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worked to connect to those individuals, who lacked the money to pay signs and four -page advertisements <br />in newspaper. She maintained the route was an important corridor for those reasons. Mr. Clark agreed. <br />He emphasized his question was on the merits of the routes relative to one another. He wanted to ensure <br />that the community was receiving the appropriate service with the appropriate tools. <br />Mr. Gillespie emphasized that LTD was building a system, and each route deserved a systematic <br />approach. As a transit - dependent person, he found EmX important because he did not have to know the <br />schedule, and the most time he would have to wait for a bus during the day was ten minutes. He <br />emphasized the importance of such frequent headways to those shoppers who sought to visit West 11 <br />Avenue on their lunch hours and other short periods of time. <br />Mr. Evans believed that community growth in west Eugene over the last 20 years changed travel and <br />development patterns and placed pressure on existing arterials. He believed that transit planning had <br />lagged other types of planning, with consequences for LTD travel times on corridors such as River Road. <br />He maintained that West l I Avenue had changed dramatically over the past few years and would <br />continue to change, and if LTD did not act now, congestion would increase in the corridor because of <br />planned growth in the west and north. He predicted "deep trouble in the future." Mr. Evans believed a <br />previous council was wise to select West l I Avenue as the next EmX route. He averred that "people are <br />avoiding West I I th Avenue if they can" but sometime they would not be able to avoid such routes to get <br />back and forth. Mr. Evans concluded by stating in the final analysis, the "only real solution" was a transit <br />solution. <br />Ms. Ortiz emphasized the importance of transit to a healthy viable community. <br />Mr. Poling referred to the summary of operating costs provided to the council and LTD's assertion that it <br />was able to offset the operating costs of EmX by delaying the purchase of buses and equipment. Mr. <br />Pangborn clarified the amount involved was $500,000. Mr. Poling asked how LTD proposed to fund <br />operating costs in the future. Mr. Pangborn said LTD projected out to eight years and anticipated that its <br />budget would be balanced and the agency would not have to cut services even adding the west Eugene <br />service. <br />Mr. Brown determined from Mr. Pangborn that the ridership projections were derived from a computer <br />model used nationwide for all transit enhancements. The model employed local data. <br />Responding to a question from Mr. Farr, Mr. Pangborn clarified that that LTD had not selected a "no <br />build" option for Coburg Road; Coburg Road was still a critical link in the EmX system. He said at the <br />time that Coburg Road had been under discussion, LTD was considering both the Gateway route and the <br />Coburg Road route. As the process went on, more controversy about Coburg Road was raised and the <br />Springfield City Council had indicated it was ready to go forward with Gateway. Subsequently, LTD <br />built the Gateway route and put the Coburg route on hold because it could only build one route at a time. <br />Mr. Poling recalled that at the time of the decision to postpone Coburg Road, the Eugene City Council <br />had required that 80 percent of the route be in dedicated lanes, and it had been impossible to physically <br />achieve that level of dedication. The council had then decided to drop the route. <br />Mr. Zelenka contrasted the jobs that existed in the West 11 Avenue corridor as opposed to the Highway <br />99 corridor and suggested that the numbers were not even close. He was puzzled by discussion of the <br />Highway 99 route. He did not think it was a matter of which route; he said both were needed, as was the <br />Coburg route. Mr. Zelenka averred that the decision on those routes was made long ago. He hoped that <br />the Highway 99 corridor was constructed next. He did not want to start all over again given the time it <br />MINUTES— Eugene City Council January 24, 2010 Page 8 <br />Joint Work Session with Lane Transit District Board of Directors <br />