Below are the minutes for the Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council Board of Directors Meeting, held on Tuesday, February 7, 2012, 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 Marc Boldt on Tuesday, February 7, 2012, at 4 p.m. at the Clark County Public Service Center Sixth Floor Training Room, 1300 Franklin Street, Vancouver, Washington. Attendance follows.
Board Members Present Marc Boldt, Clark County Commissioner
Rex Burkholder, Metro Councilor
Jack Burkman, Vancouver Council Member
Bill Ganley, Battle Ground Council Member
Bart Gernhart, WSDOT (Alternate)
Jeff Hamm, C-TRAN Executive Director
Jerry Oliver, Port of Vancouver (Alternate)
Melissa Smith, Camas Council Member
Jeanne Stewart, Vancouver Council Member
Steve Stuart, Clark County Commissioner
Jason Tell, ODOT Region One Manager
Board Members AbsentNancy Baker, Port of Vancouver Commissioner
Tom Mielke, Clark County Commissioner
Paul Pearce, Skamania County Commissioner
David Poucher, White Salmon Mayor
Don Wagner, WSDOT Regional Administrator
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
Paul Harris, Representative 17th District
Joe Zarelli, Senator 18th District
Ed Orcutt, Representative 18th District
Ann Rivers, Representative 18th District
Craig Pridemore, Senator 49th District
Jim Moeller, Representative 49th District
Sharon Wylie, Representative 49th District
Guests PresentColete Anderson, Clark County
Ed Barnes, Labor Council
Shirley Craddick, Metro Councilor
Peter M. Geiger, Parsons Brinckerhoff
Colleen Kuhn, Human Services Council
Mike Mabrey, Clark County
Anne McEnerny-Ogle, Vancouver NHA
Sharon Nasset, Third Bridge Now
Ron Onslow, Ridgefield Mayor
Oliver Orjiako, Clark County
Philip Parker, WA Transportation Commissioner
Kimberly Pincheira, Senator Cantwell’s Office
Matt Ransom, City of Vancouver
Scott Sawyer, City of Battle Ground
Larry J. Smith, Vancouver Council Member
Scott Thompson, couv.com
Bill Turlay, Vancouver Council Member
George Vartanian, Citizen
Bill Wright, Clark County
Staff PresentLynda David, Senior Transportation Planner
Mark Harrington, Senior Transportation Planner
Bob Hart, Transportation Section Supervisor
Dean Lookingbill, Transportation Director
Dale Robins, Senior Transportation Planner
Diane Workman, Administrative/Staff AssistantChair Boldt began with a quote from Harry S. Truman “A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.”
II. Approval of January 3, 2012, Meeting Minutes
BILL GANLEY MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF THE JANUARY 3, 2012, MEETING MINUTES. THE MOTION WAS SECONDED BY JACK BURKMAN AND APPROVED. JEANNE STEWART ABSTAINED.
III. Citizen Communications
Philip Parker is the Vice Chair of the Washington State Transportation Commission. He said they have completed their 2011 Annual Report and passed around a couple hard copies for Board Members to view. He said he believed staff has done an exceptional job on the report, and noted that they printed only a limited quantity of the publication for distribution, but the report is available on their website at http://www.wstc.wa.gov.
Ed Barnes, Vancouver resident, thanked Identity Clark County, the Vancouver Chamber, and the Economic Development Council for stepping up to the plate on the Columbia River Crossing project to help get it moving forward. He also congratulated the people in the House and Senate of the legislature for moving forward with several different bills that have to do with the Columbia River Crossing, especially the tolling aspect of it. Mr. Barnes said he does have some concerns with the Columbian newspaper telling the elected officials from the city and county how to do their job on their boards. He said our elected officials were elected here to do their job, and the Columbian should not be able to tell them what they should be doing. Mr. Barnes said he did not think the Congresswoman should insinuate that she will hold the C-TRAN Board hostage if they do not do what she wants them to do as far as holding a vote on the light rail or any aspect of the I-5 Bridge. These decisions are our elected officials’ decisions. He said we all need to go down a positive road to get this project done, because we need safety on the bridge, the economic development, and the jobs.
Sharon Nasset, Portland resident, wanted to address that there is concern from people that if the light rail vote does not go through that this means there is no bridge. She said the fact is that this project is about highway and transit. The current Locally Preferred Alternative chose light rail. No light rail does not mean no bridge.
IV. Consent Agenda
- February Claims
- 2012-2015 MTIP Amendment: WSDOT Columbia River Crossing, Resolution 02-12-05
JERRY OLIVER MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF THE CONSENT AGENDA FEBRUARY CLAIMS AND RESOLUTION 02-12-05. THE MOTION WAS SECONDED BY JACK BURKMAN AND APPROVED. JEANNE STEWART ABSTAINED.
V. Aging Readiness Task Force Report
Lynda David introduced the Aging Readiness Task Force as it relates to transportation. She said RTC staff participated in Clark County’s Aging Readiness Work Program as a participant on the Transportation Subcommittee. They recognized the significance of the Aging Readiness Task Force work and acknowledged the emerging demographic trends of an aging population in Clark County in the recently adopted Metropolitan Transportation Plan. They also provided electronic links to Clark County’s web site on Aging Readiness in chapter 5 of the Plan. They realize moving forward that it will take commitment to implement the transportation recommendations of the Task Force. Ms. David noted that we need to remember these recommendations of each step of our Metropolitan Transportation planning process as we develop transportation policies, plans, and as we program projects for funding. Ms. David introduced Colete Anderson and Mike Mabrey from Clark County Community Planning to provide a presentation on the work of the Aging Readiness Task Force with its focus on transportation. Copies of the Aging Readiness Plan Strategies was distributed.
Ms. Anderson said the Baby Boomers are coming. By 2030, one in four will be age 60 or older. That is going to change how Clark County looks. In order to determine what we need to do to prepare for this, a Task Force was formed in 2010 to address this. Last September, after 18 months of an extensive public involvement process, they came up with 91 recommendations on how to move Clark County forward. The Task Force identified what we are doing well, what’s needed, how to involve the community, and developed recommendations. They identified five key elements: 1) healthy communities, 2) housing, 3) transportation and mobility, 4) supportive services, and 5) community engagement.
Ms. Anderson said they learned overall that Clark County is not unique in the country. We just have different sets of obstacles to address that others may not have. Getting around is the most important piece to independent living as you get older. It is important when you are younger and it doesn’t go away. As you get older your mobility decreases. How you get around and those constraints becomes more and more difficult to do. In Clark County, we are dependent on our cars, and it is an issue when we can no longer drive. In order to address this, they looked at land use, our roadway system, and other forms of travel such as transit to see what we need to do in order for people to get around. The Subcommittee for the Aging Readiness Task Force had several different transportation recommendations aimed at making driving safer and providing alternatives.
Mike Mabrey headed the Transportation Subcommittee. He said he worked with a very talented and engaged group of seniors in the subcommittee who had a lot of experience in transportation issues. He said they took the ideas that come out of the public involvement process and boiled them down into some key issues. Subcommittee members also brought their own ideas and experiences to the table. The result was a baker’s dozen of specific recommendations. These are not policy level, but things that can be done starting today. One of the first key issues that they focused on was walkability. The problem is that even though we may have certain standards, they are not getting built that way. We still have barricade subdivisions, long cul-de-sacs, and permanent neighborhood design that aren’t walkable. The Subcommittee was very intent on seeing that pattern changed and got back to a grid pattern for streets. Mr. Mabrey said they recognized that there would be push-back from developers and cost issues raised. They felt it was a priority to encourage walking and allow mobility for everyone. The second topic area was recognition that our network of sidewalks is very incomplete and discontinuous. Some of this is due to historical patterns. It is not something that is going to be fixed in a hurry, but a lot of it has to be fixed. There is not enough money to do all of this, so there needs to be a more effective way that neighborhoods can dso it for themselves. Clark County has made this opportunity available to neighborhoods.
Mr. Mabrey said another key interest recognized that as aging adults lose their driving skills, there needs to be alternatives for them to get around at a neighborhood level. One of the possible alternatives was neighborhood electric vehicles. These are low speed vehicles used on roads that are posted 40 mph or less. The Subcommittee wanted local jurisdictions’ transportation providers to look at how their current system is laid out and where there were barriers to future utilization of electric vehicles and start to address some of those barriers. There was also recommendations to transportation providers to begin to replace the small difficult to read street signs with larger font and larger signs. It is also important to have advanced warning signs to major signalized intersections. Another recommendation was for longer timing on the pedestrian crossing at a signal. There were some specific recommendations for C-TRAN. The group wanted to stress the fact that there should be bus rapid transit and light rail transit services to those areas where the density and ridership will support it. There was also recognition that the paratransit service that C-Van provides is very expensive and demand is going to keep growing. We need to look for alternatives to provide those services, whether it is at the neighborhood level or through more organized Human Services Council efforts and alternative providers for paratransit services.
Ms. Anderson said one other transportation suggestion had to do with volunteers, how to increase their volunteer pools. She said Clark County doesn’t have a mechanism to where our transportation providers are linked. If you need a ride for medical transportation you might call Human Services Council and then through a program, you would be provided transportation there. Other times you may have to call C-TRAN for either the paratransit service or one of their other functions. If it is a work related ride, you have to call commute-match. There are other places across the country that have a single phone call, and they determine the type of trip that you might need. Ms. Anderson said they are looking at a way to combine dollars and maximize staff in a program such as that.
Jeanne Stewart asked if there would be sections of the Report that would come back to RTC to make recommendations. Mr. Mabrey said all of the recommendations that he spoke of would be dealt with by individual jurisdictions. Mr. Lookingbill said RTC’s role in this context is to recognize that our Regional Transportation Plan’s policies must be sensitive to the needs of our aging population. Ms. Stewart said she is trying to understand the hierarchy of influence, because there are some things listed that if there was serious thought to adopting them, she would be very concerned about it. Mr. Lookingbill said the report is not being adopted by the RTC Board; it goes before the County Commissioners at tonight’s meeting. Ms. Stewart asked if the County adopts everything in the report, by default does the City also? Marc Boldt said this is a general plan, and anything that may come out of it will need to go to the individual jurisdictions.
Lynda David added that the RTC Board will be involved in the future update to the Human Services Plan, which deals with special needs transportation. It is a federal requirement, and it needs to be updated every four years. In two and a half years, it will come before the RTC Board.
Steve Stuart said one of the things that they did in the 2007 Comprehensive Growth Management Plan was to sign an interlocal agreement with the City of Vancouver whereby anything that they are looking at adopting as far as code updates, those things that they try to collaborate with the City in the shared urban growth area. If there are some of the aspects of the recommendations that would be code changes or larger signs for an example, they would have county staff working with the city’s staff to keep consistency. Jeanne Stewart said some of the recommendations are land use and some are references to incentivizing. She said she would want to know a lot more about what might be done to provide incentive. Steve Stuart said usually they guarantee they won’t be annexed as an incentive.
Jeff Hamm said the RTC Board does play a role in the allocation of federal resources and we go through a process of evaluating particular projects that are advanced with criteria. He said wouldn’t we want to pay attention to these recommendations in future evaluation of projects to make sure it was consistent with the Aging Readiness Task Force’s goals. Mr. Lookingbill said yes, at a policy level. If there was a large project that was specific to address a need that had federal funds, then this Board would be a part of that discussion. Mr. Hamm said an example would be if a jurisdiction came forward with a large street project expansion, that doesn’t have complete street components to it, could it violate some of the access and the sidewalk provisions that the Task Force thinks is important? Mr. Lookingbill said it would need to meet the local jurisdiction’s zoning access and standard design requirements. He said the RTC Board is not making that determination. Jason Tell said the RTC Board allocates federal dollars for programs and projects. He said as far as programming out money, this Board could support some of the goals. It could be this group initiating it or it could be a local jurisdiction coming forward and requesting funding.
Jeanne Stewart said the issue that she had is that if RTC is prepared to adopt the recommendations, then when the city does their annual land use update, part of what they do is adopt all of the RTC recommendations so there are many layers of decision making. Then what will happen is that we could find ourselves facing some land use changes by coordinating and adopting the recommendations of RTC. She said it is important to recognize that we do have an aging population, and we will have to make some reasonable accommodations.
Jack Burkman referred to the list of Plan Strategies, and said these are good strategies. The strategies listed for transportation are all outside the regional jurisdiction except the last one. This says to provide bus rapid transit or light-rail transit service to areas where the density and ridership will support it. He said that sounds like the charge of the high capacity transit study that was done a few years ago. Mr. Burkman said this body might need a refresher on that to address that one element. He said this particular transit element seems to be at a regional level. Jeanne Stewart said that particular strategy shows a 7 year start time and asked how ridged the timeframe was. Chair Boldt said these are just recommendations.
Dean Lookingbill said at next month’s meeting they plan to bring information on C-TRAN’s Fourth Plain transit project. Along that same line of thinking, it is important to look at what the High Capacity Transit Study recommended and how it looked at the whole county. While the HCT plan identified multiple corridors, it recommended 4th Plain as the first corridor to pursue.
VI. Ten-Year Transportation Project Priorities
Lynda David said the Ten-Year Transportation Project Priorities work was introduced. This will be a shorter-term, 10-year look at transportation priorities compared with the 20-year timespan of the Metropolitan Transportation Plan adopted last December. As noted at last month’s meeting, the Ten-Year Transportation Project Priorities is linked to the recommendations of the Connecting Washington Task Force. It provides an opportunity to review a Top 20 list of projects adopted by the RTC Board in November 2010. It will include a review of local agency 6-year Transportation Improvement Programs, and it allows us to consider a more conservative 10-year growth and revenue forecast. In the slide presentation, Ms. David provided a cartoon depiction of latent travel demand which should be kept in mind when considering any transportation policy decisions.
Ms. David noted that as discussed last month, the 10-year project priorities work is connected to the Top 20 project list, adopted by the RTC Board in November 2010, to meet an information request from the Washington State Transportation Commission. The list was distributed at last month’s meeting and will be revisited at a future meeting. The 10-Year priorities work is also connected to the work of the Connecting Washington Task Force. Today’s focus is on 10-year investment policy considerations and 10-year investment goals.
An update on Connecting Washington was provided. The governor convened the Connecting Washington Task force last year with its purpose to create a 10-year strategy to maintain and improve the state’s transportation system. The “Connecting Washington, Strategic Investments to Strengthen Washington’s Economy and Create Jobs” report was published since the last meeting and was available at the table for Board members and is also available on the internet at http://www.governor.wa.gov/priorities/transportation/connectwa.asp as listed in the memorandum included in the meeting materials.
The recommendations of the Task Force included: to preserve existing transportation systems and services; to improve mobility for people and commerce; to enhance safety and efficiency of the transportation system; and to provide community and environmental improvements that attract, keep, and expand private businesses and a highly skilled workforce.
The funding recommendations include: an oil barrel fee of $1.50 a barrel, an electric vehicle fee of $100 annually, a 15% increase in heavy commercial vehicle combined license fees, an additional $15 base weight fee for passenger vehicles, and for local governments, options for a 1% increase in motor vehicle excise tax, or a $40 annual vehicle license fee within a transportation benefit district. These funding recommendations have been input into several proposed bills currently working their way through the Washington State Legislature. Local transportation revenue options are addressed in SB 6582 and corresponding HB 2751. State transportation revenue is addressed in SB 6455 and corresponding HB 2660. The creation of a Road User Task Force is proposed in HB 2704. Ms. David noted a handout distributed at the table and said Dean Lookingbill would provide an update on the 2012 Washington State Legislature and transportation later in the meeting.
Ms. David said today’s focus is on policy investment choices and investment goals. At future meetings, analyses of 2022 travel demand, performance measures and revenue forecast scenarios can help in the decision-making to arrive at a set of regional transportation priorities. The process will include compilation of existing information and data, coordination with the Metropolitan Transportation Plan, WSDOT’s Highway System Plan, Local TIPs, C-TRAN’s 2030 Plan, and the regional Transportation System Management and Operations Plan.
Staff asked RTC Board Members for their input on investment choices at the broadest level of transportation policy categories considering these categories: 1) preservation and maintenance; 2) safety; 3) non-highway modes such as transit, freight, bicycling, and pedestrian modes; 4) operational improvements; and 5) highway capacity expansion (both in terms of existing needs and future needs.) Ms. David asked which categories are the most important, the highest of priorities and why? She said last month, it was suggested that the Board may want to approach the priorities discussion by thinking in terms of “what does this region need to be able to prosper?” In the Values/Scenario Planning paper, prosperity was viewed as both economic prosperity and community prosperity. Another question that staff asked for feedback on is whether they consider the relative significance of these categories is changing over time, given reductions in available budget and funding programs. Ms. David said they intend to look at two revenue scenarios (with and without new revenues) and asked if priorities would change under the two different scenarios.
Chair Boldt said if we are going to put priorities on this, we should take some of this information back to our individual jurisdictions for discussion about what is wanted and then come back to the RTC table. Ms. David said that would be reasonable and useful. RTC staff will be working with staff of local jurisdictions, C-TRAN, and WSDOT to get input as well.
Steve Stuart said something that might be interesting and important to help in moving the discussion forward is to have a sense of what the existing percentages of funding going for the different aspects of our transportation system. He said the preservation and maintenance of our transportation system is getting a larger and larger share of existing funds due to the fact that we have more roadways to preserve and maintain and the fact we have limited funds available to do it. Commissioner Stuart said it will continue to be a higher percentage of dollars spent of existing funds on preservation and maintenance unless they keep lowering the standards. He said it would be helpful to see the percentages that we spend now on preservation and maintenance versus safety, or other highway modes.
Jack Burkman said a couple different revenue scenarios were described. He said it would be helpful to draft a few scenarios saying if funding looked like this, how would you prioritize these? This is a lot of information to process and it would be helpful to have that to take back for our jurisdiction discussion.
Mr. Lookingbill said something to consider is if the project investment the categories listed cover all that the Board would want to invest in or are there other categories?
Jack Burkman said an economic project improvement category needs to be added.
Steve Stuart said we spend more and more for environmental constraints and environmental permitting as part of their transportation project system. He said they spend more to get to construction than in some cases as construction itself. He would like to see how the money is spent within the project and how much is going toward state and federal requirements for environmental permitting, etc. in order to make a case to the state and federal delegations.
Jerry Oliver referred to the non-highway freight mode category, and said he did not see a project on the top 20 list supporting rail. Lynda David said the West Vancouver Freight Access project was on the top 20 list. The projects on that list did not have funding identified.
Jeanne Stewart commented to Commissioner Stuart’s point. She said she is on the National League of Cities Transportation and Infrastructure Steering Committee. One of the predominant interests that they have is the complication of meeting all kinds of federal, state, and local environmental reviews and how much that adds to the cost of these major projects that need to be done. It not only adds costs, but years to the timeframe to get them built. One of the projects they are working on is trying to get the Feds to understand that if state laws are equivalent or better than federal, and you can prove that on a project, that you can use your state law on a project. She said eventually, they hope that will roll down so that if your local environmental standards and review is adequate, that state would piggyback on that. She said work is going on to address some of these issues. This is a concern across the country.
Rex Burkholder said something that may help in ranking this is to look at a return on investment type of approach. There are a number of ways to look at that return to see the benefit. Mr. Burkholder said a possible area of policy in mentioning economy is investing in helping development occur.
Jeff Hamm said he assumed the preservation and maintenance, safety, and operational improvements refer to highways and streets, and non-highway modes are its own section. Mr. Lookingbill said preservation and maintenance is both in terms of transit facilities as well as highway facilities. Operational improvements is more about not expanding capacity, but doing things with signalization or providing better turn movements which transit benefits by. The safety and preservation and maintenance are thought of across the modes. The non-highway mode is kind of like highway capacity expansion.
Lynda David moved on to goals. She asked what goals they aspire to when making transportation system investment decisions for the region. Such Goals can include: protection of investments in the current transportation network, support for economic development, mobility improvements, accessibility improvements, reliability improvements, reduction in number of crashes, and/or increase in the proportionate use of alternative transportation modes. Ms. David noted that these goals are comparable to the guiding principles recommended by the Connecting Washington Task Force. She paused to consider what is meant by mobility, accessibility, and reliability and provided a short cartoon video to help explain reliability.
Steve Stuart commented on the informational cartoon videos, and asked where they came from. Ms. David said the two videos can be found at:
- http://priceroads.com/videos/
- http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/01/06/an-animated-argument-for-congestion-pricing/
Mr. Lookingbill noted that they are trying to find ways to speak to some of the fundamental concepts, such as the first video on latent demand and the second one on reliability. He said sometimes we pass over reliability, and think we just need to get there faster. There is a lot to be said for reliability.
Ms. David returned to the list of investment choice aspirational goals. She said we can protect investments with preservation and maintenance of the system. Support for economic development and any resulting jobs growth would result in more dollars available within the regional economy. We view mobility as the movement of people or goods. Mobility is often thought of in terms of travel mileage or speed and related to transportation system capacity. Accessibility is often thought of as the ability to reach desired goods, services, activities and destinations, in other words opportunities for where you can get to. Reliability is related to travel time and its constancy day in and day out. Reduction in crashes relates to safety of the transportation system. Increase in use of alternative modes relates to travel choices available in the region. Ms. David asked if Board members thought there should be additional goals that should be added to the list, the importance of each goal, and what performance measures need to be in place in order to measure these goals.
Jack Burkman asked if this list was taken to RTAC and if they had put the list together. Ms. David said the list was taken to RTAC, but staff had put the list together. It was brought first to the Board for policy discussion and feedback on how to proceed. Mr. Burkman said it is hard to have the discussion prior to staff having discussion at RTAC. Mr. Lookingbill said they plan to take this to RTAC and have a lot of discussion at a staff level. This was a first opportunity to hear from the RTC Board members.
Rex Burkholder suggested adding something about reducing the cost. As things change, reducing costs as a benefit to society needs to be a part of it.
Marc Boldt said the County is looking at street standards and making the roads cheaper to build and asked if that is what he was referring to. Mr. Burkholder said more in terms of giving people choices. He said last year had the highest cost of gasoline as part of people’s income in history, almost 9% went to just gasoline. Accidents and crashes have huge costs on people. As you measure these investments against each other, which ones actually save you money and reduce your cost.
Jeanne Stewart said he appreciated Mr. Lookingbill’s approach to this where members can think about it in the big picture before it goes to a technical advisory group of staff that put their own set of criteria on it.
Steve Stuart said from a County perspective, this matches pretty close with their six-year Transportation Improvement Program priorities and criteria that they use to score projects. He said it seems pretty straight toward protecting the investment in the current network, supporting economic development, and safety. Those match pretty closely with what they do right now to prioritize projects.
Bill Ganley said he would like to see what we have done in the past. Go back and see what projects worked really well and what did not work so well; a sort of reverse planning.
Mr. Lookingbill said RTC does have a set of criteria adopted by the Board that they use for their three-year Metropolitan Transportation Improvement Program process. He said they could refer to some of that, but in looking down the list, because of the growth that we have experienced, have focused on mobility projects and capacity projects. There are also other pieces such as support economic development versus maintaining and protecting the investment. If you have one dollar to spend on only one thing, what would you spend it on? It depends on the situation that you are in, and that has changed for our region. He said we are looking at a ten-year horizon in this process because that is a more conservative in terms of the amount of development that we will experience as compared to 20 years.
Ms. David said their timeline and next steps anticipate completion by the end of summer 2012. They recognize they need to be flexible in order to respond to any statewide initiatives should they happen. The 2022 demographic forecast is now complete. They are now in the process of developing the travel demand model and revenue forecast. They anticipate providing an update at the April RTC Board meeting. This will allow time to work with RTAC members and local jurisdiction agencies.
Chair Boldt said in going back to the beginning of this discussion, he would like to have a few questions sent to members to take back to their individual jurisdictions for that discussion.
VII. I-205 Corridor Study
Bob Hart said the I-205 corridor is a backbone of regional and bi-state travel as one of two north/south freeway links connecting Clark County to Oregon. The corridor is six miles long from SR-14 north to I-5. It has six interchanges and is the primary connector to major activity centers such as Cascade Park, Vancouver mall, Padden Parkway, and Salmon Creek. There have been multiple studies since the early 1990’s; however, as far as capital investments, it is like the forgotten corridor compared to I-5. The only major investment in the last 20 years on I-205 was the new 112th off-ramp which opened in 2010.
The I-205 corridor from SR-14 to the I-5 interchange at the north was completed in 1980 and served only Clark County traffic. When the Glenn Jackson Bridge opened in 1982, there was only scattered urban development in the area. I-205 and Mill Plain interchange emerged as a new commercial node with the addition of a Fred Meyer store, a movie theater, and other retail development. Single and multi-family residential development began to occur as well, especially along Mill Plain Boulevard east of I-205. The new access between Clark County and Portland attracted extensive residential and employment growth. The direct connection to Portland airport also helped in the development of the first high technology employment centers in Clark County.
Mr. Hart provided some traffic counts in the corridor. Opening traffic over the Glenn Jackson Bridge was 38,000 vehicles per day. In 2000, the average daily traffic had more than tripled to 129,000. Traffic growth trends observed on the bridge are nearly as high further north between Mill Plain Boulevard and SR-500. From 2000 to 2010 growth rate has slowed, but still added between 17,000 to 23,000 vehicles all day.
Steve Stuart asked if the 2010 bridge counts are at 152,000 and Mill Plain counts at 122,300 if this means that close to 30,000 vehicles are getting off I-205 from the river to Mill Plain. Mr. Hart said yes, vehicles getting off at SR-14 or Mill Plain.
Mr. Hart provided a table with land use growth showing residential and employment growth between 1980 to 2010 and 2010 to 2035 in the area from Andresen to 192nd and the river north of Padden. From 1980 to 2010, it grew by 42,000 new households making up 47% of the regional household growth. It grew by 39,000 new jobs with 54% of the regional job growth. Mr. Hart provided a series of maps that gave a picture of the growth in residential and non-residential parcels in East County from 1970 to 2010. In 1979, the Urban Growth Area (UGA) was expanded east to 164th. By 1980, The I-205 corridor was essentially complete, but the Glenn Jackson Bridge was not yet opened, but you can already see development really beginning to expand east of I-205. In 1994, the Vancouver UGA extended east to 192nd. You can see parcels beginning to fill in between 164th and 192nd and along 192nd. That area and other parts of East County continue to fill in from 2000 and 2010. Mr. Hart said this illustrates the importance of the I-205 corridor and the land use that feeds into and relies on it.
Mr. Hart provided a snapshot of travel demand on I-205 for four different segments in 2010 and 2035 showing changes in vehicle volumes, volume to capacity ratio, and hours of delay. The 2035 forecast assumes that all the MTP projects and level of investment are in place. All the segment measures are significantly higher compared to 2010. The highest increase in delay and volume to capacity ratio is in the segment from SR-14 to Mill Plain, the change in delay increasing more than 5 times, and the volume to capacity ratio going up by 51%.
Mr. Hart highlighted the list of seven planning studies both roadway and transit related that have taken place around the I-205 corridor since the early 1990’s. The Bi-State Transportation Study (1992) was the first to call for a new interchange at 18th and I-205. The last major highway related study was the I-205 Access Decision Report in 2002. It detailed a series of highway capital investments needed to address safety, mobility, and reduce weaving and also supported a break in access at 18th/28th and had a phasing plan for all the improvements it recommended. The last major transit study was the Clark County High Capacity Transit (HCT) in 2008. It did not recommend Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as previous studies did, but it did call for other capital projects to improve transit speed and reliability: new park and ride, new express bus service, and bus on shoulder operation.
Mr. Hart noted the recently completed or funded projects in the I-205 corridor. He then highlighted the many projects that are planned in the corridor as listed in the memorandum included in the meeting packet. In summary, all the roadway projects total $769 million. Two of the projects are funded with partnership dollars: the Salmon Creek Interchange scheduled for completion in 2014 and the I-205/18th Street Interchange scheduled for construction in 2014 totaling $212 million. There is a total of $557 million of unfunded projects planned in the I-205 corridor as listed in the Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP).
Mr. Hart said this is one of the reasons they have embarked on this study. The purpose is to review the laundry list of projects to see which might be most important, and if they are built how should they best be sequenceedsequenced and which are the most cost effective. The study process will assess how planned improvements address current and future travel demand needs; look at how needs are affected by changing development and limited transportation revenues; use iterative process to develop scenarios made up of project combinations; and the outcome is to confirm and/or revise and prioritize improvements. RTC will also establish a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) with representatives from Vancouver, Clark County, C-TRAN, and WSDOT. They will coordinate with Metro and ODOT as needed. Updates will be provided to RTAC and the RTC Board. They will provide briefings to the Vancouver Neighborhood and Traffic Safety Alliance as part of the effort. They plan to kick off their TAC in March.
Jeanne Stewart questioned the total cost of projects listed in the table in the memorandum as being different than the total cost in the presentation slide. Mr. Hart said the table listed in the memorandum is the projects listed in the MTP that are not funded totaling $557 million. The slide with the I-205 cost summary shows total costs of projects in the corridor at $769 million. Two projects are funded totaling $212 million. The remaining projects total cost is $557 million.
Bart Gernhart said he thought this was set up well. Previous discussions were regarding transportation investment choices, strategies, goals, priorities, etc. He said we can’t afford to do everything in the corridor in the timeline they would like to do it in and a funding pot that is unlimited. He said we need to have the dialog about the priorities and what is valued. Each project does not provide the same benefit. Whether it is safety, preservation, addressing congestion, or providing future economic opportunities, each project offers something different. Mr. Gernhart said just as the investment in the 192nd corridor and the current work on St. John’s is for completely different reasons, but both are new or rebuilt interchanges. The priority discussion needs to take place prior to looking at which sections to be done first. Mr. Lookingbill asked if he was saying that one of the early things in this process is to look at the list of projects by their benefits. Mr. Gernhart said before deciding on a priority of the projects, you need to decide a higher priority of goals. If you have limited funds, where do you want to spend your money? Part of this is that preservation is separate from these. These are major improvement projects. Some address safety more than others. Other projects address capacity, existing congestion. There is also latent demand, which is going to be stifled by the constriction of the I-205 Bridge. Identifying those goals can be done concurrently with identifying the benefits of each, but you cannot select the priorities until you prioritize your goals. Mr. Lookingbill said they realize they have this collage of projects in this corridor, yet we know this corridor is really important. He said they’re planning a process that does look at the projects and what each individual project does, and if a single project is done, does it cause a bottleneck somewhere else. It will also be addressed by the jurisdiction, because they have different goals as well.
Jack Burkman said he thought Mr. Gernhart did a good job of describing why we need to do the I-205 corridor study. He said he didn’t know how these projects got on the list. Mr. Lookingbill said a lot of them have come through the Metropolitan Transportation Plan, which forecast significant growth in the I-205 corridor. One of the big policy issues driving the whole effort was Mill Plain and SR-14 and SR-500 and the City of Vancouver’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan that called for more east/west arterial street access to I-205. The projects got layered on from a capacity point of view of saying they need to build more roadways in order to handle all of the traffic. Mr. Lookingbill said there was focus on different portions of the corridor at different times. Mr. Gernhart said that list was not constrained. Mr. Burkman said it is interesting to know the process.
Steve Stuart said he agreed that knowing where the projects came from would be helpful. He said in looking as some of the projects on the list, even in 2035, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that there will need to be additional capacity in some of the areas. Commissioner Stuart also asked if this was being modeled with a new Columbia River Crossing at I-5. He said it would be good to see it with a new I-5 crossing and without a new I-5 crossing. It would be good to see it both ways in order to see the diversion or what it is going to look like and if it changes the needs on I-205. Mr. Lookingbill said these projects are out of the recently adopted Metropolitan Transportation Plan, and it does assume the I-5 Columbia River Crossing project. If they were to not assume that project, it will clearly show a certain amount of diversion. He said they can run the model to get that information.
Jeff Hamm asked if some additional sensitivity analysis regarding some basic changes in assumptions that may be built into those traffic assumptions. What if there is a change in land use patterns? How might that affect the demand in the future? Mr. Hamm also said when these projects were put together, it was pre operational innovation, such as HOT lanes. In looking at these types of projects it might be much less costly, but might provide some high value. Bart Gernhart said it was 10 years ago when these projects were addressed. Mr. Hamm suggested looking at other ways to address the capacity. Mr. Lookingbill said on the land use side, they are using the adopted land use plans grown out to 2035. If they were to change land use, that becomes a jurisdictional issue.
VIII. Other Business
From the Board
Chair Boldt welcomed two new members to the RTC Board of Director: Jeanne Stewart, Vancouver City Council Member and Melissa Smith, Camas City Council Member.
Bart Gernhart gave a brief overview of some of the projects that are underway in the community. The Salmon Creek Interchange project is at stage 3. They plan to open the northbound and southbound lanes before the County Fair, along with the new northbound off ramp going to the hospital. They also plan to purchase a couple last pieces of property late this summer for the last phase 4. This is a new overcrossing at 139th and new ramps connecting to it. They hope to be under construction on that this summer as well.
The St. John’s project had the girders for the two new ramps on the east side installed in the last two weeks. It is on schedule overall. The new overcrossing at SR-500, they hope to have open by the 4th of July along with the east side ramps. The west side ramps will be constructed once the overcrossing is complete.
On SR-14 in Camas, they are planning to shift traffic to the new frontage road in early March. The first weekend when they do this, they will close Union off in order to lower Union and finish that work. Speeds will be reduced to 25 mph. They will raise SR-14 20 to 25 feet over both Union and Second streets. They are also working on the other half of the west Camas slough bridge. They will widen it the same amount that they widened the north half of the slough bridge. This widening will provide a couple extra feet so they can put a median barrier down the middle and still have enough room for bikes on the side. By fall they hope to have the new lanes open and the new undercrossings at Union and Second open. It won’t be completely done, but by fall they hope to have the main overcrossing open. They will also be working on paving the deck for the second east Camas slough bridge and have that open at the same time.
Mr. Gernhart said they will be going out this summer with two new roundabouts in Ridgefield just outside the interchange. This is the first phase for the 502 corridor, which will build storm water treatment facilities, wildlife mitigation sites, and they are about to acquire the right of way which is a big soggy area just west of Dollars Corner. They are putting in 1,500 micropiles because they have 25 feet of sponge that they will build on top of. They will build the micropiles to span over the top of that area. It will not be a bridge; the micropiles solidify the soils so you can place material and rocks and build the span. They have something similar on Salmon Creek; where they will use foam for a portion of the new overcrossing because of the soft soils, etc. There are different technologies and different techniques for different areas.
Jeff Hamm said that Congress is working on a reauthorization of the Surface Transportation Act. The Ssenate is a two year bill and the House is a five year bill. The House bill could potentially add a significant negative impact on transit, in that the current 2.86 cents of the federal gas tax that goes to transit is taken away by the House bill beginning in 2013. It allocates $40 Billion from the general fund to fund the transit program until the end of that five-year period, and then there is nothing. So it would have to reauthorize from the general fund as opposed to the gas tax. It is a significant concern, and will be discussed at the C-TRAN Board meeting the following week.
Jeanne Stewart complemented WSDOT on the SR-500/St. John’s project. She said it is a very difficult project for a lot of reasons. There have been about two weeks of difficult and confusing travel through the area, but WSDOT through supervision and the contractor has really worked hard to keep transportation moving through that area effectively and efficiently and safely. Ms. Stewart said it is one of the toughest road projects she has seen because it is so extensive and includes the sensitive lands as well. She said they have done a good job in the transition. Mr. Gernhart said he would pass that word along.
From the Director
Mr. Lookingbill noted a memorandum distributed to members on an Update on the 2012 State Transportation Legislation. He highlighted some of the bills. There are House and Senate bills concerning local revenue options; companion bills addressing the possibility of a new state revenue package; modifying provisions of transportation benefit districts; concerning the I-5 CRC project and tolling; creation of transit overlay zones; and a House bill creating a road user future funding task force to look at new system for revenues. Mr. Lookingbill said February 14 is the last day to consider the bills in the house of origin.
Steve Stuart asked that when listing the bills to provide the status. Mr. Lookingbill said he would do that. He said as far as he knew, all of the bills listed on the memorandum were still alive, but by the following day, could change. Steve Stuart said if they get a bill list he would like to see the status shown with it.
Mr. Lookingbill noted JPACT meets Thursday, February 9, 2012, at Metro at 7:30 a.m. C TRAN Regional Policy Committee meets February 14 at 5:00 p.m. at C-TRAN, and C-TRAN Board of Directors meets on Tuesday, February 14 at 6:00 p.m. at C-TRAN. He also noted a meeting that was not included on the list is the Clark County Transportation Alliance Day in Olympia on Wednesday, February 15, 2012.
The next RTC Board meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 6, 2012, at 4 p.m.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:40 p.m.
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