CC Minutes - 11/26/07 Work Session

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Regarding the Purpose and Need Statement, Ms. Bettman said if the purpose was to create a commuter route for Veneta or capture "commuter sheds" from West or Northwest Eugene, that should be clearly stated and ridership gains analyzed. She hoped LTD would be response to the public input it had received. She asked if the cost was estimated at $50 million. Mr. Schwetz said that was the estimate, but that would be refined during the planning process. Ms. Bettman asked how much match was required. Mr. Schwetz said it was likely to e a 40 percent match. Referring to the LTD annual report, Ms. Bettman opined that LTD did not have the capacity to meet increased demand for transit services because of the amount of money that had to be generated locally to invest in the West Eugene project. She said the Purpose and Need Statement should include a comparison of how investing that money in service instead of the project would impact ridership and capacity. Mr. Poling said that a lot of people coming in from west of Eugene added to the congestion on West 11th Avenue. He said it did not make sense to oppose efforts to alleviate traffic problems in West Eugene, reduce dependency on automobiles and encourage use of mass transit. He liked the concept of a Park and Rider facility at the end of the corridor and noted that the path along Amazon Channel was already used for more than recreation purposes; many people commuted to work along it. Ms. Piercy pointed out the WEC's recommendation on the Purpose and Need Statement, which identified a number of purposes for the project. Ms. Bettman said the Amazon Channel would increase the distance that people had to walk and EmX already increased that by more widely space stops. She asserted that was a reduction in service. She thought the WEC's recommendation was an improvement, but did not take into account that those benefits should be realized without negatively impacting progressively improving service in the rest of the system. She asked if any of the alternatives involved the removal of street trees. Mr. Schwetz replied that the process had not yet reached that point. Mr. Pangborn said that issue was addressed with the first EmX corridor as there were historic trees along the route. He pointed out that the alignment was designed to protect the trees. He affirmed Mr. Schwetz's statement that it was too early to know the specifics of any of the potential alignments. Mr. Evans said the purpose of the project was to expand LTD's capacity to provide service to the commu- nity and EmX provided a unique opportunity to do that on several levels. He said LTD was rapidly approaching saturation in terms of the ability to deliver service, particularly with traffic congestion in West Eugene. He said part of the problem was that planning and development occurred without considering mass transit in the equation, resulting in a focus on the automobile and making it more difficult for transit to reach its potential ridership. The scoping process would examine a range of alternatives in order to identify the best alternative for the community. He said there were traffic problems in northwest Eugene that were approaching gridlock and transit was the only alternative to alleviate that. He emphasized that transit should be part of a total transportation solutions package to move people around the community. Ms. Piercy remarked that the City was also looking at short-term traffic solutions with the West Eugene corridor study. She pointed out that the WEC had recommended including objectives related to neighbor- hoods, redevelopment, connections to future routes and corridors and many other issues important to the community. She also noted three additional route alternatives were suggested for consideration. MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 26, 2007 Page 4 Work Session