Item B: River Avenue Improvements

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community, and from a number of the representatives in the stakeholder group process, strongly advocated that no improvements be made to River Avenue until the residents and community had a better understanding of the Oregon Department of Transportation' s future development plans for Beltline Highway, the ramps at River Avenue and River Road, and the Beltline bridge across the Willamette River. While this concern continued to be raised throughout the stakeholder meetings, by the end of the third meeting, the group voted to approve a design alternative--see below.) Second Meeting At the second meeting, part of the group's discussion centered on whether the stakeholders' concerns were a function of costs and assessments, or whether the concern had to do with creating a design that addressed safety issues and met the needs of the community. Both assessment costs and addressing community needs and safety issues were of concern to all the representatives in the group, although differences were noted among the stakeholder representatives regarding the design preferences of River Avenue. Dan Hill, one of the property owners, proposed a design approach that split River Avenue into two segments, with the west end of River Avenue meriting a different design standard than the east end of River Avenue, given the different businesses, traffic patterns and bicycle and pedestrian uses of the two segments. Hill suggested making the point of demarcation between the two segments at Ross Lane. Given the group discussion, the facilitator asked for a vote on establishing two different design standards for the west and east end of River Avenue, and where the point of demarcation should be. The group indicated vl'ith a unanimous show of hands its support for splitting River Avenue into tu'o sections with different development standards to suit the difference in uses for those two parts of the road (Minutes-River Avenue Stakeholder Group, August 30, 10OS. The group indicated a preference for demarcation of the f11'0 segments o.lRiver Avenue, to be developed to d(fferent and more spec{fic standards based on road usage, to occur at Ross Lane by a vote of7:3 (ibid) Third Meeting At the third meeting, two different proposals were submitted by stakeholder representatives for consideration by the RASG. The property o\vner representatives had met between meetings and submitted a proposal that suggested a center turn lane for the entire length of River Avenue. The proposal included sidewalks on both sides of River Avenue up to the east end of the Post Office, and a single sidewalk east of the Post OHice on the north side. Bike lanes were also induded in their proposal on both sides up to the east end of the Post Office, and then only on the south side of the avenue east of the Post Office. Another proposal from Teresa Damron of the River Road Community Organization suggested a range of options for the RASG to consider. These options included: 1) have no road project to improve River Avenue until ODOr s plans became clearer; 2) maintain the road with a simple overlay of pavement until ODOT determined the long-