Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

Home Browse Search

took to reach this point. He feared further delay would delay construction a decade. Mr. Zelenka th questioned if the Highway 99 extension would be constructed at all if the council killed the West 11 Avenue option. Mr. Kortge suggested that as residents aged, they would increasingly want to ride the bus and people would not want them driving. Mr. Eyster recalled that TransPlan had called for a regional transportation system and all the EmX corridors were identified in TransPlan. He maintained that it was a question of when EmX, not if EmX, and in what order. He did not want to hear further discussion of reordering the routes. He said the City Council had come to the LTD Board in 2006 to request that it proceed with the West Eugene route. It was now 2011, and he did not think now was the time to rethink the corridor selected. Mr. Eyster concluded by stating that the system was based on community values. Mayor Piercy stressed the importance of the local elected and appointed officials acting with one voice to secure the needed federal funding to construct the west Eugene EmX extension. She recalled discussion of LTD proceeding with EmX on both Highway 99 and River Road to ramp up construction of the system. She acknowledged the challenge of that. Mayor Piercy suggested the Gateway phase represented th a step forward because EmX began to look more like a system. She believed the West 11 Avenue extension would really help the system function as such. Mr. Poling did not interpret the council’s questions as suggesting a need to stop what was occurring now, but rather as seeking clarification of why the system was moving forward in the order it was. Mayor Piercy adjourned the work session at 7:23 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Beth Forrest City Recorder (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 24, 2010 Page 9 Joint Work Session with Lane Transit District Board of Directors