June 26, 2014 minutes

SW Trails PDX
Monthly Meeting Minutes

June 26, 2014

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

DRAFT

Attendance: Don Baack, Lee Buhler, Glenn Bridger, Barbara Stedman, Liz Marantz, Richard Marantz, Keturah Pennington, Al Iverson, Sharon Fekety, Virgina Hendrickson, Wendy Cawley, Jennifer Devlin, Lisa Huntington, Chris Mays, Dianne Mays, Doug Rogers. Lisa Hunnington, Ross Swanson, Jeff Bisonette, John Gibbon, Michael Kaiser, Vern Krist, Steve Mullinar, Bonnie Messinger

The meeting was called to order at 7:02 pm

The agenda was approved with no changes.

Don gave announcements on work parties and other events.

Glenn made a motion to approve the May SW Trails minutes. Keturah seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously.

Hikes: Sharon said she will lead the hike in July. Hans will lead in August and Don will lead in September.

Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway Water Quality Improvement Project.

Jennifer talked about the plans for improvements on the Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. They have been talking to neighborhoods. She described the watershed of the area and where it flows to. They have identified many projects. They would like to clean up the water before it reaches Fanno Creek. Lisa is the engineer on the project. Jennifer said the neighborhoods identified intersections that could be improved as well. Lisa said the primary purpose of the project is to improve water quality. However, they would also like to address traffic calming. Maps and descriptions of the projects were handed out. Lisa displayed an overhead presentation of the project. They are going to use storm filters that have a filter cartridges in them. They will try to keep them out of the bike lane. They must work within the right-of-way and not purchase additional property. There are a lot of utilities in the corridor including a 60 Inch diameter water supply line. They are proposing 37 filters and 17 vegetative facilities.

One intersection they will work on is Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy and Shaddock Road. The corner of this intersection was also the site of a recent fatal pedestrian accident. Jennifer said there is an opportunity by Albertsons to remove a right turning lane in front of Albertson and do a vegetative filter.They are proposing to remove the westbound right turn lane and redo the lane that turns into Albertsons. Don asked when it would be constructed and Lisa they originally thought the fall of 2015. Don asked if the left turn signals from BH Hwy lwould be a flashing yellow and Wendy said they are not sure yet. Bonnie said this intersection is difficult with many problems as there are many businesses there that have many people coming and going. She said pedestrians are not careful as well. She said she is worried that this will create a more intensive traffic situation. Wendy pointed out that there are safety improvements in the plan. She said they do not expect much traffic slowdown as well. Bonnie suggested a cross barrier to improve safety???. Wendy said they would look into it. Bonnie asked about the triangular pedestrian safety island. Wendy said it is not part of this project but they are looking into it. Doug suggested making the turn out of Albertsons right turn only. Wendy said it is hard to do that but they are thinking of ways to encourage people to use the driveways at the west end of the lot.

Lisa then talked about an area further to the east near SW 39th. There is a left turn lane that is not used. They will put vegetative facilities and a sidewalk on the south side. Steve asked how it would connect and Wendy described it on the map. Barbara asked about a crosswalk and Wendy said they have not looked at it yet as pedestrian crossings at that location are low. Don asked the length of the section and Wendy said about 750 feet. Glenn asked why they couldn’t put in a pedestrian facility on both the north and south side. Wendy said they did not have money for it at this time. Jennifer said Glenn’s point was important and it would be good to think about a sidewalk on the north side and they should not do anything to preclude that in the future. John asked if the line was the water Water Bureau or the Washington County feed line. Wendy said she thinks it is a Water Bureau line. Glenn said it is important to serve pedestrians on both sides. Bonnie said she sees many pedestrians using the north side.

Lisa said she is about to finalize her recommendations. She said the project will probably be set back from it’s fall 2015 schedule.

Steve asked about the two types of storm water treatments. Lisa said the pollutant removal for both is the same at about 80%. She said the green street improvements are better at removing phosphorus and lowering temperature. Don asked about maintenance recommendations. He said Seattle is changing them more often than proposed by the BES plan. Lisa said they have not looked into this yet. She said it would not change their goals but it would increase the maintenance costs. Richard asked who is responsible for long term maintenance and Lisa said they BES will. Richard asked if the green street facilities were lined. Lisa said some would be lined and some would not. Richard asked if they had soil samples. Lisa said they would do testing as part of the projects. Don said it would be important to map the results.

Glenn asked about the area between Capitol and Dosch. He said it seemed to be area to put facilities in and it would help slow down traffic. Wendy said they would like to do that as soon as they have the funds. Glenn said it is a very old section of highway and is part of the Hillsdale pedestrian corridor. Wendy said they might be able to do something as part of the high crash corridor program.

Vern asked if there is a maximum capacity of the filters. Lisa said the max is fifteen gallons per minutes. They are designing them to match. Vern asked about the green street facilities and Lisa said they were about the same. Vern asked about the cost comparison. Lisa this will depend on the final design. She said in general the green street cost is a little higher. Don asked about spillways in the event of a storm. Lisa said they will design the overflows to handle a ten year storm.

Barbara asked about the locaton along BH Hwy at SW 25th and how that would be done. Jennifer said they eliminated a proposed facilities as the (porposed improved) trail is used by many school kids.

Capitol Highway Sidewalks: Overcoming the problems

Al displayed an overhead presentation on Capitol Highway. Al said he is retired from working at the city and has his own practice. Don described the problems. There was a discussion of what a ten year storm was. Al said he would like to re-energize a project BES started several years ago. He showed examples of problems created with stormwater overflow on the highway. He showed some examples on Vermont. He said it would cost much more to do pedestrian improvements on Capitol due to the current approach to solving the stormwater issues. In effect, Al is suggesting a stormwater treatment plan for the entire 82 acres through wich Capitol Hw runs rather than treat just the 6 acres right on the Capitol Hwy right of way. Al noted that the sidewalks built in SW Portland cost about $3 million, 2013 dollars) a mile, the current design for Capitol Highway sidewalks and stormwater and rebuilding the street to put 5 ft diameter pipes under it was estimated to cost $21.7 million dollars a mile in 2011 dollars. (For comparison purposes, the extended shoulders of Maplewood Road cost $0.5 million dollars a mile 2013 dollars. John asked if the cost included the cost of replacing the road (the 2011 sidewalk projects) and Al said it did not. Al said southwest is a lot different than other parts of Portland. He said we are not on a grid system and the geology is much different as well. He said a lot of southwest has an impenetrable clay layer close to the surface. He said many other areas have gravel and sand (glacial till) that go for a ways down. He said that (the glacial till soil type) makes good temporary storage for stormwater. Al showed a map of the watershed basins in the area. He said there are four basins. Dianne asked if the basins were natural or man made. Jennifer said it was mostly natural. Al agreed but pointed out one exception. Al said the basins are broken down to sub-basins. He said there are 37 sub-basins. Al showed maps and described the sub-basins in basin four.

Al showed a short video of stormwater going into a manhole on SW 39th. He said it goes into the sewer treatment system. Al showed an example of inflow. Al showed other examples of stormwater problems. Jennifer said there are a lot of such problems and she gets many calls about them. Richard said it seems that the manholes take significant amount of stormwater even though they have small holes. Al said that is correct. Al said there is no transportation component to BES and there shouldn’t be. However, he said stormwater from ?? sidewalks are within their mission but it is a low priority. He said sidewalks stormwater management should be a higher priority in the Capital Highway projects. He said they need to change their project priorities to address Capitol Hwy first.

Ross said this project came out of PBOT. He said that following the rules of the stormwater manual, they had to keep stormwater management within the right-of-way. However, they will need to acquire land to do the project. Dianne pointed out that pedestrian and bikes do not pollute. Ross said they had to also build for the future as there will be further development.

Don said we need to work to find out how we can solve these problems. Richard said human safety should have just as high a priority as stormwater issues. Jennifer said they are taking those considerations into account and they are working with PBOT much more in recent years. She said it is a private property issue as well. She said Capital Highway is a priority. Ross said they are working much more closely with BES in the last few years. He said much as changed since the 2008-11 Capital Highway Study. He said there are a lot of issues in southwest. John said there are some other projects underway with less intense street improvements. John said individual homeowners have to pay something. Vern said making wetlands properties more valuable would help solve these problems. Richard said it would still not percolate into the clay storage. Vern said it would slow it down.

Don said we would invite Denver Igarta to talk about the Southwest Headwaters Neighborhood Street Plan.

Don asked if we should have a July meeting. People thought a potluck picnic would be better. It was decided that would would have a potluck picnic on the fourth Tuesday of July in lieu of a meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:35 pm

Respectfully submitted

Lee Buhler