CC Minutes - 07/10/06 Work Session

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Ms. Solomon asked if refocusing the City’s transportation priorities to the Beltline corridor in the event the council did not support either WEP alignment would be supported by ODOT. City Manager Taylor said that Beltline was already identified in TransPlan and the City was engaged in preliminary work. He felt that regional partners would be willing to address traffic issues in that corridor as an alternative to the WEP. Ms. Solomon was skeptical that ODOT would be willing to participate after the parkway problems and was concerned that the City would lose ODOT’s support for future transportation improvements. She pointed out there was no funding for other transportation improvements in west Eugene and the City could not afford to maintain its current street system. Mr. Kelly pointed out that the $14 million the State reserved for the WEP was only about ten percent of the current estimated cost of the parkway. He thanked Ms. Piercy for her efforts to foster a collaborative process. He felt it was unfortunate that ODOT did not acknowledge that the Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Land Manager also had concerns about the parkway project. He hoped that other high priority west Eugene transportation projects could be restored to the 20-year transportation plan if there was a no build decision on the WEP. He supported all other MTIP projects and expected the MTIP would be moved forward at the MPC’s July 13, 2006, meeting. Ms. Taylor stated that for too many years the WEP had been a delay and a diversion from urgent transpor- tation projects and it was time to start thinking about solving real problems. She said the fact that funds had already been spent on the project did not mean more should be spent and it was time to quit. She was curious about who had purchased land along the proposed parkway route. Ms. Ortiz thanked Ms. Piercy and Mr. Kelly for their work on the MPC. She did not support the WEP and hoped that the City could focus on other traffic issues in the community. Ms. Bettman pointed out that three years after the voters approved the WEP and the council approved a motion to move forward, the parkway was no closer to being built and, according to Mr. Schoening, it would be another three years at the least before any construction would occur. She did not believe that the State could deny the City access to funds that were generated from taxpayers through the gas tax. She said the projects that were previously high priority should be returned to the process of competing for those transportation dollars. She asked if it would be possible to propose an amendment to the MTIP to include those projects in lieu of the WEP. Mr. Schoening said he did not believe that would be possible because MTIP adoption included adoption of air quality conformity, which was based on the projects in the MTIP; removing a project and including new projects would require another analysis. He said the process for moving those projects forward for funding would include establishing priorities at the council level and submitting those priorities to the MPC for review; if determined by the MPC to be high priority the projects would be forwarded to the Lane County Board of Commissioners for consideration as part of the area’s priorities and move through the funding process at the State level. Ms. Piercy remarked that ODOT indicated a willingness to continue future conversations with the City regarding regionally significant projects. Mr. Kelly said that five years ago a multi-agency charette concluded that the WEP could not go forward and the process should be concluded with a no build decision. He was pleased that the door was open for future conversations and collaboration. He asked staff to prepare a summary of the process to move priority projects forward. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 10, 2006 Page 4 Work Session