Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Ms. Bettman asked how the RTP was inconsistent with the TransPlan. Mr. Inerfeld said there were projects that were already built that were still in TransPlan but had been removed from the RTP. Ms. Bettman asked if there were projects in the RTP that were not in TransPlan. Mr. Inerfeld said he would have to get back to her with that information. As an example, he noted that staff had a project intended to provide better access th from the Fern Ridge Path to the West 11 Avenue area around Target. Ms. Bettman thought the information included in the Agenda Item Summary (AIS) was insufficient. She thought the council needed to know all the inconsistencies between the RTP and TransPlan, including Springfield and Lane County projects. She asked for more information about those jurisdictions’ projects. Mr. Inerfeld said he could secure that information. He recalled that there were projects moved from the illustrative list to the constrained list in the RTP; they included two interchanges in Springfield and two highway projects in Eugene. Ms. Bettman noted staff’s recommendation to move forward with the planning horizon and the West Eugene Parkway (WEP) removal from the TransPlan and asked which projects in the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) were in jeopardy if the plan was not amended. Mr. Inerfeld was unsure what projects would be in jeopardy, but noted that the MPC had programmed improvements to the Beltline within that STIP cycle. Ms. Bettman asked if that would be in jeopardy if the amendments were not made. Mr. Inerfeld said that the staff of the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) had expressed discomfort about having a plan about to expire in the midst of a STIP cycle. Ms. Solomon found the information provided very helpful. She expected the City Council would see more specifics when it saw the amendments. She asked about Lane Transit District’s (LTD) role in the process. Mr. Inerfeld said that LTD had two board members on the MPC and General Manager Mark Pangborn attended MPC meetings. While LTD would not be voting on the Transportation System Plan, it was involved in its development and would continue to be at the table for discussion. Mayor Piercy said that ODOT indicated to the MPC that the State was receiving less in gas tax money because people were driving fewer miles and were driving hybrids, and there were fewer dollars for doing business as usual, which had caused ODOT to take a different look at how it wished to do transportation planning. It also caused ODOT to look to local jurisdictions for more and larger project matches. Mr. Clark said that people were already referring to the upcoming 2009 State Legislature as the transporta- tion session during which statewide transportation issues would be addressed, and that would be reflected in the State budget. However, he also noted the recent revenue forecast, which was not favorable, and asked how that would potentially affect the actions that could be taken by the Legislature. Assistant City Manager Angel Jones indicated staff would follow up with a memorandum. Mr. Zelenka spoke to the issue of the modernization money. He pointed out that most of the projects on the list were reconstruction projects. The Beltline-Coburg to River Road and Delta Highway intersection projects were examples of that. The projects did not add capacity but changed existing capacity. Mr. Zelenka called the council’s attention to the Lane Council of Governments (LCOG) website, www.thempo.org, which allowed residents to examine the projects on the project list. Mr. Zelenka observed that $8 million was being allocated by the State to all of Region 2, which was the entire southwest Oregon area, for the years 2012-2013. He said the gas tax had not been raised in 15 years, and the lack of funding was a ramification of that. MINUTES—Eugene City Council April 21, 2008 Page 4 Work Session