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Mr. Clark asked if strategies that emerged from the Lane Livability Consortium would go through a <br />different process than the standard transportation planning process. Mr. Inerfeld thought the work of the <br />consortium was intended to inform local planning processes. He reported staff was looking for <br />opportunities to revise the consortium work plan to better complement City efforts. Mr. Inerfeld said it <br />was possible consortium funding could be used to underwrite some of the STARS analysis, for example. <br />Mr. Clark said he heard concerns that the consortium would develop strategies the City would be <br />mandated to implement whether or not it had the funding. Mr. Inerfeld was unaware of any consortium <br />work plan items that would lead to adoption of specific deliverables; the work plan spoke more to how the <br />region could coordinate better on sustainability and what tools it could develop to help it work more <br />effectively across different planning areas. <br />Ms. Ortiz emphasized the poor condition of Highway 99 for pedestrians and bicyclists. She said it was <br />important for the City to take care of the facilities already in place before it added new capacity. <br />Ms. Ortiz expressed concern that the narrow roads in new residential areas in some parts of the <br />community were insufficiently wide to safely accommodate traffic. She acknowledged the cost of land, <br />but said such streets needed to be functional. <br />Mr. Zelenka expressed dismay that ODOT proposed to include pedestrian facilities on the Highway 99 <br />overcrossing but ODOT had no plans to connect those facilities. Mr. Inerfeld said City staff continued to <br />seek funding opportunities for those improvements, but it was difficult to secure funding in the amount <br />needed. <br />Mr. Pryor spoke of the challenge of creating a linkage between transportation and land use planning and <br />the heightened public interest in that linkage because of concerns regarding growth. He wanted the City <br />to be as thoughtful and deliberate as possible in its planning efforts, but he did not think that the increased <br />linkage would make the discussion any easier; many people would want to be involved in the discussion <br />because of what was at stake. Mr. Yeiter suggested that the City could learn from communities such as <br />Portland and take advantage of the tools they had developed. <br />Mr. Farr expressed concern that incorporating more multi - family development in existing neighborhoods <br />to accommodate a higher ratio of multi - family housing would create additional transportation issues. <br />Mr. Farr asked what transportation improvements were proposed in west Eugene since the West Eugene <br />Parkway was no longer planned for. Mr. Yeiter said that staff would consider some of the <br />recommendations of the West Eugene Collaborative when making recommendations for transportation <br />improvements in west Eugene. Staff would employ data from Envision Eugene to model traffic in west <br />Eugene and develop options for further consideration. STARS would also inform the process. Mr. Yeiter <br />noted that the West Eugene Parkway had been designed to provide better freight access for industrial uses <br />in west Eugene, and the Transportation CRG had emphasized the importance of maintaining good access <br />to Highway 99 and on to Beltline and I -5. <br />Mr. Farr questioned how the existing infrastructure in west Eugene could accommodate the growth he <br />anticipated would occur there and to the west in Veneta. Mr. Inerfeld suggested that incremental changes <br />could help, such as additional turn lanes and enhanced signal timing. He believed that the addition of <br />EmX to West 11 Avenue would help with traffic flow because buses would no longer stop in the travel <br />lanes and right turns would be prohibited from the through lanes. He further noted that existing plans <br />MINUTES— Eugene City Council July 11, 2011 Page 5 <br />Work Session <br />