Item B: Funding Strategies for Transportation System Operations, Maintenance, and Preservation

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Street Preservation Preservation work includes rehabilitation and reconstruction activities. Summary of discussion: Many city streets are now showing significant signs of decay. Preserving Eugene?s current investment in streets and related facilities is the most cost-effective investment of any new transportationsystem funding and should receive the highestpriority. Timely investment in preservation will extend useful life of existing streets for many years and prevent additional deterioration. Failure to invest in rehabilitation would result in a need for much more expensive reconstruction in the future. If rehabilitation activity is not done in a timely manner, the subgrade will deteriorate, and failure will occur. When this failure occurs, the street structure must be removed and reconstructed. The subcommittee agrees that funding rehabilitation first will have the greatest cost-effectiveness. Reconstruction backlog projects should be funded after the rehabilitation backlog is addressed. Street Operation and Maintenance The importance of continuing to fund transportation system operation Summary of discussion: and maintenance at the current level was supported by the subcommittee. Operation and maintenanceservices are critical to the success of any capitalpreservation program. This is particularly true if Eugene invests millions of dollars of new revenue in overcoming the rehabilitation and reconstruction backlog.Without a fully funded Operation and maintenance program,the preservation strategies will be less effective. In recent years, the County has transferred $1.25 million of federal funds annually to the City Road Fund. This money has gone to support operations and maintenance activities. If this transfer is reduced or restricted to capital activities by the County, the Road Fund operations and maintenance activities will be in a deficit position as early as FY03. The FY02 budget approved by the Budget Committee presumes these funds will be available for a period of one year, based on a one-year extension of the current County/CityRoad Partnership Agreement, signed in May 2001. Off-Street Bicycle System Preservation Backlog Despite its popularity and Eugene?s commitment to multi-modal Summary of discussion: transportation, the off-street bicycle system has not been funded adequately because of the constitutional constraints that do not allow use of road fund dollars outside of the road right-of- way as well as the unavailability of City General Fund dollars. A priority for new, non- constrained revenue from a transportation utility fee would address the rehabilitation and reconstruction backlog of this deteriorating system. Bicycle System Operation and Maintenance New revenue from a non-constrained source is needed for ongoing Summary of discussion: operation and maintenance of the bicycle system, which will be essential to preserveEugene?s capital investment and ensure that bicycle transportation remains a viable transportation choice. Traffic Calming and Other Needs Although the subcommitteedid not rank other needs as highly as those Summary of discussion: addressed above, membersrecognized that traffic calming in particular is seen as an important need by many people in the community. The consensus was that some level of federal STP matching funds should be provided from any new revenue resource, and the matching and federal 14