Below are the minutes for the Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council Board of Directors Meeting, held on Tuesday, April 7, 2009, at 4:00 p.m. at the Clark County Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin Street, Vancouver, Washington. The agenda for this meeting is also available.
I. Call to Order and Roll Call of Members
The Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council Board of Directors Meeting was called to order by Chair Steve Stuart on Tuesday, April 7, 2009, at 4 p.m. at the Clark County Public Service Center Sixth Floor Training Room, Vancouver, Washington. Attendance follows.
Board Members Present Nancy Baker, Port of Vancouver Commissioner
Marc Boldt, Clark County Commissioner
Molly Coston, Washougal Council Member
Jeff Hamm, C-TRAN Executive Director
Pat McDonnell, Vancouver City Manager
Tom Mielke, Clark County Commissioner
Paul Pearce, Skamania County Commissioner
Royce Pollard, Vancouver Mayor
Steve Stuart, Clark County Commissioner
Don Wagner, WSDOT Regional Administrator
Board Members AbsentRex Burkholder, Metro Councilor
Bill Ganley, Battle Ground Council Member
Brian Prigel, Bingen Mayor
Jason Tell, ODOT Region One Manager
Jim Honeyford, Senator 15th District:
Bruce Chandler, Representative 15th District:
David Taylor, Representative 15th District
Don Benton, Senator 17th District
Tim Probst, Representative 17th District
Deb Wallace, Representative 17th District
Joe Zarelli, Senator18th District
Ed Orcutt, Representative 18th District
Jaime Herrera, Representative 18th District
Craig Pridemore, Senator 49th District
Jim Jacks, Representative 49th District
Jim Moeller, Representative 49th District
Guests PresentRon Anderson, Columbia River Crossing
Ed Barnes, Labor Round Table
Bart Gernhart, WSDOT
Dan Green, WSDOT
Jeanne Harris, Vancouver Council Member
Mark Herceg, City of Battle Ground
Schuyler Hoss, Governor Gregoire’s Office
Monica Isbell, Starbord Alliance Company
Addison Jacobs, Port of Vancouver
Jim Karlock, Citizen
Dick Malin, Central Park Neighborhood
Sharon Nasset, ETA
Philip Parker, WA Transportation Commissioner
Scott Patterson, C-TRAN
Debbie Peterson, Citizen
Kimberly Pincheira, Rep. Brian Baird’s Office
Thayer Rorabaugh, City of Vancouver
Susie Serres, David Evans and Assoc.
Theresa Wagner, Senator Patty Murray’s Office
Andrew Young, MacKay & Sposito
Sharon Zimmerman, WSDOT
Staff PresentLynda David, Senior Transportation Planner
Mark Harrington, Transportation Analyst
Bob Hart, Transportation Section Supervisor
Dean Lookingbill, Transportation Director
Dale Robins, Senior Transportation Planner
Diane Workman, Administrative/Staff AssistantII. Approval of March 3, 2009, Minutes
MARC BOLDT MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF THE MARCH 3, 2009, MEETING MINUTES. THE MOTION WAS SECONDED BY PAUL PEARCE AND UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED.
III. Citizen Communications
Sharon Nasset of Portland thanked Chair Stuart and Commissioner Mielke for the opportunity to meet with Dean Lookingbill and Bob Hart. Ms. Nasset noted a rally in Portland over the weekend. She said there were about 500 people who attended and some elected officials as well. Part of the discussion was about a letter that Senator Benton sent and was signed by other elected officials that stated that the Columbia River Crossing must have a supplemental EIS to fully study the port to port connector. She said not only were people there who were “no to light rail”, there were folks who wanted a 12-lane bridge but in a different location. She said there were a lot of people with varying views. She said they missed the point that we have the support of many elected officials.
Chair Stuart noted that later in the agenda, Dean would respond to questions that Sharon Nasset had brought up at the March RTC Board meeting.
Ed Barnes a Vancouver citizen said he did not go to the rally in Portland because he did not want to be with the folks that are not supportive of the Columbia River Crossing. He said he fully supports it. Mr. Barnes distributed a resolution that calls for “Buy America”. He said it has to do with spending US money. He has taken it to the County and City of Vancouver, and will be taking it to the other cities in Clark County. Mr. Barnes noted that the Chinese and the French and other countries have already adopted similar resolutions. Mr. Barnes said that when stimulus money is spent, the tax payers’ dollars should buy American. There is also a clause that says that if there is no product of that type available, that you can go outside the Buy America clause. He said we need to start supporting America and American jobs and businesses, local businesses, and local manufacturers. He encouraged the RTC Board to do this because they have made recommendations for projects that will have stimulus money in them.
Marc Boldt said the Clark County has adopted the resolution. He said they added buy local, and they urged their citizens to spend their sales tax on this side of the river. Chair Stuart said if this was of interest of the Board, they could have Dean prepare something for the May meeting. Pat McDonnell said this has been presented to the City Council and they are reviewing it and said he would appreciate a copy of what the County has adopted. It was the Boards recommendation to prepare something for the May meeting.
Debbie Peterson, a Vancouver resident, said as she has many times before that there are not benefits of light rail in the CRC project. She said the Markham Bridge is far worse than the I-5 Bridge. She said there are historical failures of light rail, and survey’s that have said that they were against light rail. Ms. Peterson said they are currently surveying Vancouver businesses, and the survey is not complete yet. She said of the 15 that have been surveyed, 8 said they thought it would be bad for business, and 4 said that it would be good. She said she thought this should say something. Ms. Peterson said she has provided information but has not received information back. She said she would like someone who has studied light rail to tell her why they want to have light rail come to Vancouver. She said she does not want to hear about the future. She said she thinks that is naļve, that with the technology that is happening now, we don’t know what the 20-year future will look like. She said she did not think that future use would be an appropriate answer. Also, she did not want to hear that it is going to be all government funded and that we would not have to pay for it. She said that is not the case. She asked why any of the Board Members want light rail in Vancouver.
Jeff Hamm said that he would be happy to sit down with Ms. Peterson and explain the reasons why. He said in terms of congestion management, in terms of reduction on energy dependence, in terms of greenhouse gases, he said it makes sense to have another mode of transportation available across the river in a high capacity mode. They have looked at the DEIS, and C-TRAN has looked at the analysis of BRT versus light rail. They have concluded that light rail is going to provide higher capacity at a lower operating cost in the future.
Ms. Peterson asked if she could respond to that. Chair Stuart said this is a good conversation to have and a necessary conversation, but during Citizen Communications is not the time for that. Jeff Hamm can follow up with the meeting.
IV. Consent Agenda
- April Claims
- 2009-2012 Metropolitan Transportation Improvement Program Amendment: City of Vancouver 39th Street Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Improvements, Resolution 04-09-10
PAUL PEARCE MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF THE CONSENT AGENDA APRIL CLAIMS AND RESOLUTION 04-09-10. THE MOTION WAS SECONDED BY MARC BOLDT AND UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED.
V. RTC Bylaw Amendment, Resolution 04-09-11
Dean Lookingbill noted the resolution with the full set of bylaws with the proposed amendment. Mr. Lookingbill said the action being requested is to amend the bylaws observing the required steps as they are stated. The bylaw amendment was brought before the Board at their March meeting by the Bylaws Committee. Mr. Lookingbill said a Bylaw amendment requires an affirmative vote of sixty percent of all voting Board members, which equals nine members. The proposed amendment would change the City of Vancouver’s second representative from the City Manager to a City Council Member.
MARC BOLDT MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF THE RTC BYLAW AMENDMENT, RESOLUTION 04-09-11, AND TO ALSO THANK CITY MANAGER PAT MCDONNELL FOR HIS SERVICE TO THE RTC BOARD AND CONTINUED SUPPORT. THE MOTION WAS SECONDED BY DON WAGNER AND UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED.
VI. Clark County Freight Mobility Study: Consultant Selection, Draft Scope of Work and Budget, Resolution 04-09-12
Lynda David said the Clark County Freight Mobility Study is anticipated to articulate why freight and goods movement is important to Clark County’s economy, is important in sustaining jobs in the region, and will look forward to plan for future employment growth. The Study will also provide understanding of the key elements of freight movement. Ms. David noted that at the December 2008 RTC Board meeting, action was taken to initiate the consultant selection process for the Study and a Request for Qualifications was subsequently issued.
Resolution 04-09-12 requests RTC Board authorization to enter into an agreement with a consultant team led by David Evans and Associates in partnership with BST Associates, Heffron Transportation, and Starboard Alliance to provide assistance for the Freight Study. Action on this resolution will also amend RTC’s 2009 budget to include funding for the Study and amend RTC’s FY 2009 Unified Planning Work Program to include the Clark County Freight Mobility Study work element.
Ms. David outlined the consultant selection process. She said the Request for Qualifications was published on February 4, 2009, and on February 19, submittals were received from five consultant teams. The evaluation panel included staff from RTC, Clark County, the City of Vancouver, and the Ports of Vancouver and Ridgefield. The consultant selection panel chose to interview three of the five consultant teams. All three were highly qualified to assist in the Study. In the end, the evaluation panel decided that the best-qualified team was the team led by David Evans and Associates. The Resolution provides more detail on the Study background and an outline of the work scope.
Ms. David said two members of the consultant team were there to provide an introduction to the Study. Susie Serres, Project Manager, is with DEA and Monica Isbell is with Starboard Alliance and is an expert in freight logistics, including shipper supply chains. Ms. David turned the presentation over to Susie Serres.
Ms. Serres provided a PowerPoint presentation. She said she was excited to be at the RTC meeting and honored to have the opportunity to work on this important study. Ms. Serres said it is important to ask why it is important to invest in freight mobility planning when there are so many other important and competing needs for our roadway system. She said that more than half the goods leaving our ports are from Washington State. Nearly 1 in 3 jobs in Washington are related to freight. These are some of the messages that they will be talking about in the study and helping educate the public about. When freight can’t move, those jobs are at risk. The 2007-2008 storms cost the state $75 million in lost income and taxes due to freight-related losses. These storms stopped traffic on I-5 and I-90 for four days. The freight study will look at these types of impacts to see what the economic value of our freight roadway is in Clark County. RTC is leading the way to ensure that Clark County can attract and retain these important freight related jobs now and in the future. They will look at the cargo through the ports and map where that freight is moving both on the roadways and the railroads, map the intermodal connections, find bottlenecks, and find solutions to those bottlenecks. They will also be looking at the land uses to find where freight wants to go and how the land uses can support that. They will look at the highest priority land uses. They are looking to develop an economic opportunity picture for Clark County working with RTC, the County, and the cities and ports to develop the best for the future for freight mobility and freight related land uses.
Ms. Serres said their consultant team has several folks that have been working on the Columbia River Crossing Project, and they have also done the freight study for the CRC. This gives them some background information. The heaviest freight corridor in Clark County is I-5. I-5 is similar to the Green River Valley Corridor. Highway 167 and the Green River Valley is the third largest warehouse corridor on the West Coast. Peak hour trips on Highway 167 are 450 trips an hour, and on I-5, they are 790 trips. 48 percent of these trips are local trips. What is important about that is that those trips need an origin or destination within the Portland/Clark County area. Mr. Serres said they bring to the study data that they already have in-house, and it seems to be able to tie this to some of the other knowledge base that their team has in working in the Puget Sound.
Monica Isbell also commented on how excited their team was to do this project for the region. She said her specialty is more on shipper supply chains. She said shipper supply chains from the source, whether it is foreign or domestic, to the customer in the stores or distributions centers are very complex and fragile. They are also very dynamic. One of the things that they are going to do is study some global trade and transportation trends that are relevant to this region. Because the shippers really change their supply chains based on these trends. They have to always be nimble. The way they change the supply chains makes a difference in how they actually use the multimodal transportation systems. This includes the ports, airports, highways, local roads, and railroads. The whole system is the multimodal transportation system. They plan to study some relevant trends and extrapolate how they might impact what is going on in this region. Ms. Isbell said they believe that Clark County government officials need to understand how shippers are using the systems and how they are going to use them in the future. This might include shippers shifting modes of transport. They might decide to shift some portion of their cargo from rail to truck or the reverse. They may choose to bring their cargo into different gateways or out of different gateways, and that may impact what to do in terms of strategies for planning efforts. It is important because as officials, you need to make these decisions for strategies not just based on economic forecast and historical data. This part of the study is going to flush out and add to what is going to be done by their team members on the economic forecasting side.
They plan to interview a diverse group of shippers, both in the region and outside of the region to understand how they actually use the transportation system today. This would be to move their raw materials, components, and finished products either in, out, or through this region. Ms. Isbell said they are going to have a very pointed questionnaire for the shippers. In the questionnaire they will flush out the major freight routes that they are using and where they might be facing bottle necks. They will ask for input as far as what they expect to do in the future in terms of their distribution strategies, where they are going to locate distribution centers in the region and why or why not. Also, how the bottlenecks are impacting their bottom line. All of this will tie into the land use planning. We need to understand how the shippers are going to impact that land use strategy. They also intend to talk to a few logistics service providers to understand how the bottlenecks that they encounter while moving freight on behalf of their customers. This would be the motor carriers, the railroads, ports, some freight forwarding companies.
Ms. Isbell said she had attended the Trans Pacific Maritime Conference in Los Angeles last month. She said one of the panels was on national transportation infrastructure and funding mechanisms. She knew two of the men on the panel, one being her husband John Isbell who is the director of delivery logistics for Nike, and Rick Gabrielson who is a transportation executive at Target. Both of these men serve on federal transportation committees. Rick talked about how even though he recognizes the need for government to collect better data and more data, one of the things that he really stressed as being very important is to have government listen to the shippers and understand what is going on with the shippers and their supply chain so that the policies and strategies that elected officials will be developing are not done in a vacuum. They really need to understand that if they build something, but some global trend changes the whole picture of how supply chains are used, then maybe that decision might not have been the best one.
Commissioner Boldt asked if they were going to study our smaller airports as far as freight movement is concerned.
Monica Isbell said she had concerns whether this could be accomplished with the Study budget. She said they are going to have to be very targeted in who they talk to to ensure they get really good representative information. She said they can certainly take the issue under advisement. When you think about international trade, it is coming through PDX or SeaTac rather than the local airports.
Commissioner Boldt said the only reason he asked is because under growth management they have to protect airports, and it’s hard to protect airports such as Pearson and Grove Field. It is an issue they will have to deal with as it relates to freight so it would be helpful if this was addressed.
Susie Serres said they talked about how to integrate the airports and freight movement, and they talked about incorporating them as an intermodal connection and looking at how freight moves through those, from one mode to another. They will be looking at how cargo is moving through all the ports, air, marine, and other modal connections. So, they will not be ignored.
Commissioner Boldt said they were talking about infrastructure, and another headache they have is truck parking, and he asked if this was going to be addressed.
Susie Serres said yes. One of the things they are going to do is they will have a Committee. She said this is mentioned in the meeting materials. Some of the issues that Commissioner Boldt is mentioning will come up through the Committee and will help influence the specific targeted work that they are going to be doing. Ms. Serres anticipates that truck parking will be an issue with freight movers. They are going to have to figure out what level of work will go into addressing this issue as they figure out where most emphasis needs to be. She said they expect to be given guidance.
Paul Pearce said he recognized that this is a Clark County study, but his friends in east Clark County and Skamania County are very interested in truck traffic on SR-14, especially through truck traffic. SR-14 is a beautiful scenic highway and said he cannot figure out why all the trucks are using SR-14 instead of I-84. He hopes this can help to get them some answers. They have a lot of anecdotal reasons, but they certainly do not have any good answers. Through truck traffic is traveling through east Clark County, Skamania, and Klickitat into the Tri-Cities on a two-lane, very scenic highway.
Secondly, Paul Pearce said he is especially interested in the rail traffic through the Gorge. When they had the derailment of the Amtrak train two years ago, when they were doing their mop-up at their Emergency Operations Center, BNSF turned in a report that it cost them $1 million a minute for that line to be closed down which he said was astonishing to him, and if it’s true then they need to be doing better planning in his county as it relates to that.
Jeff Hamm commented that he had a relative who makes a living transporting goods from Montana to here and says it’s easy to get around the scales on SR-14. Mr. Hamm asked if the Study was going to produce some deliverables like a prioritized list of capital investments to achieve a set of objectives that the Study is also going to be determining.
Lynda David said some part of the deliverables will be information to use in the freight element of the Metropolitan Transportation Plan update. In past MTPs, the freight element has been meager. Therefore, they will start with a broad base look at the freight mobility system. It is uncertain whether they will get to the point where they can define projects, but what they anticipate is studying key freight movement corridors. They will also look at which MTP projects are most significant for freight movement. They will start with a broad-based overview of freight movement, focus on corridors, identify freight movement bottlenecks, and if budget allows, may drill down to the detailed project investment and priority needs.
Jeff Hamm asked if they would be looking at existing projects and look at which of those would be most favorable to improving freight mobility. Lynda David said they will focus at a corridor level and look at which corridors are the most significant in moving freight. They can look at MTP projects and determine which are most important for freight movement.
Commissioner Mielke voiced his concern that as far as staff involvement is concerned, Battle Ground is not listed in the Resolution as being a partner and asked for the reason. Dean Lookingbill said that they did not include small cities as funding partners for this Study. For funding partners, they went with Clark County, the City of Vancouver, and the Ports of Vancouver, Ridgefield, and Camas/Washougal.
Commissioner Mielke said he was also concerned that the map shown as part of the presentation did not include SR-502 to Battle Ground and said that he hoped it would be included in the Study. Commissioner Stuart assured that 219th Street (SR-502) will be part of the Study.
Mayor Pollard commented that this is probably the most important study we will undertake in a very long time because they are right about the bottom line. He asked what companies are looking for, and said companies are looking for the ability to move their products and not just within Washington State but north to another country; it’s across the river to Oregon and on to California and on to other parts of this country, and it is looking at what moves through our Ports. He said we are talking about the economic future and vitality of our county and of our region, and it is all about jobs. He said he thinks this is a very serious piece of work, and he is glad that they are going to do it. Mayor Pollard said that he knew that they have been involved in the I-5 CRC bridge work, and the review of the impacts of that bridge on the economic future of our region is, he believes, very important to highlight. There are so many important issues related to freight movement that the Study can focus on, though he realized there is a limited budget for the Study. He said that he is very pleased that this study is moving ahead.
Lynda David commented that they selected this team of consultants to assist them, in part, because the team has experts on the Puget Sound freight movement as well as the Portland region, linked by the I-5 corridor. The study will focus on freight mobility in and through Clark County that has not received as much attention as it should have in past planning efforts.
Ms. David referred to page 3 of the resolution. She noted the section on policy implications, which describes how they are going to use this Study to inform the Metropolitan Transportation Plan update as well as its usefulness to local jurisdictions in updating their Comprehensive Plans. There is also a section on budget implications. The Clark County Freight Mobility Study has a budget of $290,000 with $250,000 from federal Surface Transportation Program (STP) funds and $40,000 in local matching funds from RTC, Clark County, the City of Vancouver, and the Ports of Vancouver, Ridgefield, and Camas/Washougal.
Action on this resolution would allow the RTC Transportation Director to enter into an agreement with DEA to provide consultant services in an amount not to exceed $254,000 and would also provide $36,000 to RTC to provide study management, administration, meeting organization, and provide support for data and information gathering and regional travel forecasting. Action would also amend RTC’s 2009 budget and the FY 2009 Unified Planning Work Program.
ROYCE POLLARD MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION 04-09-12, CLARK COUNTY FREIGHT MOBILITY STUDY: CONSULTANT SELECTION, DRAFT SCOPE OF WORK, AND BUDGET. THE MOTION WAS SECONDED BY MOLLY COSTON AND UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED.
VII. FY 2010 Unified Planning Work Program, Resolution 04-09-13
Lynda David noted that Resolution 04-09-13 outlines the contents of the Unified Planning Work Program (or UPWP) and the requested Board actions. A copy of RTC’s Fiscal Year 2010 Draft UPWP was included in the meeting packet along with a revised Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Metro and RTC.
The Unified Planning Work Program is a federally-required document that describes transportation planning activities anticipated in the region in the next federal fiscal year. Each year, RTC, as Metropolitan Planning Organization for this region, is granted Federal Highway Administration PL dollars and Federal Transit Administration planning funds to carry out the federally required metropolitan transportation planning process. The UPWP outlines how these federal dollars will be used in the metropolitan transportation planning program as well as how state and local funds will be used. The Fiscal Year 2010 UPWP covers the year from July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010, and completes the grant cycle that began with the Board’s adoption of the RTC’s 2009 calendar year budget.
Ms. David said the UPWP should reflect transportation planning emphasis areas identified by the US Department of Transportation and the State of Washington. These emphasis areas are described within the Resolution, beginning on page 1, as well as within the UPWP document. On introductory page iii of the UPWP document, a description of key transportation issues facing the region is listed.
As in previous years, the UPWP has 4 major sections. The first three sections include descriptions of individual work elements. The fourth section describes Transportation Planning Activities of State and Local Agencies, including WSDOT, Clark County, the cities and C TRAN. This is a Federal requirement that all of the significant planning activities of transportation in the upcoming year be listed. On the final page of the document there is a revenue summary spreadsheet that shows the revenue sources that will support each work element. Funding sources include federal PL, Federal Transit Administration, Congestion Management/Air Quality, and federal Surface Transportation Program (STP) as well as state RTPO funds and local matching funds.
The FY 2010 UPWP has been reviewed and endorsed by RTC’s Regional Transportation Advisory Committee (RTAC). The document was also reviewed by officials from the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, Washington State Department of Transportation, and bi-state partners, the Oregon Department of Transportation and Metro, at meetings held at both RTC and Metro on February 23rd.
Ms. David referred to an updated Memorandum of Understanding between RTC and Metro that was attached to the Resolution. This is a federally-required MOU between the two agencies to clarify who does what to plan for the transportation system in this bi-state region. The Metro/RTC MOU was first signed in 1998 and has been ratified annually with adoption of the UPWP. It is reviewed and updated every 3 years. This year, a few very minor revisions have been made, for example, on page 3, wording relating to the regional travel forecasting process has been slightly changed.
Action requested with the Resolution is to adopt RTC’s Fiscal Year 2010 UPWP, continue the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) Local Funding Agreement that helps to provide local match for the federal funds, endorse Metro’s FY2010 UPWP, and adopt minor revisions to the federally-required Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between RTC and Metro. Adoption will also mean that the Transportation Director is authorized to file applications for federal funding, to execute grant agreements, and to file any assurances or required documentation relating to the FY 2010 UPWP.
ROYCE POLLARD MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION 04-09-13, FY 2010 UNIFIED PLANNING WORK PROGRAM. THE MOTION WAS SECONDED BY MARC BOLDT AND UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED.
VIII. 2009 Vancouver Area Smart Trek Program, Resolution 04-09-14
Bob Hart said this Resolution is to request RTC Board action to obligate CMAQ funds for RTC coordination and management of the VAST Program and to issue an RFQ for consultant assistance for the management and operations portion of the program. Mr. Hart said he would address three areas: 2008 VAST Program Accomplishments, 2009 VAST Program, and RTC Board action on the Resolution. VAST, Vancouver Area Smart Trek, is the ITS, Intelligent Transportation Systems, program for Clark County.
Mr. Hart outlined RTC’s role in the program and how they coordinate with the VAST agency partners on ITS and the VAST program. RTC manages the program and committees and coordinates on project delivery, project planning and coordination, and sharing resources for making more efficient use of what they have out in the field today. The VAST Agency Partners are the City of Vancouver, City of Camas, Clark County, C-TRAN, WSDOT, and RTC. The VAST Steering Committee is their higher level group that coordinates projects, integrates between projects, joint funding applications, and other things of that nature. The Communication Infrastructure Committee includes both transportation and communications technical staff. They address sharing, maintenance, and standards for communications infrastructure and equipment.
In 2008, as a result of VAST’s coordination efforts, an FHWA Office of Operations publication sited RTC’s VAST Program as one of eight programs in the country recognized as a leader in demonstrating the benefits of interagency cooperation. The purpose of the FHWA document was to provide guidance to other agencies on the best practices for collaboration.
Mr. Hart highlighted the 2008 accomplishments. First was the Video/Data Sharing Project and ITS Data Network. The data network is providing the physical connections, such as fiber and switching equipment to directly link WSDOT, City of Vancouver, and Clark County so they can share data and video with each other. In addition to that, is implementation of traffic management work stations so the City and County can have the same access to cameras that WSDOT currently has. They can monitor conditions, dispatch response vehicles and such.
VAST Phase II traveler information recommendations that were built on the first phase of improvements have been used to identify the next set of VAST enhancements for the Vancouver urban area. These have been developed in coordination with and agreement of the partner agencies and WSDOT headquarters staff responsible for traveler information. Some of those improvements include bi-state traffic cameras and congestion flow maps. They have some local agencies on the WSDOT Web page and local construction information as well. Phase II takes it a step further and looks at non Web applications to expand the 511 information phone system to include more real time information. It would develop customized subscription service for traveler information so you could define under what criteria they would like to be notified of traffic conditions. It would make current data more accessible on mobile devices. Small format Web pages are a good example of this. It would also develop arterial congestion flow maps similar to what is done on the freeway system. Over the next year they would be working with WSDOT and local agencies for implementation.
The third piece is the Shared Fiber and Communications Assets. The VAST agencies have executed a Communications and Interoperability Agreement that authorizes agencies to enter into fiber asset sharing permits. The purpose of the agreement is to save agency resources and promote efficiency. The agreement has led to better use of existing fiber and communication equipment by sharing available capacity. Ten fiber permits have been developed to date; three more are currently under development. Mr. Hart highlighted some of those examples. He said they have about 35 miles of fiber sharing in place now, with that a net savings of $5.3 to $6.5 million as compared to the VAST agencies building these projects separately.
The Communications Asset Management Software project complements the previous project. It is a GIS based software tool that the agencies are sharing with each other that maps and displays communications fiber and equipment as well as their detailed attributes. The software allows agencies to share this information with each other in a common map and database. It is an essential element to support the sharing of fiber assets and allows agencies to conveniently review the fiber and communications network, fiber ownership, capacity, and availability. A detailed conversion work is underway and should be completed in the spring of this year.
Mr. Hart said VAST member agencies have continued to meet regularly to coordinate the planning, design, and implementation of ITS projects. RTC worked closely with the VAST agency partners to develop and identify funding applications for the VAST agencies with the goal of having visible multi-agency projects. Some of the specific projects programmed in the last couple of years include the 134th Street Signal Optimization, Clark County in coordination with WSDOT; and the Fourth Plain Integration, City of Vancouver partnering with Clark County and WSDOT; Andresen/Thurston Integration. A list with more of those projects is included in the Resolution.
The 2009 VAST Program will be one of transition and change for the VAST program. The Program will continue ongoing coordination and management activities. They will also begin to focus not on the devices in the infrastructure, but improving management and operations. The VAST Steering Committee partners have concluded that the effort should address the short- and long-term strategies to improve the management and operations (M&O) of the transportation system. The Steering Committee has identified four projects to support those objectives and benefit the partner agencies. The following M&O projects would be provided by future consultant services with support from RTC and the VAST agencies.
- Regional Transportation Systems Management and Operations Plan – This project will develop long term M&O goals and needs for the Clark County region. It will also update projects in the VAST 20-year plan and the federally required ITS regional architecture. The Plan will identify regional needs, priorities, performance measures, and project definitions.
- Corridor Operations Improvement Plan – This is related to the previous item, but is narrow in scope and focuses on identifying a specific corridor for near term improvements and strategies to benefit its operation. The plan will define criteria for selecting and evaluating corridors; assess, screen, and identify a priority corridor for improvement and conduct analysis on the operation and performance of the priority corridor.
- Initial Implementation of Corridor Improvement Recommendations – This project begins implementation of recommendations from the Corridor Operations Improvement Plan. This may consist of preliminary engineering, final design, software, and potentially new signal controllers.
- Regional Transportation Data Resources – This project is a tool to help understand, evaluate, and monitor a system performance. Without the data, they don’t know how effective the strategies are. This matrix of data is already out in the field. The Transportation Center at Portland State University who has already developed a data resource warehouse known as PORTAL (Portland Transportation Archive Listing) for Portland area agencies; this would do so for VAST agencies. Initial meetings have occurred with staff at Portland State University who developed PORTAL. A preliminary benefit has been the expansion of PORTAL to include WSDOT freeway detection system. The next step and part of this project is to expand PORTAL to include arterial data from Clark County and the City of Vancouver, and transit data from C-TRAN, and in addition, will also assess validity and accuracy of data already collected from WSDOT.
The VAST Program management by RTC and the management and operations projects will be funded through a combination of federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality funds and federal transportation management system (TMS) high priority project funds. Mr. Hart provided a summary of funding for the VAST projects and is listed in the Resolution. The RTC Management and Coordination is CMAQ funds and local match from RTC dues. The other four elements is a combination of CMAQ and High Priority project funds. For these four elements, RTC would seek consultant assistance. This would come back to the RTC Board with the selected consultant and a scope of work for approval.
The action is a request for RTC Board action to obligate CMAQ funds for RTC coordination and management of the VAST Program and to issue an RFQ for consultant assistance for the management and operation portion of the program.
Tom Mielke questioned the payment of the RTC dues that were referenced. Mr. Lookingbill said the local dollar amount listed in the resolution comes from the total collection of all the RTC dues, which is about $104,000 a year. Mr. Lookingbill said that is used for RTC’s program activity and matching dollars. Where as a one time activity such as the Freight Study, the dues will not cover it so supplemental money is requested. Commissioner Mielke asked if the money being asked for the VAST program was a supplemental amount. Mr. Lookingbill said no, that the funding being requested is within our existing dues, because it is a program element. The Board has said they want RTC to coordinate the VAST program, so the Federal CMAQ money requires matching funds, and that comes from our local existing dues. Commissioner Mielke said he was referring to the dollars listed on page 3 of the Resolution. Mr. Lookingbill said those were funds that have already been received by the noted agency. They were examples of projects that have occurred under the VAST program. That is different than what is being asked for the VAST Resolution. Those project funds have already been programmed and received. The local match that is required for the VAST program CMAQ funds comes out of the collection of all of RTC dues. They are not asking for further dollars. Commissioner Mielke was glad to hear the clarification.
Chair Stuart noted some of the integrated traffic information, congestion as well as accident information that could be integrated. He asked if that was part of the VAST program, to get that level of information. Mr. Hart said he showed Bellevue’s congestion flows on the arterial system. The intent is to do the same thing for the Vancouver urban area. Mr. Hart said he had talked of travel alerts, and the intent is to identify the criteria of what you want to be alerted of, such as accidents on I-5 or notified if congestion goes to red in that corridor. Steve Stuart asked if this information would be integrated with satellite navigation systems. Mr. Hart said as they develop this, and figure out the requirements to do these things, it is worth talking about. He said he could not say for certain that they could do it as part of this. He said when discussing mobile devices, it could be phones, or GPS units.
Chair Stuart asked what the take-away for this would be for the citizen. Mr. Hart said one would be you would know what to expect when you are making your commute and take a different route or travel a different way; knowing what is out there gives you more choices. The second is getting the most out of the existing system, improving travel flows on the existing system by managing it better as apposed to building infrastructure. Chair Stuart asked if signal timing was a part of this. Mr. Hart said yes, part of the corridor plan is to find a corridor that needs improvement and come up with a way to improve its operation.
Marc Boldt asked if this was the coordination of the traffic lights as well. Mr. Hart said this was all of those things. When talking of traffic operations management, it is signal timing improvements, a range of things to improve the performance. He said a corridor could be operated by two or three different agencies that have different philosophies on how to operate a corridor. This tries to address that as well. Commissioner Boldt asked why a signal would be put in without setting the timing and then trying to set it after the fact. Mr. Hart said the idea is to try to get better at doing this and looking at the whole corridor. He said that nationally, signal operations get a D overall.
MARC BOLDT MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION 04-09-14, 2009, VANCOUVER AREA SMART TREK PROGRAM. THE MOTION WAS SECONDED BY JEFF HAMM AND UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED.
IX. Washington State Legislature, Transportation Bills
Chair Stuart said this agenda item is for information to get the Board up to date on the transportation issues and bills in the legislature and also to see if we can come to some consensus as a region. Chair Stuart distributed a draft letter that would go to our region’s legislative delegation.
Dean Lookingbill said that we as a region have looked at a set of Nickel and Partnership projects, and those are being discussed. They are not the same between the Governor’s proposal and the Senate proposal and the House proposal. Mr. Lookingbill said we need to discuss that.
Chair Stuart said there are three different proposals that have floated as far as Nickel and Partnership package projects. He said he was in Olympia the previous Thursday speaking with most of our legislators. One of the things that they quite consistently said is that we do need to stand together as a region. Starting to decide whose project is to get funded at the expense of somebody else’s project all within the same region is not doing our region any favors. If we are going to make that happen, then the legislators need as much support as possible to get there. Chair Stuart said his thought was that the Regional Transportation Council would be a good body to provide some support. He said that Dean drafted a letter that speaks to the importance of Clark County within the scheme of the State of Washington, the importance of these projects within our region, and it speaks to what we give and what we get. It also speaks to what we gave to our voters and what those voters approved and what they thought they were going to get. Chair Stuart said he would like to get some direction from the Board as to whether this is something that we can do to move forward together as the Regional Transportation Council sending something to our legislators letting them know that we stand together in moving our projects forward and the importance of that. Chair Stuart asked for comments and specific comments on the letter itself.
Commissioner Mielke said what they have heard even when in Washington, D.C. as well as Olympia was that we were going in different directions. Some of the projects that we have that are ready to start seem to have been put off and others put back on again. He said rather than have them take one of the projects that are ready to go, such as 139th as an example, where everything is in place and it got moved to the back burner and for awhile 219th Street was at the back burner, and now back forward. He said what is more important than anything is that if they were to identify something that is ready to go. If it is not ready to go, they will postpone those projects. He said we should recognize those projects that are ready to go.
Marc Boldt said he thought it was a good letter, and Molly Coston agreed. Steve Stuart said in his discussion with Dean, he had a couple of changes. He said he thought there should be a bit stronger lead on what we were asking the legislators to do. Dean Lookingbill said that was the main issue, but he said what the expectation is as well as we finish stronger. He said while the legislators are members of the RTC Board, the intent is to send it to our legislative delegation members as well as the Chairs of the House and Senate Committees. As seen in the letter, it makes the case for the fact that these are all solid projects that have been in our Plans and match to our land use plans and Regional Transportation Plan. He noted to that we are a donor county and that we really believe that our projects should continue to be funded.
Mayor Pollard said this was his first look at this and he liked the way it was written. It says that we made a commitment to you and you made a commitment to us and we would like to have them follow through on that. He said he was concerned that if we decide what a priority list would be, that gets them off the hook. He asked who would do the list, and if we would fight it out here? He said he didn’t want to do that, and he said we need to be careful of pitting us against each other and allowing them to sit back and have us tell them what to do. He said he thought the letter was a strong way to do it to start out. He said he understood Commissioner Mielke’s point, but he has some concerns about how we would pick a 1, 2, 3 list, because they will want us to pick. It was noted that there are 8 projects.
Commissioner Mielke said he would like to know what is ready this year and next year. He said we could have those as targets rather than put it off for two years before any project was started. Steve Stuart said in speaking to that point, all three, Governor, House, and Senate all have different time lines for when they provide money. For example, I-205 Mill Plain/NE 18th in the House it starts getting money in 2009-2011, but starts getting large amounts in the 2013-2015 and the 2015-2017. He said from what he is hearing, the further out they go, the less solid they feel about the money that is coming in. He said all of us want to make sure we frontload funding as much as possible for our projects. Chair Stuart said he thought it would behoove us to say something about getting the money in helps us go to construction faster, which not only helps keep the cost of the project down, but also puts people to work on a shorter term.
Mayor Pollard said he thought that they asked us for projects that were ready to go. It was noted that that was specifically for Stimulus Project requests. Steve Stuart said the legislature in providing more money toward the beginning of this will get more bang for the buck. They will get more people to work immediately as well as get more project for the money. He asked Don Wagner if this was true. Don Wagner said it depended on the project. He said an example is Mill Plain. They have to do the design and right of way acquisition on that project before they can go to construction, so if they were to give them all of the money in the next biennium, they would still not be able to spend it. By the same token, if they held off the money for two or three years for design on that project, that would delay when they could go to construction. Mr. Wagner said it is a project by project basis. Most of what is seen in the Governor’s Budget, the House and the Senate tend to keep the projects moving on somewhat different scales as was before but many do have a logic in it. He said they have worked with the cities and county to make sure that they understand what is deliverable in what biennium, and then the legislative bodies took their shot at when they could actually fund the dollars. We would not want all of the money given to us in the first two years of the six year program. We would not be able to meet the obligations, and probably lose the money over time. Mr. Wagner said it is interesting if you look at it, nobody seemed to agree with anybody else.
Mayor Pollard asked what the timeline was on this. Don Wagner said he thought the conference would start on the Transportation budget late this week (April 10) or early the following week (April 13). Traditionally, the Transportation Budget is one of the last budgets that are given out. However, he said the transportation budget is actually in the best shape of all of the budgets the legislature has to deal with. He said we may want to get this out quickly and start it with something positive before they go into the general budget. He said he thought the form of the letter is fine. He would ask that some of the wording in the last paragraph be restated regarding project delivery.
Chair Stuart asked if it would be fair to say in trying to capture as far as all of the time lines, that the dollars should match the project timelines. That the dollars that have been promised from the Nickel and Partnership should match the timelines for the project and when they can be used. Don Wagner said it is reasonable to say that we should match the dollar flow with the project schedule. The difficulty is what the project schedule is; the initial Nickel list when it comes out. Many of the projects are already finished, but some of them got moved out. Defining the schedule is a little tougher, but he said they know when they can move a project.
Paul Pearce said this is a letter that needs to go soon.
PAUL PEARCE MOVED TO HAVE MAYOR POLLARD, CHAIR STUART, AND DON WAGNER AUTHORIZED TO COMPLETE A LETTER ALONG THIS FRAME LINE WITH SPECIFICS THAT CAN BE SIGNED BY THE CHAIR AND SENT TO LEGISLATORS AND COMMITTEE CHAIRS AND COPIED TO THE BOARD MEMBERS. THE MOTION WAS SECONDED AND UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED.
X. Other Business
From the Board
Mayor Pollard said for those who are interested, the Nez Perce tribal members will be here for their annual Commemoration Ceremony for the Nez Perce Chief Redheart Memorial on April 25, 2009, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The ceremony takes place at the Fort Vancouver Historical Site.
Don Wagner said as an update at the Federal level. He said they have heard that there has been an announcement for the new director of the Federal Highway Administration for the Obama Administration and late last week for the Transit Administration. Those nominations have now been made. He said they are looking forward to that so they can start getting with the new administration to advance our projects and the policies of the Northwest are included.
From the Director
As requested by the Board at the March Board meeting, Mr. Lookingbill offered a response to Sharon Nasset’s questions. Mr. Lookingbill noted that distributed to Board members was an information packet including the handout that Ms. Nasset offered at the last meeting as Exhibit 1. Mr. Lookingbill said he grouped these into three areas of concern: The NEPA Clarification, Purpose and Need Statement, and CRC Bridge Influence Area (BIA). Exhibit 2 is a copy of the CRC Purpose and Need Statement. Exhibit 3 is DEIS documentation of alternatives considered but not advanced. The 4th Exhibit is an example of a letter that Ms. Nasset had written to Columbia River Crossing Team in terms of a series of questions, and the request went to Timothy Ford, and this is the CRC response letter to Mr. Ford. Ms. Nasset had written to Congressman Blumenauer regarding the port to port connection. Exhibit 5 is Congressman Blumenauer’s letter to Matt Garrett regarding the port to port connection, and Exhibit 6 is the CRC letter to Congressman Blumenauer as to how that port-to-port connection was evaluated.
Mr. Lookingbill started with the NEPA process. He clarified that the National Environmental Policy Act is the cornerstone of our Nation’s environmental laws and was enacted to ensure that information on the environmental impacts of any Federal or federally funded action is available to public officials and citizens before decisions are made and before action is taken. One of the key elements in the NEPA process is the development of the Purpose and Needs Statement. Overall, the Purpose and Needs Statement defines the transportation problem to be solved, and are used to guide the development of alternatives. The CRC Purpose and Need states: “The purpose of the proposed action is to improve Interstate 5 mobility…the proposed action is intended to achieve the following objectives: a) improve travel safety and traffic operations on the Interstate 5 crossing’s bridges and associated interchanges, (Mr. Lookingbill said that this is talked about as the Columbia River Bridge crossing project. He said to remember that about 2/3 of the investment is in the interchanges to the north and south.) b) Improve connectivity, reliability, travel times and operations of public transportation modal alternatives in the BIA, c)improve highway freight mobility and address interstate commerce needs in the BIA, and improve the Interstate 5 river crossing’s structural integrity.” In the NEPA process, that is the statement under which the ultimate project that is selected and evaluated. Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration are the lead agencies. The two DOTs are leading the project process, but FHWA and FTA are responsible for ensuring that the NEPA process happens correctly. Mr. Lookingbill said to date there is a Federal Highways person that has been involved full time on the project.
Mr. Lookingbill said a number of Ms. Nasset’s comments have been about the Bridge Influence Area. The Bridge Influence Area (BIA) is defined as I-5 between SR-500 and Columbia Boulevard. This definition has held to be the same between the I-5 Transportation and Trade Partnership Study and the CRC DEIS. However, the BIA in the I-5 Partnership Study was applied broadly to help define a range of alternatives, while the BIA in the CRC DEIS is applied to evaluate a specific project. The BIA in the Partnership Study was used to define a project area that related to a wide range of findings in the I-5 corridor. Examples of these findings included the freeway system, transit, heavy rail, transportation performance, environmental/community impacts and others. Following each set of findings was a recommendation. The Partnership Study did address a West Arterial Road that connected to I-5 at Mill Plain, proceeded west and then turned south parallel to the BNSF Rail Bridge connected to I-5 on the Oregon side. The Partnership recommendation was that: “Further study of this option should be pursued and identified as a potential transportation solution for consideration in the future and should not be an alternative studied in the EIS for the Bridge Influence area.”
The BIA in the CRC DEIS is also defined as I-5 between SR-500 and Columbia Boulevard. However, the NEPA process requires a Purpose and Need statement that is applied to evaluate a project and its environmental impacts. Hence, the DEIS process has been utilized to analyze and narrow down to a Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA) after starting from a comprehensive range of individual project components and project alternatives. That again included the port to port or West Industrial Corridor concept, or RC-14. Through the process, those things that might have an effect from pedestrian bridges to freight bridges, etc. were assembled into a set of alternatives. In working with the Task Force they went through a level of screening. Out of that they looked at a second set of alternatives, and ultimately, they selected the Locally Preferred Alternative. The RC-14 alternative or Industrial Corridor or Port to Port connection was screened out of that process, because it failed to meet 4 of the 6 critical elements of the Purpose and Need Statement. That is included in Exhibit 3 which is out of the DEIS and offers a summary of how that happened.
Mr. Lookingbill said in terms of the current request or issue around the Port to Port connection and whether it should be a part of a supplemental EIS, he referred to Exhibit 5 and Exhibit 6. This was the request along with the response to Congressman Blumenauer stating that RC-14 was screened out.
Mr. Lookingbill said there has been discussion of what NEPA requires. Alternatives analysis is one of the essential elements of NEPA decision making. Development of these alternatives has to be based on something tangible and related to the purpose and need of the action. The NEPA process establishes the responsibility to consider and document reasonable alternatives in the EIS process. The range of alternative, the reasonable alternatives, is those that will be considered by the decision makers. It further goes on to say that in terms of those alternatives that you can eliminate some from detailed study with a discussion. There can be many, many alternatives, and there needs to be a reasonable process for how those are gone through, and how those not meeting Need and Purpose may be eliminated from further study. That is the case with RC-14 alternative. Through a discussion, analysis, and listing reasons why they were eliminated is part of that process. That was done for the RC-14 alternative.
Mr. Lookingbill said the DEIS process has selected a Locally Preferred Alternative which includes the replacement bridge, light rail, modal alternative with a terminus to Clark County at Clark College. Mr. Lookingbill said a far as he knows the NEPA process has been followed. The BIA has really been the same. The important part in talking of the Port to Port connection is whether that meets the purpose and need statement, not whether it was in or out of the BIA.
Chair Stuart said that Ms. Nasset would be given hard copies of the responses so she could compare these against what information that she has. He asked that she follow up any questions with Dean, and then it would be helpful to bring that back to the Board. Ms. Nasset said that Dean did not answer any of her questions. She said she was surprised to hear him say the BIA is an application and not a location. She said she will state for the record that none of what Dean said directly answered her questions. Chair Stuart said as she moves forward, if she has a new set of questions or the same set of questions, send them to him as well.
Dean Lookingbill noted that as part of the Economic Stimulus Bill or American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, part of that process is to make sure that we show progress on that. There is a National site and a State site. We have incorporated a link on RTC’s homepage. Dean had a slide view of the page, and said we would be tracking the projects that were funded in our region.
Mr. Lookingbill noted JPACT would meet April 9 at Metro at 7:30 a.m. the C-TRAN Board would meet on April 14 at 5:30 p.m., and the Bi-State Coordination Committee would meet on April 16, 2009, at the Public Service Center 6the floor at 7:30 a.m.
The next RTC Board meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, at 4 p.m.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:47 p.m.
Regional Transportation Council
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Fax: 360-397-6132
E-mail: info@rtc.wa.govPublic Service Center served by C-TRAN Route 3.
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If you have special needs, please contact RTC.
       
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