Travis County Commissioners Court
May 24, 2005
Item 20
20. Discuss and take appropriate action on Travis County comments to campo board of directors regarding draft 2030 transportation plan.
>> I asked for t.n.r. To summarize the mainly issues, unresolved issues, at least where there are differences of opinion among the participating agencies of campo. And so we -- we have done the best that we can to kind of highlight what those are so you know that they are coming. On the first one is the -- is the bicycle-pedestrian policy.
>> on the front page talks about June 13th, did we move that thing back.
>> June 6th.
>> it's June 6th. I知 not doing this on the 13th.
>> okay. June 6th.
>> we had a dead line with the feds.
>> the 12th was the deadline.
>> okay.
>> all right. The June 6th meeting of the campo, is a first issue on the bicycle pedestrian policy, I to come our draft policy to the technical advisory committee. This is the one where the jurisdiction agreed to build bicycle and pedestrian facilities unless the combined cost of those are more than -- more than exceed 20% of the project costs. And that is true for arterials and highways within the urbanized area. The majority of the technical representatives of the implementing agencies still had quite a bit of concern about -- about the implied commitment of the implementing agencies to spend 20% up to 20% for pedestrian and bicycle facilities. Especially if they were locally funded. So I was not able to get a -- a majority vote on the technical advisory committee to support the policy that I brought to you at our last meeting. They amended our draft policy to basically make that apply only to federally funded projects. So they are okay with campo's policy of putting up to 20% in a bicycle pedestrian facilities but only if those were federally funded projects. So they stopped short of making that policy apply to local government funding of projects or for that matter state funding projects.
>> joe, was that the -- was that the --
>> this was the technical advisory committee.
>> has that been the campo policy anyway?
>> no. The original policy was very broad. It applied to everything. And initially --
>> state and local dollars?
>> yes. That's -- it was broad enough to cover all projects. And all projects, whether they were inside the urban area or outside of the urban area whether they were arterials or local streets, collector streets, it was very broad policy. What we attempted to do is limit it to the urbanized area, where the densities were such that -- such that you would have pedestrian bicycle trips. And to roads that had a thousand vehicles per day on it. So -- so most of that was okay except for the -- the local funding, you know, the 20% on locally funded projects, that's where -- these are representatives from -- from Round Rock and Pflugerville and all of the other jurisdictions, capital metro. The representative of the city of Austin did not object to the policy that -- as it was written. So they don't have as much of a problem of the 20% level as perhaps the other jurisdictions do. So that is still unresolved. And I think for the bicycle community this was a very important issue to them. This was where they want some way to measure the progress that -- that all of the implementing agencies are making toward providing bicycle and pedestrian facilities. So for them the 20% was a very important benchmark and most of the e-mails that you see are in that regard. They are saying don't -- we don't want you to back off this 20%. And so I do not have a compromise worked out with the -- with the implementing agencies or the bicycle community for that matter. So this is likely to be an issue that will be discussed at the campo meeting.
>> so what you would expect us to do is on the 6th bring this to the full board and our recommendation would be --
>> I would stick with the recommendation that we brought you last week, which does apply to local because let me tell you for several reasons, one, we made an advisory. Number two we said it was urbanized new urban area, basically where the deposition community is. So we have got the economical fix that we were looking for. But then we did apply it to locally funded projects. We said the county was good for this level of effort where we were instructing arterials and highways in urbanized area. So quite frankly that would apply to most of our c.i.p. Projects on the fringe of the city. But we also went so far as to commit to build the shoulders on roadways that had 1,000 vehicles or more. From my point of view this is a reasonable policy for Travis County to land on. It is going to cost us some more -- some more reason to do this. But I think as long as we see that the money is being put to good use, there's actually a need for it. We are creating facilities that don't use bicyclists, pedestrians and it is an appropriate investment. But again with that said I -- you should expect, your other participating agencies to disagree with that.
>> well, to be truthful to the -- to the I guess bicycle advocates who have been e-mailing us, we need to tell them what Travis County's position is and then what we think the other jurisdictions may well argue at the meeting. My e-mails have been spent, I support you, that does not mean a majority of the board necessarily does.
>> I知 very uncomfortable with people all of a sudden saying this applies to federal projects. There's a lot of stuff that we do that we have intentionally not made things federal projects simply because of the process that you have to go through. We have undesignated some projects as federal, we have made them althoughs, they did have bike lanes and sidewalks if that was appropriate. I don't want that to be the out. There are a lot of jurisdictions that never, ever get federal funds for their particular projects. They don't rank high enough. But they ought to not get an out on having to do sidewalks and bicycle lanes.
>> some of them need to have these lanes because they are not safe otherwise. But I don't know that all of them -- with this percentage, I would think that -- I mean you could gradually make the progress that we ought to in the right direction. My guess is that -- that at no time soon would we end up with a whole lot more bike lanes than we actually use. Best that we apply the policy.
>> well, I can -- I would imagine all of our major arterial projects we would provide for bicycle, but we would budget for them from the very beginning.
>> uh-huh.
>> we will have -- it will have a physical impact on our c.i.p. Program. Again it's a matter of a commitment to do that at the appropriate time and the appropriate place. The way we crafted the policy, it's going in the right direction.
>> we review the campo plan every five years.
>> actually down to three years now because of the non-attainment stuff, every three years.
>> if the frakts change dramatically, who bears the responsibility.
>> reasonable period of time.
>> what do you think of the road that perhaps, that doesn't have the thousand cars per day that -- that some time down the road it may. I mean, did we have -- is there anything in here that obligates us to -- to go in and redo and say, hey, we -- you know, --
>> I think that -- no it's just a matter of when you do the improvement. When you do the reconstruction, widen the road, that would be when you would be committed to do it. And -- this policy does not prevent you from doing that if you wanted to. If you are looking out and you are designing a road project you have got 800 vehicles per day on it, you might say hey, let's go ahead and do it. You are forecasting that there might be a thousand vehicles per day, I mean, this is -- this is really the minimum.
>> were the other jurisdictions fairly well represented --
>> yes, we had a fairly lengthy debate on this. The city of Austin or Travis County were -- were probably the minority on the committee's view on this. The smaller local governments concerned.
>> okay. I知 not going to say much about the toll road. That you are very aware of. But that is a -- that is an important issue that you will hear about at the meeting.
>> the next one is a new issue that quite frankly even I wasn't aware of until our last technical advisory committee, it's a brand new road called loop 1 that the city of buda and the state department of transportation is -- is advocating to be put into the plan. It is a loop road that would come up from hays county into southeast Travis County and connect with state highway 45. This would be in Commissioner Gomez's precinct in 4. Right now we just don't know enough about it to advise the court one way or the other. Just a new road that we haven't seen before.
>> they are already doing some work on it, I think. I guess I will hear more about it.
>> we will do some research ourselves. [indiscernible]
>> > tie into it, I think that's the proposal.
>> okay.
>> loop 4. Loop 4. Not 1.
>> it's loop 4 in precinct 4.
>> the next was arterial a, which was not in Travis County. This is the arterial a of Williamson county. And this is an issue where -- where this road is parallel to 183 a, it goes through any number of subdivisions. Avery ranch is advocating that it be taken out of the plan. The city of Austin and Cedar Park have both looked at it and I think are somewhat frustrated by the inability to actually get it done. They are saying physical restraints, creeks to go over and so they are at the point of cutting -- going with avery ranch on deleting it from the plan. There are other land owners in the area that want it to remain in the protect. Overall the technical advisory committee when they to come a look at this, the question was what are you going to do with the demand. The presubjects was that -- presumption was that they would use the frontage road on 183 a. But there are none. We threw our hands up, wait a minute, you can't throw a road out of the way, thinking you have a way to solve the problem, it's not there. We said as a minimum keep the plan, do a corridor study so you can thoroughly analyze what happens to that demand of traffic when something like this gets taken out of the it. It has to go somewhere. Where is it going to go? That's why on this one we concur with the recommendation of the technical advisory committee to leave it in there and do a corridor analysis to make sure that we are not kidding ourselves about what's likely to happen if you do take it out of the plan.
>> > we have a brand new mayor up in Cedar Park who also concurs with that of wanting to have more time. The thing about avery ranch and some things that are actually up in the Cedar Park jurisdiction is they are still platting. This is not like you are trying to force an arterial through a preexisting neighborhood. People are still platting and they are wanting to delete roads because then they don't have to build the roads. So this is one where -- where I think we have got the attention of all of the appropriate parties up there. And to have a quarter study get all of the parties at the table. Because of what's going on with 183 a. I think everybody has been -- had their chains jerked enough to say get down and start looking at this because joe is correct. You can't just say oh, woe is me, we take out a a road and don't think it's going to get put someplace else. Otherwise your only alternatives north and south are going to be west of 183 a which will be 183 and parmer lane. Two state roadways and it's just a mess waiting -- it is our arterial a fixing to happen in terms of very few ways fixing to get around up there. So this buys us some time. Status quo, it may be that it goes away, but right now it stays in there until people put their first foot forward. I think Cedar Park has another idea that might get people off the dime on this one in terms of how to make it happen. [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> it says here the city of buda and txdot are figuring out how to build an extension of loop 4 through two jurisdictions for $10 million and not as a toll road. They're going to do it where the city of buda will build it and then txdot will pay them back. I don't even think we need to use the t word on this discussion related to 2222. It is something totally disconnected. I have been actually listening to you for the last couple of months. It's not even connected to tolls. There are lots of other options. What we do need to get it in is a mad 6. This is a planning document and it is the springboard for discussions with the appropriate jurisdiction, but to use the t word right now is not appropriate to even make people get freaked that it the only solution because clearly it's not.
>> it may not be, but it's always nice to say, you know, here is what could happen. I would always rather go back to folks and go, we rethought it and we tried to work -- and we did. When we had the meeting out there with them a few months ago when we had tnr out there with my staff, told them we were did going to try everything in our power to pass through toalg, that people still -- tolling, that people were still trying to figure out exactly what that means, but you still have to stick the word toll in there. But I don't disagree. I would always rather tell somebody, hey, if you want this thing to be moved up and if you want this thing to be done faster, if you want the potential of this happening, there's always that way of looking at it.
>> remember, this is now -- this is all city of Austin, right, joe, because they struck down the existing policy? The city of Austin also has other possibilities. They have a bond election coming up next spring. They also had access to monies left over in their 2001 bond issue that talked about regional tool box. They may have some opportunities. In fact, it's my remembrance that they had must be leftover from the 2001 bond issue in the area of transportation. We need to have some good discussions with mayor wynn and others about whether there is indeed a solution here that has evaded us to this point.
>> you better watch the word tool box because that means something different to the city of Austin and it generally doesn't have road attached to it.
>> okay. The pass-through tolling has come from the campo folks --
>> txdot.
>> meaning?
>> that the local community pays for it and then txdot pays you back based on the road usage.
>> it's really a goofy expression. I don't know how they am came up with it.
>> it's like you pay for it, and they won't guarantee you will get it all back, but it's at least --
>> it's an advanced funding agreement with txdot that is based on numbers of vehicles as opposed to just a set price.
>> there's another 2222 item.
>> campo staff is recommending that be a divided section instead of an undivided section. That's 2222 between shoal creek and lamar.
>> I live there. Is there right-of-way to put in dividers at that segment?
>> I don't know.
>> I wish they would answer that question first because otherwise you are talking about existing off war version number 432 on this one, where is bob hoss, and paving central city Austin, this is 1986 campo all over again. They ought not to bring up things that they cannot back up with facts.
>> I don't want to ask them that. [ laughter ]
>> we're just identifying the issues here.
>> (indiscernible).
>> the other two again are actions the court has really already settled on, manor road and 38th and a half street. Those are not issues for us. We know what our positions are. They may be discussed at the meeting with the city of Austin and Travis County are of one mind on these two.
>> in the interest of being a broken record, who is pushing it that we should invade one east Austin neighborhood with issues related to semi close, but not related to the mueller redevelopment that if all of a sudden we can't figure out with interstate 35, 51st street and airport boulevard, that somehow, do you know what, the answer is let's run everybody through 38th and a half street over by the fiesta. It's like who is thinking that that's the solution here is that we should leave it open, that we slam it through a neighborhood?
>> [overlapping speakers].
>> we'll avoid the court's position to me.
>> good golly, if this were -- [overlapping speakers].
>> we'll find that out at the meeting.
>> I知 going to find 11 votes and kill that one.
>> that's all that I am aware of at this point.
>> do we need to approve these are are they part of this already?
>> I think other than the loop 1 is the already one that we have not already taken a position on. So -- and if you wanted to have that one on sometime next week, we can probably get you something back on that one in particular. That's the only one that I think --
>> loop 4, I知 sorry.
>> can you do something within our jurisdiction? God bless them if they want to pay for it.
>> very good question.
>> it's one thing for them to say we're going to get pass-through tolling and do this, but if they want to put the last part on Travis County and we have to pay for it through pass-through tolling, they are misinformed,. Do they have a jurisdictional right to do this?
>> most of the cities will tell you they don't have legal authority to spend their money outside the city limits to build a road. On top of that, when you look at the statutes, they don't come right out and say it, but they basically say a road outside the city limits is a county road and the city doesn't have any jurisdiction over it. So I知 not -- a good question to ask. I think what we're trying to do is just amend the transportation plan so that the thoroughfares are clearly represented in whoever's jurisdiction it is in. And I would think that they were looking at an alternative means of implementing this loop within Travis County.
>> it's a planning document. It's a planning document. It is very interesting conversation.
>> if they're planning to annex that area before they do the road, then it's no problem.
>> there you go. They just did an e.t.j. Swap with the city of Austin outside of buda as well, right on the border.
>> is this in the county's written policy?
>> yes, they have. And i'll make sure that they see the technical advisory committee, although I知 pretty sure they have.
>> first Monday instead of the second? Anything else regarding item number 20? Thank you very much,
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, May 25, 2005 7:48 AM