Item B: River Avenue Improvements

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Transportation Plan RTP). The Federal Highway Administration (FHW A) would not sign a NEPA document until the project was on the 'constrained list' in the RTP. He defined the financial constraint list as a "salary cap," because it was based on the reasonable projection of revenues out 20 years. He explained that at this point, the projects were "bumped up against the salary cap." He said some projects would have to be built and new revenues realized before more projects could be added to the constrained list. He speculated that the environmental impact project could cost $2.5 million, and it was now programmed at $1 million. Mr. Boyatt stated that the Interstate 5/Beltline Road project began systems planning in 1995, made it "into NEPA" in 1998. and the first phase of it would likely go to bid this year. He underscored that this was a good example of how long the process could take in a best case scenario. In response to Mr. Howard, Mr. Boyatt clarified that the funding was listed in the STIP for 2009 and, between August and December in 2006, he would scope a project on the Beltline Highway segment between River Road and the Delta Highway. The refinement planning effort would occur between 2006 and 2009. He said that work would set up a NEPA project for 2009, but that the full funding for NEPA would need to be identified and programmed. Gordon Howard: "Given those facts as you've laid them out timewise, it would seem logical to me that it could lay into your plans that we've (unintelligible) this intersection at the end of River Avenue which was scheduled for 2008. So it sounds to me like this entire process (unintelligible) ... ..as much on schedule as you can." Tom Boyatt: "It seems the push through River Avenue would be to maintain the connection within the project that we can anticipate. The local connection and the parallel system are recognized by ODOT as taking pressure offthe streets system. They're often not easier investments to make but certainly less costly investments to make, so often the State participates in making those improvements to carry some of that load. But, you know, we take the River Avenue route and local connection, maybe not so much the connection to the highway, that local circulation as a given and whatever process we go through we have to respect the local system." Gordon Howard: "Are you telling me that, now ODOT has come to the River Avenue owners in the past and told them that they are considering closing that access. And I think if you're now telling me that ODOT has removed that from the table that would be very good information for us to have." Tom Boyatt: "I wish I could say that. The accesses to the highway are on the table. The vagary of the River Avenue/Division local streets are not on the table." Tn response to a question from Ms. Vaughn, Mr. Boyatt stated that ODOT's refinement planning effort would begin to look at alternatives to find ways to add capacity to Beltline in order to improve traffic flow. He reiterated that ODOT had to design a facility that would operate within standards for 20 years and in that span of time a plan for a six-lane road could become a plan for an eight-lane road in response to local growth. Mr. Boyatt said, in response to a follow-up question from Ms. Vaughn, that $13 million listed on the future list in TransPlan was from a very old planning document. He noted that TransPlan had been updated "a couple of years ago" and one policy change had been that when a project was placed on the constrained list, the MPO now went to the owner ofthe system and asked for their best estimate of the MINUTES-River Avenue Stakeholder Group- Public Works Department August 24, 2005 Page 6