CC Minutes - 07/15/08 Joint Elected Officials

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united county to perform the coordinated population forecast they would be able to move forward “faster and in a coordinated manner.” Eugene Councilor Clark asked if there were consequences if the jurisdictions moved forward in a separate way. Mr. Inerfeld replied that he was pretty certain that the RTSP would still have to contain facilities of regional significance. He thought it would help each jurisdiction to have its own plan, adding that he was not aware of any other jurisdictions in the state that had joint plans. Commissioner Fleenor asked how revising or dispensing with the MetroPlan would impact the RTSP. Eugene City Attorney Katherine Brotherton responded that the TransPlan was the functional part of the MetroPlan. She said if the MetroPlan stopped existing as it stood today it would have impacts on the way that the TransPlan would look in the future partially because it was implementing the transportation element of the MetroPlan. Commissioner Fleenor said he had analyzed the MetroPlan and he opined that it had no legal underpinnings; he was not certain it would be legally defensible. He averred that before they go any further they should restore the underpinnings of the assumptions that they were working on and address the MetroPlan first. Mayor Leiken thought the two cities would still have to have a comprehensive plan. He agreed that it would make more sense for the two jurisdictions to have their own plans except in the case of projects that had regional significance such as the Interstate 5/Beltline Highway interchange. He believed that it would make sense for the jurisdictions to continue their United Front efforts. He also had some issues with the MetroPlan and felt it was worth continuing to look into. Springfield Councilor Lundberg assumed that if the jurisdictions had their own transportation plans they would still make decisions about regional facilities as they did now. She asked if this had been defined and who would make what decision. Mr. Inerfeld responded that it was not entirely clear where the line would fall between what would be considered a regional transportation facility and what was not. He said it had yet to be worked out between the local jurisdictions and ODOT where the line fell between what should be in the RTSP, what should be in the local transportation plan, and what should fall under the heading of both. He noted that the City of Eugene had an Arterial and Collector Street Plan that classified the streets according to transportation needs as local streets, collectors, or arterials. Tom Boyatt, Transportation Manager for the City of Springfield, stated that Springfield was about to initiate a street classification process. Commissioner Fleenor said he wanted to “dovetail on the coattails” of Mayor Leiken regarding the current financial circumstances. He reiterated his belief that a coordinated population forecast was an essential building block by which they should begin this process. He opined that without such a forecast any structure above this would be “susceptible.” He averred that they should take a slow approach and ensure they had a solid foundation to work from in order to move forward 25 to 75 years ahead. Eugene Councilor Pryor agreed that it would be appropriate to conduct the majority of transportation planning at the local level. He observed that there were large transportation systems that had a regional impact as evidenced by the large amount of traffic traveling from east to west and vice versa during rush hours. He said defining what that level would be and how the systems would interface would be the exercise that would have to be undertaken. He was more concerned about what the underpinning assumptions each MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 4 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils