HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda Packet 10-21-19 Joint Public Hearing with LTDOctober 21, 2019, Public Hearing
EUGENE CITY COUNCIL AGENDA
October 21, 2019
7:30 p.m. JOINT EUGENE CITY COUNCIL AND LANE TRANSIT DISTRICT BOARD OF
DIRECTORS PUBLIC HEARING Harris Hall, 125 East 8th Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97401
Meeting of October 21, 2019;
Her Honor Mayor Lucy Vinis Presiding
Councilors Betty Taylor, President Emily Semple, Vice President Mike Clark Greg Evans Chris Pryor Claire Syrett Jennifer Yeh Alan Zelenka
7:30 p.m. JOINT EUGENE CITY COUNCIL AND LANE TRANSIT DISTRICT BOARD OF
DIRECTORS PUBLIC HEARING
1. PUBLIC HEARING: MovingAhead
October 21, 2019, Public Hearing
The Eugene City Council welcomes your interest in these agenda items. This meeting location is wheelchair-accessible. For the hearing impaired, an interpreter can be provided with 48 hours' notice prior to the meeting. Spanish-language interpretation will also be provided with 48 hours' notice. To arrange for these services, contact the receptionist at 541-682-5010. City Council meetings are telecast live on Metro Television, Comcast channel 21, and rebroadcast later in the week. El consejo de la Ciudad de Eugene agradece su interés en estos asuntos de la agenda. El lugar de la reunión tiene acceso para sillas de ruedas. Se puede proveer a un intérprete para las personas con discapacidad auditiva si avisa con 48 horas de anticipación. También se puede proveer interpretación para español si avisa con 48 horas de anticipación. Para reservar estos servicios llame al 541-682-5010. Las reuniones del consejo de la ciudad se transmiten en vivo por Metro Television, Canal 21 de Comcast y son retransmitidas durante la semana.
For more information, contact the Council Coordinator at 541-682-5010, or visit us online at www.eugene-or.gov.
October 21, 2019, Public Hearing – Item 1
AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY
Public Hearing: MovingAhead Meeting Date: October 21, 2019 Agenda Item Number: 1 Department: Public Works, Planning and Development Staff Contact: Chris Henry
www.eugene-or.gov Contact Telephone Number: 541-682-8472
ISSUE STATEMENT The City of Eugene and Lane Transit District, with the help of other regional partners, are collaborating on the MovingAhead project to determine how best to invest in the main corridors that connect neighborhoods, shopping areas and places of employment. Building on years of long-range planning in the community, MovingAhead is an implementation effort that will result in prioritized investments in transit, walking and biking projects in each of five corridors that are identified in Envision Eugene, LTD’s Long-Range Transit Plan, and the Eugene 2035 Transportation System Plan. This public hearing is an opportunity for the Eugene City Council and LTD Board of Directors to hear testimony about proposed corridor investment packages affecting five of Eugene’s major transportation routes. An open house immediately precedes the public hearing, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the lobby outside Harris Hall.
BACKGROUND In 2015, the MovingAhead project kicked off with public workshops held along the corridors under consideration. At each workshop, local residents were asked to design their ideal street to accommodate people walking, biking, using mobility devices, driving and using transit. After gathering that public input, the project team developed conceptual designs on which the formal technical analysis was conducted. These conceptual designs include Enhanced Corridor and Emerald Express alternatives as well as a No-Build alternative (descriptions may be found in the Executive Summary, Attachment A). Comprehensive bus rapid transit—known as EmX locally—is a recognizable transit service in the community. A No-Build alternative assumes maintaining the current service on a street in the short term (5-10 years). On a continuum of transit service investments, the Enhanced Corridor alternatives fall between the other two alternatives, thereby providing improved transit service and reliability through less intensive infrastructure investments compared to EmX. These may include traffic signal prioritization for buses or additional lanes near intersections to create a
October 21, 2019, Public Hearing – Item 1
“queue jump,” which allows buses to bypass points of congestion. There are complementary pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure investments in both the EmX and Enhanced Corridor alternatives. The Eugene City Council and LTD Board of Directors have received project updates and twice taken action to focus the MovingAhead analysis on five major corridors. In October 2015, the City Council and LTD Board advanced the following MovingAhead corridors for further study to evaluate an EmX alternative, an Enhanced Corridor alternative, and a No-Build alternative:
• Highway 99 Corridor
• River Road Corridor
• Coburg Road Corridor
• 30th Avenue/Lane Community College Corridor Also, the City Council and LTD Board recommended that the Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard Corridor advance with an Enhanced Corridor alternative and a No-Build alternative. This direction was reaffirmed in April 2016 by a joint action of the two bodies. With City Council and LTD Board direction to proceed, MovingAhead is developing the groundwork for five transportation corridors simultaneously instead of one-by-one, as has been the past practice for other EmX projects. This system-level approach readies projects for funding and construction. It also gains efficiencies in the environmental analysis and reduces the time to deliver important transportation services to the community. It’s a responsible approach to understand the complexities of environmental impacts and benefits of the EmX, Enhanced Corridor, and No-Build alternatives. The MovingAhead project has performed an Alternatives Analysis that was prepared to support the federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process. In 2018, the Alternatives Analysis was released for public comment. Comments received shaped the proposed corridor investment packages being considered for further public review and comment. Locally, the City of Eugene and Lane Transit District are committed to a public engagement process that supports informed decision-making that considers effects on people, the planet and economic prosperity (the triple-bottom-line). Taken together, these efforts are a comprehensive approach to make investment decisions that support the community now and as it grows into the future.
Preliminary Results of the Technical Analysis The results of the technical analysis are summarized for each corridor in an Executive Summary (Attachment A) and Alternatives Analysis report (also available on the project website at www.MovingAhead.org).
Multifaceted Public Involvement When the technical analysis was complete, the project shifted into a more intense period of public involvement, comprised of several activities. First, letters were distributed to property owners whose properties are potentially affected by the concept designs, with an invitation to meet and
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discuss. The project team also attended community events to inform people of the process schedule, opportunities to review, and ways to provide feedback on the technical analysis. In late summer 2018, the draft analysis was released for an initial round of public review and feedback. The public review period is divided into two phases. The initial public review period in September and October 2018 allowed community members to provide corridor-specific feedback on the investments in their neighborhood, near their business or place of employment, or the streets where they travel most. This review period included four large open houses as well as listening sessions with under-represented stakeholder groups. A concurrent online open house was also available (on the project website at www.MovingAhead.org). The corridor-specific feedback allowed the project team to correct any inaccuracies in the technical analysis and compile several investment package options for the next phase of public review. In spring 2019, during the second round of public review, residents provided feedback on packages that contain different combinations of proposed alternatives. With five corridors under evaluation, there are abundant options for aligning different corridor investments in a package. One of the three alternatives will be advanced for each corridor, either EmX, Enhanced Corridor, or No-Build. Each combination will be evaluated based on (1) the MovingAhead project criteria and (2) the comprehensive benefits across the LTD system. This second public review period included one large open house as well as an online open house. In summer 2019, the project team shared the public review feedback on the proposed packages with the Eugene City Council and Lane Transit District Board of Directors. The Eugene City Council and Lane Transit District Board of Directors modified the proposed investment packages for review and comment at a public hearing in fall 2019.
Decision-Making Process The MovingAhead project includes an Oversight Committee and a Sounding Board. The Oversight Committee is comprised of elected and appointed officials and executive staff from the City, LTD, the Oregon Department of Transportation, and Lane County, while the Sounding Board members come from and represent numerous City of Eugene and LTD committees and commissions. Both entities review project proposals, offer critical feedback to the project management team, and act as conduits back to their constituencies and fellow committee/commission members. Both bodies will continue to meet throughout 2019 to ensure broad distribution of project information and preparation for the final decision-making process. (A process schedule is included in Attachment A). In 2018, the MovingAhead project team finalized the technical analysis and conducted extensive public engagement to gather feedback on the analysis and potential corridor investments. Following that outreach, the project team developed a range of potential investment packages planned for public review and comment in March and April 2019. Following outreach in early 2019, staff reported what was heard from the community at a work session on July 15, 2019. Both the Eugene City Council and LTD Board of Directors affirmed the following proposed investment packages for this public hearing.
October 21, 2019, Public Hearing – Item 1
Proposed Investment Packages as Affirmed by Eugene City Council and LTD Board of
Directors
Package Highway
99 River Road 30th Ave to
LCC Coburg Road MLK, Jr Blvd
Enhanced
Corridor Enhanced Corridor Enhanced Corridor Enhanced Corridor Enhanced Corridor Enhanced Corridor
Package C Enhanced Corridor EmX Enhanced Corridor Enhanced Corridor Enhanced Corridor
Package D
(new) Enhanced Corridor EmX Enhanced Corridor EmX Enhanced Corridor
Package E
(new) EmX EmX Enhanced Corridor EmX Enhanced Corridor
EmX EmX EmX EmX EmX Enhanced Corridor The formal decision-making process by the Eugene City Council and LTD Board of Directors is planned for fall 2019 into early 2020. Today, the Eugene City Council and LTD Board of Directors will hold a joint public hearing, deliberate later, and in early 2020 will be asked to select a preferred package of investments for people walking, biking, using mobility devices and using transit. The decision by Eugene City Council and LTD Board of Directors will select a preferred package of transportation investments (e.g., EmX, Enhanced Corridor, or No-Build alternatives) to be implemented over 10 years. The selected package will be advanced to the next MovingAhead project phase, which will include seeking design and construction funding, preparing final National Environmental Policy Act reviews, and initiating the Federal Transit Administration project development process for qualifying projects. This future phase will also include design refinements, which will be based on feedback received during the public review period this year and subsequent outreach to stakekholders along the corridors where projects are advanced. The selected package will include designs that reflect community priorities and enable the City and LTD to make smaller, strategic investments such as safer pedestrian crossings within the larger corridor visions. This type of incremental implementation allows investments today that address the community’s needs without precluding the ability to later construct a larger project.
PREVIOUS COUNCIL DIRECTION The MovingAhead project is in alignment and consistent with policy direction contained in Envision Eugene, the Eugene 2035 Transportation System Plan, Eugene’s Climate Recovery Ordinance, LTD’s Long-Range Transit Plan, and the Regional Transportation Plan. Additionally, the project structure has embraced a triple bottom line approach. This approach is part of the NEPA-
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required technical analysis. It is further reinforced in the composition of the Sounding Board and the evaluation criteria used to analyze each corridor alternative. October 12, 2015, Meeting Move to direct the City Manager to advance the following MovingAhead corridors for further study to evaluate an EmX alternative, an Enhanced Corridor alternative and a no-build alternative during the Level 2 alternative analysis: • Highway 99 Corridor • River Road Corridor • Coburg Road Corridor • 30th Avenue-Lane Community College Corridor And, direct the City Manager to advance the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard Corridor as an Enhanced Corridor as part of the Level 2 alternative analysis. (Motion passed) Lane Transit District Board unanimously passed a similar motion. April 25, 2016, Work Session Moved to recommend action to further study the following MovingAhead corridor alternatives for evaluation of an alternative for the Alternative Analysis: • Highway 99 Corridor • River Road/30th Avenue/Lane Community College Corridor • Coburg Road Corridor And, recommend that the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard Corridor alternative advance as an Enhanced Corridor and a No-Build alternative for the Alternative Analysis. (Motion passed) Lane Transit District Board unanimously passed a similar motion. February 19, 2019, Work Session Move to direct staff to take the MovingAhead Proposed Investment out for public review. (Motion passed) Lane Transit District Board unanimously passed a similar motion. July 15, 2019, Work Session Moved to amend the package and include a fifth package adding EmX on Highway 99, River Road and Coburg Road. (Motion passed) Move to direct staff to present the MovingAhead Proposed Investment Packages as amended (included above) for a public hearing. (Motion passed) Lane Transit District Board unanimously passed a similar motion.
COUNCIL AND BOARD OPTIONS None; this is a public hearing only.
October 21, 2019, Public Hearing – Item 1
CITY MANAGER’S RECOMMENDATION None; this is a public hearing only.
SUGGESTED MOTION None; this is a public hearing only.
ATTACHMENTS A. MovingAhead Agenda Item Summary for July 15, 2019 Joint Work Session B. MovingAhead Corridor Map
FOR MORE INFORMATION Please visit the project website at www.MovingAhead.org. Staff Contact: Chris Henry, Transportation Planning Engineer Telephone: 541-682-8472 Staff E-Mail: CHenry@eugene-or.us Staff Contact: Terri Harding, Principal Planner Telephone: 541-682-5635 Staff E-Mail: THarding@eugene-or.gov Staff Contact: Andrew Martin, Lane Transit District Development Planner Telephone: 541-682-6116 Staff E-Mail: Andrew.Martin@ltd.org
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MovingAhead Corridor Map
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