Minutes

I. Call to Order and Approval of Minutes

The meeting of the Regional Transportation Advisory Committee was called to order on Friday, October 20, 2006, at 9:00 a.m. in the Training Room (6th Floor) at the Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin Street, Vancouver, Washington. Dale Robins, Senior Transportation Planner, served as Chair for the meeting. Those in attendance follow:

Sam Adams		City of Battle Ground
Gail Bauhs		Human Services Council
Jim Carothers		City of Camas
Justin Clary		City of Ridgefield
Lynda David		RTC
Lynn Halsey		C-TRAN
Mark Harrington		RTC
Bob Hart		RTC
Addison Jacobs		Port of Vancouver
Katherine Klockenteger		WSDOT
Mike Mabrey		Clark County
Gavin Oien		David Evans Consultant
Thomas Picco		ODOT
Ed Pickering		C-TRAN
Matt Ransom		City of Vancouver
Sandi Roberts		RTC
Dale Robins		RTC
Scott Sawyer		City of Washougal
Mark Turpel		Metro
Michael Williams		WSDOT
Bill Wright		Clark County
Phil Wuest		City of Vancouver

Dale Robins, RTC, asked for any changes or corrections to the September 15, 2006, meeting minutes.

Gail Bauhs, Human Services Council, noted her name was missing from the September attendance list.

MIKE MABREY, CLARK COUNTY, MOVED FOR APPROVAL OF THE SEPTEMBER 15, 2006, MINUTES WITH THE CORRECTION REQUESTED, AND SCOTT SAWYER, CITY OF WASHOUGAL, SECONDED THE MOTION. THE MOTION WAS UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED.

II. C-TRAN Service Plan Redesign, Discussion

Lynn Halsey, C-TRAN Director of Operations, gave a Power Point Presentation on “C-TRAN’s Service Design Planning Update”. Lynn reported C-TRAN was in the final stages of negotiations for hiring a new Executive Director. Lynn said C-TRAN last undertook a comprehensive service re-design in 1998 but shortly thereafter I-695 resulted in loss of MVET revenues. He said the current service plan redesign was initiated, in part, because of the opportunities and challenges presented by vacation of the 7th Street Transit Center in downtown Vancouver and plans to open the 99th Street park and ride.

Consultants, Perteet Engineering Inc, reviewed ridership data, census data, customer comments, and interviewed C-TRAN staff. Lynn reviewed the elements of the service redesign plan including Ridership Count, On-Board Survey, Stakeholder Meetings, and Market Research. 3,400 of C-TRAN riders (21% of ridership) responded to the on-board ridership survey. Service priorities requested by riders are later service hours, more frequent service, and more weekend service. Transfer patterns were tracked to help plan for more efficient and/or new routes.

Lynn said stakeholder interviews were conducted with education providers, neighborhood and business associations, medical facilities, and municipalities. The themes heard most frequently: improve span and frequency, have more direct service to major employers and educational facilities, improve service to Portland, provide new service to growing areas within Clark County, and provide additional marketing.

Lynn noted the main goal of the service redesign was to improve C-TRAN system ridership, address changes in capital facilities, and maintain frequent service to major existing destinations – downtown Vancouver and Vancouver Mall. Riders wanted better service to Portland and to serve growing areas.

Regarding Downtown Vancouver, the key finding was that a major transit facility is not needed to replace 7th Street. This will help reduce the number of buses south of Evergreen. With route redesign, existing patrons will continue to enjoy access to the service. C-TRAN is looking at a bi-directional service on Broadway and Main. The findings show that with continued service to Vancouver Mall and the opening of 99th Street Park and Ride, the need for layover activity in downtown is dramatically reduced.

C-TRAN had looked at having a transit facility at the Administration/Operations/Maintenance (AOM) Transit Center at 65th Street. However, the system redesign study showed that community travel patterns and unmet needs are not consistent with this facility. This location would likely increase passenger travel time, increase operating costs, and reduce ridership. C-TRAN is planning for completion of 99th Street Transit Center by September 2007. The service redesign and removal of service from 7th Street depends on 99th Street Transit Center opening.

Lynn highlighted the proposed service enhancements: 1) expand service to midnight on key routes, 2) extend route #4 to Jantzen Beach and PIR, 3) expand east county service, and 4) expand service to Southwest Washington Medical Center. Lynn said C-TRAN completed nine public open houses and had a great turn out. They sent out personal invitations to every person who had sent C-TRAN a letter with a question or comment and sent them a special invitation to Public Open Houses. C-TRAN looked through all the comments and is working on finalizing the recommendations. A C-TRAN Board public hearing will be held and C-TRAN hopes to have recommendations adopted in January 2007 once the new CEO is in place.

Matt Ransom, City of Vancouver, complimented C-TRAN and the consultants on an excellent job. Lynda David, RTC, commented that she had been working with community partners, including Gail Bauhs of the Human Services Council - Transportation Brokerage, on the federally-required Coordinated Human Services Transportation Plan covering transportation needs of the elderly, people with disabilities and low income. Human services transportation stakeholders had commented that their clients need extended hours of service to get to and from jobs. Lynn said that with fixed route changes, the paratransit service would also operate until later hours. There was discussion of continued transit service to Vancouver Mall. Changes in Mall management often resulted in changed attitudes toward transit service and willingness to enter into a long-term agreement with C-TRAN. Dale Robins asked about use of CMAQ grant funding for Super Stops. Lynn said C-TRAN is looking at implementing the improved service plan, and when the service redesign is finished, they will be doing Super Stops.

III. Columbia River Crossing Update: Key Issues for River Crossings and Transit, Discussion

Bob Hart, RTC, gave a Power Point presentation on the Columbia River Crossing Update. Bob said last March, RTAC members received an update on the status of the Columbia River Crossing project. The March meeting included review and discussion of the project purpose and need, the vision and values statement, the problem definition, the evaluation approach, and project schedule. Bob pointed out since March, a wide range of the highway and transit components were narrowed to a smaller number and packaged into a set of twelve multi-modal alternative transportation packages. During the summer and fall, a wide range of information is being developed around the twelve alternatives to assess their relative ability to address the project purpose and need including: safety and traffic operations; transit operations and reliability; freight mobility; and structural integrity of the river crossing.

Bob said the strongest elements of the alternatives would be narrowed and combined into a set of two to four alternatives to include for study in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). This effort will be initiated in 2007 and will culminate in the selection of a locally preferred alternative in early 2008.

Bob gave an overview of the five transit components: 1) Express Bus in General Purpose Lanes, 2) Express Bus in Managed Lanes, 3) Bus Rapid Transit, 4) Bus Rapid Transit Lite, and 5) Light Rail Transit.

The Power Point slides showed drawings of: 1) Supplemental Bridge Downstream Midlevel, 2) Replacement Bridge Downstream Midlevel, 3) Replacement Bridge Upstream Midlevel, and 4) Arterial Bridge Supplement with I-5 Improvements Downstream. Bob reviewed slides showing designs for interchanges influenced by river crossing options and interchange designs that range from simple to complex. Bob highlighted slides depicting representative segments of the ten “build” alternatives.

Bob described the Existing Bridges, status and implications for alternatives and factors being considering to determine the “prudence and feasibility” of reusing existing bridges. He said the Committee is looking at “How would the existing bridges affect”: 1) traffic performance, 2) transit performance, 3) navigation safety and operations, 4) community and the economy, and 5) natural resources. Bob said another question is consideration of ownership. The DOT’s are still discussing this issue.

Bob said all supplemental alternatives would have: 1) slightly greater long-term natural resource impacts, 2) larger total footprints, 3) greater impacts to navigation, 4) added costs from seismic upgrades and other retrofits. For reuse options that do not include Interstate traffic on existing bridges: Ownership would be a challenge and the US Coast Guard would likely remove bridge lift restrictions of more frequent lifts and lifts during peak traffic periods.

Bob said the next step to determine prudence for cost estimates and traffic analysis is to better understand impacts on local streets. Bob spoke about the findings for bridge reuse for arterial purposes, for light rail, for BRT, for bicycle/pedestrian reuse and for a preservation option whereby the bridges would be preserved but not used for transportation. However, he said the US Coast Guard would require that the bridges be removed if they are not used for transportation.

Bob reported the next steps would be to estimate costs for construction, operations, maintenance, and lifecycle costs and cost-effectiveness. The committee will analyze local traffic lifts that would affect LRT and BRT operations. They will be looking at travel-time, reliability, system disruption, and ridership.

Bob reviewed the project schedule and Task Force meetings and topics. In October – November 2006, the Task Force will review preliminary evaluation results; in December - January they plan to review staff recommendations and draft Task Force recommendations for DEIS alternatives (transit and river crossing); February 2007 public comments will be reviewed, and in March 2007 will consider refinement of alternatives (interchange options, transit alignment options, etc.).

Addison Jacobs, Port of Vancouver, asked if the information had been distributed to a broader range of people including the elected bodies. Bob said they are working on getting information out to a broader range.

IV. RTAC Bylaws: Review and Update, Discussion

Lynda David, RTC, presented the RTAC Bylaws Review and Update. Lynda referred to the RTAC Bylaws attached to the RTAC memo. She said at the August RTAC meeting, the Bylaws were distributed, and now RTAC members are asked to review the Bylaws and make any suggestions for change. Lynda said the existing RTAC Bylaws, were adopted in 1994. With Clark County’s growth and with federal transportation laws now requiring coordination with a greater number of transportation stakeholders, it is timely to review the RTAC Bylaws. Any suggested changes will have to be forwarded to the RTC Board of Directors for the Board’s decision.

Lynda read from the Bylaws the purpose of the Regional Transportation Advisory Committee (RTAC) which is to coordinate and guide the regional transportation planning program in accordance with the policy of the Regional Transportation Council (RTC) Board of Directors. The regional transportation-planning program includes transportation policy development, the development of regional transportation plans and programming of transportation projects. Lynda said RTAC provides technical review of transportation analysis, reports, plans and project programs and makes recommendations to the RTC Board for the Board’s decision making.

Lynda pointed out that one of the main considerations in review of RTAC Bylaws is the membership issue. Lynda said two alternatives for membership and voting rights are proposed, though a further alternative could be suggested by RTAC. Lynda said she would like to have discussion on the proposed changes to the Bylaws and, in particular, try to reach a decision on membership and voting.

Lynda said that RTC welcomes broad participation at RTAC meetings. However, meeting quorum must be met and this issue needs to be kept in mind when considering membership and voting rights. At RTAC meetings, we consistently get attendance of 8 voting members. Lynda posed some questions for the Committee to consider. She said that Clark County and the City of Vancouver are the two largest jurisdictions represented and so two representatives for each are proposed; one from public works and one from planning. Planning staff can inform the Committee of land use decisions that affect trip making and travel. Lynda asked for feedback on this proposal. She also said that SAFETEA-LU requires closer coordination between the MPO and stakeholders involved in human services transportation. The MPO is required to adopt a Human Services Transportation Plan. Lynda said we are therefore proposing the addition of the Human Service Council as an RTAC member. RTC welcomes participation of all the cities within Clark County but recognizes that not all small cities have staff available to attend our meetings. Therefore, some cities are paired together. Another issue is representation of the three Ports; the Port of Vancouver, Port of Camas-Washougal, and Port of Ridgefield. Under the current voting status they have one vote shared between the three ports. In proposed Alternatives I, the three ports would each have a vote. Alternative II allows a vote for the Port of Vancouver and the smaller ports are paired with a city.

Phil Wuest, City of Vancouver, suggested that, given new technology, the Bylaws might want to address whether people can participate through conference call. Ed Pickering, C-TRAN, recommended that reference to SAFETEA-LU be taken out and replaced with the Federal Transportation Act. He noted that successive Federal Transportation Acts have been given new names; ISTEA, TEA-21 and now SAFETEA-LU. Dale Robins suggested that text be added to the Bylaws to emphasize that broad participation is welcomed. For example, Yacolt may not have the staff to warrant them becoming a full voting member. However, their participation would be most welcome. The same would hold true for the ports. Phil questioned whether SW Clean Air Agency should be a member. Lynda said they were also constrained by having a small staff and with this region’s changed air quality status we may have less dealings with them. Nevertheless, RTC will talk with them about the proposed Bylaws changes. Lynda said that there has been growing recognition of the relationship between a healthy community and transportation and the Health Department had recently voiced interest in being involved in the MPO. Dale said he felt that, again, this came down to welcoming a broad range of participation but membership and voting rights for all participants were not necessarily needed. Matt Ransom questioned how multimodal interests are represented and suggested that under Article V, subcommittees could be established.

The suggested change from a “majority of the members” to “60% of the members present at meetings at which a quorum is present shall be the act of the Committee” was questioned. It was pointed out that RTAC usually reaches consensus decisions. Members could not recall having a close vote on any issues. Also, if RTAC are not in agreement on an issue then it should receive more attention before being forwarded to the Board as an RTAC recommendation.

After discussion, Mike Mabrey, Clark County, said he felt Alternative II best fits RTAC’s needs. There was general agreement from RTAC. Lynda summarized the Committee’s discussion points and said she would incorporate them into the proposed Bylaws update. Addison Jacobs, Port of Vancouver, said the combined ports Commissions met and discussed RTAC representation. She said the general feeling was that RTAC should be as inclusive as possible to the extent that is possible. The Ports leaned toward Alternative II whereby the Port of Vancouver will be a voting member, smaller ports will be welcomed to participate at RTAC meeting but for voting purposes, will be paired with a city. The Port of Ridgefield has indicated that they are comfortable being paired with the City of Ridgefield. RTC staff will need to talk with Port of Camas/Washougal to find out whether they should be paired with Camas or Washougal.

Lynda thanked RTAC for their comments and said she will incorporate suggestions into the proposed Bylaws update and return to RTAC for a recommendation before forwarding to the RTC Board for approval. Lynda summarized by saying it looks like RTAC members are leaning toward Alternative II. She asked that if members had additional suggestions, they should contact her.

V. Other Business

A. RTAC Members

Janeen Loughin, C-TRAN, spoke of plans to redesign C-TRAN service. Janeen said there will be a C-TRAN Board briefing in September with several public meetings in late September and early October. A public hearing before the Board will be held in October. She said they hope to adopt the plan by the end of the year with implementation over an 8-9 month period. The key element to the service design is bringing the 99th Street Transit Center/Park-and-Ride into service. It is scheduled to open September 2007. This would somewhat alleviate the downsizing of the 7th Street Transit Center as well as C-TRAN’s layover structure at the Mall. RTAC members will be e-mailed the Open House Schedule. Dean said it would be helpful to have an overview of the Plan at a future RTAC meeting.

Regional Mobility Grants -- Ed Pickering, C-TRAN, said the Regional Mobility Grant Program is designed primarily to enhance transit services to help reduce congestion. Puget Sound are most competitive for this funding program though Spokane and Vancouver also have areas of congestion. $40 million will be available in the 2007-09 biennium. C-TRAN is asking for $750,000 to supplement commuter service, mid-day and evening service in the I-5 corridor with added runs from the 99th Street Park and Ride.

I-5/SR-501/Pioneer Interchange -- Justin Clary, City of Ridgefield, said that since he reported to RTAC in May 2006, the high cost of the bridge structure had resulted in the Design Team and WSDOT looking at a diamond interchange that could save $5 million in construction costs. The diamond interchange could be designed to accommodate forecast 2030 travel demand. Justin said 30% design should be completed by late November or December 2006. Financial consultants are looking at using transportation benefit district legislation to raise a portion of the funding for the project. He said Ridgefield could be the first in the state to do this.

Comprehensive Growth Management Plan for Clark County -- Mike Mabrey, Clark County, said the County is in the final stages of FEIS preparation. The Board of Commissioners have held workshops on the Preferred Alternative Map. The County will distribute the TAZ allocations of jobs and households to jurisdictions for review and quick turnaround.

B. RTC Staff

High Capacity Transit Study Information -- Dale Robins, RTC, said the first HCT staff level meeting was held to kick off the Study. The first Steering Committee meeting, with elected officials, takes place October 24. Current work involves branding for the study, website design, and consistent design for study materials. By mid November, it is hoped that issue papers will be produced and the Web page will be up and running. The public launch is scheduled for mid-November.

Transportation Corridors Visioning Study Update -- Lynda David, RTC, said the Transportation Corridors Visioning Study Steering Committee held its first meeting on October 6. The meeting generally covered Committee protocols and purpose for the 50-year visioning study. Demographic forecasts were also discussed. The Steering Committee voiced concern about getting hung up on the contentious issue of appropriate annual growth rate to assume. Instead, they felt that the Study should convey the message that this community is taking a proactive step to plan for a future transportation system that can serve a million people. Given current growth trends, the population of the County could reach about a million people in 50 years’ time. Lynda said she will provide frequent Study updates at future RTAC meetings.

2007-2010 MTIP Documents Distribution -- Dale Robins, RTC, told RTAC members that the 2007-2010 MTIP was adopted at the October RTC Board meeting. Printed copies were available for RTAC members to take away from this meeting.

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