August 2014 minutes

SW Trails PDX
Monthly Meeting Minutes

August 28, 2014

The Watershed Building in Hillsdale
6388 SW Capitol Hwy
Portland OR 97239

DRAFT

Attendance: Don Baack, Lee Buhler, Glenn Bridger, Chris Mays, Dianne Mays, Keturah Pennington, Sharon Fekety, Doug Rogers, John Morris , Hans Steuch, Mark Lear, Virginia Hendrickson, Patty Barker, Ted Pelleher, Barbara Bowers, Gerry Reese, Dave Manville, Glenn Bridger, Michael Kaiser. Peter DeCrescenzo, Holly Zimmerman, Doug Burke

The meeting was called to order at 6:59 pm

The agenda was approved with no changes.

The July 2014 minutes were approve subject to changes discussed on email.

Hikes: Sharon said Lee will lead the hike in September. On September 27th Virginia and Sharon will lead to Eagle Point where there will be a dedication ceremony. Don will lead the hike in October which will celebrate the RE opening of Urban Trail 3 trail between South Portland’s Corbett St. and Hillsdale’s Himes Park.

Our Streets PDX update:

Mark Lear, the Projects and Funding Manager at PBOT talked about the Our Streets program. He said about half of the money in the project goes to safety. He showed a graph on busy vs residential streets. They have spent about 80% of the money on busy streets and about 10% on residential streets

Mark talked about safety goals. He said it was important to reduce injuries and death as well as provide equal access and the perception of safety. He said there have been more pedestrian deaths in the last few years than in the past. He said many of them are low income people trying to get to transit. Mark said it was important to ensure safe transportation for all Portlanders. He said there is a strong correlation with pedestrian deaths and poverty rate. The pedestrian death rate is higher in census tracts that have more poverty.

Mark talked about the Our Streets projects that can improve safety. Mark showed a chart showing the distribution of funds for the Our Streets funding proposal. He displayed a map showing the projects. He talked about some key projects such as 122nd Ave safety improvements. He talked about the unfunded East Portland in Motion safety projects. He said they have added Capitol Highway improvements into the key projects. He said they are putting together a six year list of projects. He talked about bike safety projects. Those projects are N/NE Broadway, Downtown Portland, East Portland Greenway NE 7th to 9th and Safe Routes to School. Mark talked about the Safe Routes to School projects. He said they are interested in low cost solutions such as extended shoulders. He passed out spreadsheets about funding for the projects. Patty asked about gaps on Stevenson. Mark said they do not have funding now but hope to with new fundings. Doug R. asked about greenways. Mark said they could work out well in southwest. Mark said in southwest the busiest streets tend to be the flattest. Don pointed out some issues with the current greenway in southwest. Mark suggested people to talk to. He said some of the things are easy and some are hard. Mark went over the cost estimates for safety proposals. He said people could give feedback on the Our Streets web page. He said they have to work with ODOT on Some of the projects. He said the Whitaker crossing is not on the list and it should be. Glenn explained Tier one, two and three projects. Don said the Hoot Owl Corner and Capitol Highway from Cheltenham to Terwilliger are tier one projects that need to be included. Mark said it is important to get feedback on projects that should be added. Don pointed out that the Red Electric Trail is also a tier one project. Mark said there are many unfunded Safe Routes to School projects. He said they put the projects into high school districts and then came up with a formula to allocate funding. There was a section in the spreadsheets that showed how that money would be allocated by high school district. Patty asked if they considered access to transit in the formula to prioritize the projects. Mark said many families can not afford to live in a twenty minute neighborhood.

Mark said he is excited about the money allocated to safer shoulders. Dave asked how much the Maplewood extended shoulders cost and Don said it was about $500,000 per mile. Mark said southwest and southeast have not gotten the traffic calming facilities that are in other parts of town. Peter asked about the completion of the project on 34th and Vermont. Mark suggested someone to call. Peter said there are missing no parking signs on Vermont. Don said he saw tickets on cars there. Mark said the bike legends help to keep cars from parking on bike lanes. Mark asked people to think about what no parking signs would be effective. Michael suggested moving the parking to the uphill side. Mark said people may not like it if there are too many no-parking signs. Mark said many people are not comfortable riding downhill in traffic lanes. Dianne suggested writing “no parking” in the bike lane pavement. Glenn suggested a distinctive color. Don suggested some cheap, temporary signs to put out until people learn not to park there.

Don asked about climbing lanes (Extended shoulders) on Dosch and Marquam Hill Road. Mark said they are discussing those. Mark said it is important to talk about the safety projects as many people have strongly advocated for the maintenance projects. However, there are many people who think the safety projects are important.

Patty said it is important to include (Connections to commercial areas) the area just beyond the city limits in the program. Patty said there was a four lot strip in the Arnold Creek Neighborhood on SW Boones Ferry Road that was greatly in need of a sidewalk. Mark said the small projects can outperform some of the bigger projects. Peter pointed out a major building project on Vermont where there was no sidewalk improvement. Mark said the City sometimes allows the developer to sign a waiver. Dave asked who to send letters to Regarding projects and Mark suggested himself and Commissioner Novick and the Mayor. Don asked what the comment deadline was. Mark suggested the 10th of September.

Michael asked about the funding. Mark said there are two new proposals for funding. He said one proposal is to use the 65,0000 business licenses. He said one of the proposals on the residential side is a progressive income tax. He said the other proposal is to use median income brackets to set the fee. He said they hope to have a proposal to City Council in November. Sharon asked how the money would be collected. Mark said possibly the art tax and compliance is getting up to 80 percent. He said they are also thinking of putting on the water bill. He said any other way would be costly to set up. Michael asked what the rates they were considering for businesses. Mark said he could send it out. Don asked about non-profits. Mark said rates are way down from before. Don asked about someone who works at home. Mark said they are considering looking at the predominate use of the house.

Don suggested using email to develop a list of project recommendations from SW Trails.

Mark said Al Iverson gave his presentation to Commissioner Novick and Fish. He said they were very interested. Don said he hoped the Capitol Highway project would cost a lot less, or that a significant part of the stormwater management costs be borne by BES.

St. Luke’s Street Vacation:

Gerry talked about the street vacation at St. Luke’s. He said the vacation was approved with some requirements. He said the current proposal has sidewalks on Vermont. They also want to change the path that goes through the middle of the property. He said there would also be a right-of-way at the back edge of the property. Don said the street improvements would eliminate parking that is important to the southwest community center. He suggested letting the Community Center use St. Luke’s parking when they are not using it. Gerry said they have looked at that in the past and are open to looking at it again. He said parking on 45th is not safe. Don suggested extending the right-of-way on Florida. He said it would allow easy access from parking at St. Luke’s to the Community Center.

Memberships:

Barbara said we go a lot of sign-ups for email at the South Portland Health and Safety Fair. Barbara said Multnomah Days was busy. In July there were 13 new members, 1 renewal, 1 new sponsor and two new contributors.

SW Corridor:

Glenn said there has not been much going on in the SW Corridor Plan. He said there are some big issues such as tunnels and whether it should go along I-5 or the middle of Barbur. Don said they are looking at some sort of people mover from Barbur to OHSU. He said they are also considering a funicular. He said it is a complicated situation.

Work Parties:

Dave said said there were two requests for connector improvements; 37th and Custer and Lobelia going to Boones Ferry. He said we would talk to the neighborhood association. Dave said they are putting in a path at Smith School this weekend. Don said Ted and his son did a project removing ivy from the stairs under the Terwilliger Bridge.

Don suggested having a new sponsorship level for neighborhood association. WE WILL DISCUSS AT A LATER DATE.

Don said construction on Multnomah Blvd. is almost complete. Doug said he was told it would be done in October.

Don said the consultant for the Red Electric Bridge has been chosen. Hans and Doug volunteered to create/ edit the reports On the progress of the bridge.

Don said they are looking at designs for the culvert on Boones Ferry. Patty said a connection to Arnold Street to get to the east side of Boones Ferry Road without an at grade Crossinf was very important.

Don said there will be a meeting with Senator Burdick and Representative Williamson And COP staff to show them the Fanno 25th crossing and connections to it leading to Robert Gray

Coronado ROW:

Hans talked about the Coronado ROW. He said they sent out an email thanking people for walking and the enduring discomfort along the walk at last month’s SW Trails hike. Hans said he informed some of the people that were opposed to the trail that they planned to walk that route and they did not object. He said he was surprised that people where there to protest the hike. He said there were four people with cameras heckling the walkers. There was also deer repellent that smelled bad. Hans said if he had known there would be problems he would have walked around that section. He said there were 16 participants on the hike. One participant wrote a letter to SWNI. Hans said he received phone calls from city officials about the bad behavior of the people who were opposed to the trail. Don said there would be a letter about the use of the trail. Don said there was a letter from an opponent saying it was offensive to put the property owners names and phone numbers on the website. Barbara said we should tell people up-front when there is a possibility of trouble on the hike. Hans said he did tell people at Wilson High. We agreed to let people know at the beginning of the hike if there are any known potential problems on a hike. Alternate routes were offered people on the hike in question. Patty said people along the right-of-way of way were informed of the hike and they lost a lot of credibility by their actions.

Don asked what people thought about removing the names and phone numbers of adjacent property owners. Don suggested taking out the phone numbers. Glenn said the person did not say how he was harmed by having this information on the web. It was agreed we would remove the phone numbers and Hans agreed to do that.

Don said a permit has been applied for Tunnelwood.

Don asked if anyone could help post updates on the Red Electric Trail. Doug said he could help with the history and Hans said he could help.

Sharon talked about the dedication of the opening of the Iowa trail on October 11th. We can contribute by leading the walk. Glenn said we will also invite and notify people of the walk and that is a contribution. Don and Sharon went over the route.

Glenn said SWNI will have another small grant program. He said we should think if there is anything we should consider for a project from SW Trails.

Glenn said SWNI endorsed the Capitol Highway project.

Don talked about Sunday Parkways.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:01 pm

Respectfully submitted

Lee Buhler