll is a fixed toll not a variable toll. There may be some differences in what we want to do in this region, but can learn from this experience.
Rex Burkholder said a key is that every agency will be heavily involved in this CRC project. A key role the Bi-State Coordination Committee plays is to coordinate and share between the agencies about what our interests are. The first chart that was distributed is to help this group look at what those issues and positions of the various agencies. The second chart is the type of action that each different agency will have to engage in. They are not the same. He noted that obviously, the City of Vancouver and the City of Portland will have to make the land use decisions. Metro and RTC do not have to do that; they will just change the Regional Transportation Plans. There are different levels of actions each agency needs to make. He said all have their opinions on the various parts, and the idea is to share that between the Bi-State Committee and the CRC staff. Mr. Burkholder said between the time the findings and the information about the various options comes out and the time the staff recommendation is put together, there is a unique opportunity as partners in this to put our concerns in. Mr. Burkholder said the Bi-State Coordination Committee will need to make a recommendation before the RTC and Metro/JPACT decision-making takes place. He said over the next few months they need to communicate their thoughts and concerns.
Mr. Lookingbill said they had a response from the Port of Vancouver on this. Katy Brooks from the Port of Vancouver said they would be having a special session with their commission and the CRC staff. She said staff at the Port used the chart that was distributed to base their topics of discussion and positions. She said their “positions” are what they want to advocate for and want written down on paper, especially the area of discussion around Fourth Plain, which is important to them in the future. A lot of their comments are related to that intersection at Fourth Plain, but also the relationship of mass transit and how it crosses Fourth Plain and Mill Plain. Regardless of what alignment is chosen, something for the flow of freight is going to be of great interest to the Port. They are expecting some very significant growth within the next five years, certainly within the next ten years. It is becoming more apparent to the Port that Fourth Plain is going to be critical, as a lot of other uses will have build-out influences there. She said as for the owner/operator, who ever does it need to realize it is a freight corridor between Canada and Mexico. The Port of Vancouver did take a position on the tolling issue. She said they are for electronic tolling. The reason being that moving freight up and down that corridor needs to be fast for velocity and reliability. That can only be achieved with electronic tolling. Tolling is chosen as a way of funding and transportation demand management. In regard to the actual crossing, they are looking at Terminal 1 and its future. She said they can see the writing on the wall, and they have discussed this at length. They have asked what is the best use of the land. She said at this point, they are admitting that the Inn at the Quay is probably not going to be with them that much longer. If it is not, they wish to minimize the impacts to that piece of property. It is obviously important to them for cash flow, as an asset, and also to the City of Vancouver as a public asset for access and development. Rex Burkholder said that is the type of discussion that he would like to see agencies gather and bring back and share. He requested that Bi-State members bring this information to the next meeting for discussion. This would be helpful to get it on the table and helpful to the two DOTs. He said an e-mail could go out with a reminder and the electronic file of the chart. Don Wagner applauded what the Port did in saying here are the issues. He said he thought it is a little early to take positions, but by having the issues, that will help flush out the data, so they have the right data to answer the questions that are identified as high priority. Alan Lehto said he seconded that comment. He said it is the detail that needs to be done to have the discussions of the issues. Mr. Burkholder said this is to list the issues and areas of concern not what position will be on the LPA.
Dean Lookingbill said they are moving forward with the Corridors Visioning Study and along with that the area of a third Columbia River crossing. He said new transportation corridors take a considerable amount of time to plan for and build; therefore, the RTC Board initiated the New Transportation Corridors Visioning Study back in late 2006. The purpose of the Study and its primary focus is to answer the question “How will we get around within our own community in the longer-term future if Clark County reaches one million in population”. Mr. Lookingbill said Clark County is currently at 415,000. The to be adopted Growth Management Plan is at about 600,000 population. He said their first challenge was that they have a 20-year land use plan, but not a 50-year land use plan, and they needed to figure how to put in 400,000 more people and another 300,000 jobs. He said the decision was to have a continuing trend of what is in the current Comp plans. He said they extracted various non-developable lands, but also looked at elevation. They said they did not put homes where there was more than 800-foot elevation and no employment above 400-foot elevation. For the Oregon side, they worked with the Metro staff and added about 3 million people and 2 million jobs. They then began the travel modeling process using what was in the Regional Transportation Plans, and they did assume a Columbia River Crossing project as part of the assumptions. Mr. Lookingbill said they mostly focused in Clark County, so they have a network of rural two-lane roads, so they expanded capacity in order to make it work. That then set them up to look at where the new regional corridors might be. Mr. Lookingbill displayed a map showing some of the areas of growth. The Corridors Visioning Study focuses primarily on where new transportation corridors might be needed to connect places and nodes of growth in Clark County. Mr. Lookingbill highlighted some of those areas. Included in the discussion was the corridor east which would also include a river crossing possibly near 192nd in Clark County.
Mr. Lookingbill introduced Mark Harrington to discuss the travel demand information. Mr. Harrington noted when forecasting is done for 50 plus years, remember that it is a future look. To get a context of the future look at cross-river travel, in 2005, the average daily Columbia River vehicle crossings were 285,000. In the CRC project for 2030, their no-build highway no-built transit is 394,000 vehicles a day crossing the river both I-5 and I-205 corridors. In the 50-year plus look, with 4 million people in the metropolitan area and 2.5 million jobs, they are forecasting 480,000 vehicle trips a day crossing the river (This includes the I-5 CRC highway improvements, but no additional crossings.) Mr. Harrington said they estimate about 11,000 vehicle capacity in each direction on the I 5 Bridge at its expansion; that is 22,000 in both directions per hour. The current I-205 bridge is about 8,800 in each direction, so it is approaching 18,000 in both directions. Added together that is about 40,000 vehicles an hour on the two bridges cross river, 148,000 a day; that is 12 hours at capacity for both bridges. This means at this long distance future look, there is potential need for an additional crossing across the river for capacity. Mr. Harrington said their initial look shows a lot of the growth was heaver on the east side, and from the work that is going on at Metro a lot of current expansion is looking to the south and east side. With this in mind, they looked at the interchanges at 192nd Avenue and SR-14 on the Washington side, and 181st and I-84 on the Oregon side. This would essentially connect two interchanges, which have some arterials heading north and south from that. At capacity, they expect to see some additional demand. Mr. Harrington said he looked at adding a four-lane bridge, two lanes in each direction and increased the demand by about 30,000 vehicles a day. This would then take it from about 480,000 to 510,000 vehicles. In the peak period, they saw a decrease of about 20% of the volume on I-205. The I-5 Bridge saw no change in volume. In adding capacity across the Columbia River no matter what side they put it (east or west), they have seen a decrease in volume of demand on I-205, but I-5 remains at the same level. He said they then looked at the demand that the new crossing was serving. He said like in other places, the influences are within about 5 miles of the bridgeheads on each side. One of the largest changes in flows, and somewhat to be expected, was a slight bypass of the I-205 bridge in connecting both the I-5 north exit and I-84. Mr. Harrington said this is a preliminary look, and next is to look if there are additional locations east of I-205 and possibilities west of I-5.
Dean Lookingbill said this is a first look and asked Committee members for any observations or opinions. Mr. Lookingbill noted the need to give attention to the land use issues on each side. If accessibility is changed significantly, land use can be expected to change. The objective needs to be determined.
Jason Tell said he thought the objective was a good end point. He said one way to look at it is with the population growth forecasted, a bypass was created around the congested corridors, across the river and down I-84 and back around to the city. As far as an objective and the numbers that were used for jobs/housing balances, he asked if there were ways to have strategies to keep jobs and people close to their jobs on that side of the river. Mr. Lookingbill said they are just taking a first step. He said the second step is more about issues. He said for their charge for the study, they don’t have a process set up where they iterate through that land use discussion, but he said that is very important. What they do impacts the land use, which means there needs to be discussion of what the goals are. The objective in the project is not to determine the land use scenario, but rather to recognize that what ever is developed will affect the land use.
Rex Burkholder said the value of something like this is the fact that it is raising those questions. He said he recalls earlier discussions at RTC, where there was a somewhat simplistic view of what the impact is of putting a large new facility in, especially on the east side of the region. It was only looked at as a benefit in terms of speed of getting around. Having those implications laid out is an important piece of this.
Sharon Nasset from Portland, Oregon, asked the Bi-State Committee to take the information from the Columbia River Crossing that states that the Port of Vancouver, the Port of Portland, and the transcontinental rail lines are inside the bridge influence area. She said she would like them to look at the I-5 Task Force documents that say the Columbia River Crossing bridge influence area does include two transcontinental rail lines and two Ports. She distributed two documents. She said that as the CRC has been going out and talking with the public about what is planed, she feels that people are shocked with the number of possible impacts that the project involves. She said there are other options, such as looking at the Bi-State Industrial Corridor. This is a new freeway to the Port of Vancouver, taking fewer houses, and another corridor crossing with local access. She said this is one third of the cost. She said this is in the bridge influence area, and in screening A no alignment was taken out and no engineering was taken and facts were not looked at. She said they only used studies that were previously taken with not enough information to make a decision. She said the facts need to be looked at, and that the current corridor will not help congestion, cost billions of dollars, and cause devastation. She said people are wondering why elected officials are not looking at this. She said she has been coming to meetings for seven years, and thinks this option needs to be addressed to make a decision. Ms. Nasset said she wanted it on record that they acknowledge the bridge influence area includes the two ports, two transcontinental rail lines, and a Bi-State industrial corridor.
The next Bi-State Coordination Committee meeting is scheduled for September 20, 2007, at Metro. The September meeting was later cancelled and the next meeting scheduled for October 18, 2007, in the 6th floor Training Room at the Clark County Public Service Center.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:03 a.m.
Dean Lookingbill
Transportation Director, RTC
360-397-6067Andy Cotugno
Transportation Director, Metro
503-797-1763
       
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