HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001 03-20 Special
City of Meridian Special Meeting Tuesday, March 20, 2001
The regularly scheduled meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order on Tuesday, March 20, 2001, by Mayor Robert D. Corrie at 6:00 p.m.
Members Present: Robert Corrie, Tammy De Weerd, Keith Bird, Ron Anderson
Members Absent: Cherie McCandless
Others Present: Gary Smith, Shari Stiles, Bill Gordon, Bill Nichols, Will Berg
Corrie: It is six p.m., and I am going to open the City Council City of Meridian special meeting for the agenda. Roll call attendance.
Item 1. Roll-call Attendance:
X Tammy de Weerd X Ron Anderson
Cherie McCandless X Keith Bird
X Mayor Robert Corrie
Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda:
Corrie: Item 2 is the adoption of the agenda, which is the presentation by COMASS and the I-84 Corridor Study. If there is no objections I will hear a motion to adopt the agenda of the
special meeting.
Bird: Mr. Mayor.
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we adopt the agenda for the special meeting for the presentation by COMPASS.
De Weerd: Second.
Bird: Motion made and seconded to adopt the agenda. All those in favor say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES
Corrie: I guess we are all set.
Item 3. Presentation by COMPASS: I-84 Corridor Study
Splet: Good evening Mayor and Council and Staff. My name is Dave Splet. I am an engineer with the Washington Group, that is the new name for the Morrison-Knudsen Corporation. So if you
have any cash I will be glad to take it tonight.
Bird: How about stock?
Splet: It is a big joke at the office you know. Some of us bought it when it went down to $1.25 and went up to $2.50 and now it is headed back to $1.25 again. With me today is Mary Anne
Waldinger, she is the analyst with COMPASS who is actually paying for the study. Actually they are handling the, I think the state and your taxes paid for a big part of too. The reason
I came by today is to chat and let you folks know the current status of this multi-year long-range plan. The main reason is to let you folks know we are having an open house meeting
over here at the Meridian Conference Center from 4pm to 8pm tomorrow afternoon. It will be the drop-in format not a lecture series, so you can come in any time. Walk around the booths
that you want to walk around and leave your comments and leave at your convenience. We will have cookies and snacks and stuff too so that alone would be worth the trip I think. What
I want to do now is just give you a brief overview and you can bring up any issues that you feel are important. And I can either carry them back as part of our public comments or you
can at least take it as information and give to us tomorrow too. Phase 1 of this Corridor Study was completed in 1999 and 2000, and the plan there was to look at coordinating the improvements
with the interstate and the arterial system in both Ada and Canyon Counties. That plan found that we needed to balance the transit system. That is that you could not do it by just widening
the arterials, you could not fix it by just fixing the interstate, and you could do it by fixing both. We needed a transit system expansion and we also needed transition demand measures
that is our other carpooling, ride sharing, work shift changes that type of deal. What I have done is I have given you a brief overview of the slides when I gave a talk to the COMPASS
Board yesterday. You can read it at your convenience. We just want to hit some of the high points here. In the Phase 2 project, which we are doing now, we are focusing on I-84. In Phase
1 we pretty much agreed on what the street system needed to be upgraded to, but there were a couple issues on interchanges on the interstate. And those interchange decisions unfortunately
affected the traffic forecast on the mainline. So the location of a couple new interchanges and the widening of the mainline and then the order that we build them and how we are going
to pay for them are really the focus of the second study. The specific design issues, I talk about the new interchanges. Everyone more or less has agreed and the state board has funded
the improvement of the Carture interchange, which is on the west side of Nampa. Everyone more or less assumes that the Ten Mile Road is a done deal, and we were told not to reexamine
that and to assume that it is in the model and in the plans. We expect that when we get to the last stages of this plan the Ten Mile Road interchange will be formally approved as part
of that concept. So we are not reexamining Ten Mile Road interchange at all, it is assumed to be part of the plan. We are looking at whether to add a new interchange to Five Mile Road
or not. You know that came up in the Bench Valley study back in 1995, and then in Phase 1 of the study there was a discussion of whether to build another interchange between Ten Mile
Road and Garrity. That would be very close to the border between Canyon and Ada counties. We do a four mile segment in there because it goes Ten Mile Road, Black Cat, McDermott, Robinson,
which is actually aligned with Star Road, and then Garrity. There was no other new interchanges that we were supposed to examine in this stage of the project, but once we make a decision
on those interchanges then we of course we have impact done what the mainline is. The Robinson Road interchange we examined first because I guess it was a little bit simpler task. The
group looked at the traffic forecast at either Robinson
or McDermott, and Robinson was found to carry a ten times the number of cars in 20 years that McDermott was. In fact, McDermott had only about 1000 cars a day which is about half the
number of cars that go into a Circle K. So really there was no need from a traffic standpoint to construct an interchange at McDermott. Star Road or Robinson Road, the two are in alignment,
was found to carry over 11,000 cars a day, which is quite a large number of cars. You could probably handle 30,000 to 40,000 cars at a normal diamond interchange and 10,000 is easily
within its capacities. The TVTD, this Treasure Valley transportation team, which is made up of a range of public officials and staff members, recommended that we stick with the Robinson
Road or Star Road interchange because it carried a lot more cars. It also being close to Garrity serves as a reliever to the Garrity interchange. Anyone who has driven through Garrity
at a peak time knows that it is darn near impossible to get off and on the interchange because Garrity is so congested. In fact the modeling forecasts are showing that there is no way
to get any more cars than what is there now. The interchange just needs a full reconstruction. So part of the reason then for picking Robinson Road was it would act as a reliever to
Garrity particularly if Robinson were built before Garrity was reconstructed. That way we would have an alternative route for traffic to go back and forth. Also Garrity serves a new
BSU campus and the Auto Mall and the Cheese Factory and so on, so there is obviously a pretty good need for that. The plan is not to the point where we know how it will be financed or
when it will be constructed at some time down the road certainly more than 20 years. But we have to know where they are going now so we can plan to save the space for the interchange,
and we can forecast what is going to happen with the mainline in-between it. So the plan that you are going to see if you come to the open house tomorrow does show Robinson Road in it;
however, since the final decisions by the COMPASS Board are not made, you still have plenty of time to comment or if you have a new issue for us we would love to hear that too. The Five
Mile interchange was the more challenging one, and I am blessed with having to stand at that booth tomorrow for 4 hours hearing both sides of it. If you remember back in 1995, the Bench
Valley study examined the whole Bench area of Ada County. In fact I worked at ACHD at the time, so I was intimately involved with it for years and years. At that time we thought there
would only be 40,000 cars a day. It would cost about $25 million dollars to build it, and by building Five Mile interchange it would have a significant impact on reducing traffic at
Cole Road, Franklin Road, Milwaukee, and so on. Time flies. We have a new model now, and the new mile for 2020 has new demographics. Your planning director in fact sits on our on Demographic
Advising Committee to help us forecast what the land use growth is and help us figure out what the future traffic forecasts are. Well the 2020 numbers now are showing 55,000 cars a day
instead of 40,000. We cannot get that to work with single-lane ramps anymore, and because there are so many cars in the Franklin Road area we are not really solving anything. We are
just shifting cars around. If you take some cars off of Franklin and put them in the new Five Mile interchange somebody else on Fairview just moves over to Franklin to fill up that empty
space because Fairview is full of cars too. So we do not really solve the traffic issues on the arterial system. The last thing was the Y has changed considerably. Back in 1995 we thought
the Y was going to look the same way it does now for a long time. If you go out there now you will see that there are new ramps everywhere. In fact to get from downtown out here to the
west, there are two different on-ramps. One comes from the connector and one
comes from Franklin Road. All those maps extend so far west of Maple Grove Road that we are almost to Five Mile Road anyway. We cannot fit an interchange in there very easily because
we cannot get all the weaves and merges in a space that is so short. The normal federal standards are that you keep an interchange 2-miles apart, which is why Eagle Road and Meridian
Road are as far apart as they are. Because anybody who has been on them knows that it takes a long time for the weaves and merges especially when the traffic numbers are high. In order
to make it work, we need all kinds of fancy ramps, and we need a wider mainline. There are 30,000 more cars a day on the mainline if we build that interchange, and the state would have
to make it a 10-lane roadway plus the ramps instead of 6-lane. To widen that you have to buy more land and take the houses out on each side and we are up to $57 million dollars. Even
at that we found that we could not make it a safe interchange so the recommendation of the consulting firm which happens to be us said that it is too much of a cost. We cannot fit it
in until we can meet all of the safety standards, and we recommend you drop it from the plan. The TVTT however recognized these concerns but felt there was a political reason to at least
leave it in the plan for the Public Hearing and see how the general public felt. If you come to the open house tomorrow you will see that we do have the Five Mile Road interchange in
there. We do play it down because of the concerns, but you could build anything if you throw enough cash at it. The last thing that we did, the part the effects you folks too other than
the fact that we recommend the Ten Mile Road interchange or are maintaining the recommendation for the Ten Mile Road interchange, is that we do need to reconstruct the Meridian Road
interchange. Anyone who has been through there knows that it is only 4-lanes line. There is no sidewalk for the kids, and there is so many cars that you cannot get back and forth on
there. I live in Kuna and I drive through there every night and two or three lights is the norm. What we recommended that the state do is build a loop-ramp for westbound to southbound
travel. So when you are headed out of Boise to Kuna for example, just happens to benefit me, instead of going up the off-ramp, hitting the light and turning left, you will go underneath
and make a U turn on a loop-ramp to head south. We need an extra lane and since we have to widen the bridge anyway or replace it, we said we should go to 6-lanes and put the pedestrian
facilities on it. Part of that plan then would put a traffic signal at the southern ramp terminal. There is long lines getting off of that off-ramp and sometimes there has been up to
25 cars in a Q, and sometimes people have to wait 20-25 minutes to get off. Although it does not affect this town as much, we are also recommending a full reconstruction of the Garrity
interchange. The thing is old. There is only room for 3-lanes underneath; it needs 5-lanes, and in the short term we can probably live with it. But certainly within 10 years the thing
has to come down. There just are not enough lanes there. We are also playing with a plan to build what is called a fly-over from westbound to southbound. So you are going from Nampa
to here for example you will not get off the off-ramp to light and turn left, you will go on a ramp, go up in the air over the whole interchange and come down and join Garrity by the
hospital. That will take two lanes of cars out of the interchange and really save things. There is a way to actually build that now so that when the interchange gets reconstructed later
we will not have to come down. You can do that for about $6 million dollars, which is a heck of a lot less than the $20 million it costs to rebuild the interchange. The final part of
the plan is that we are calling for the need to reduce travel. That is the further expansion of the transit system, carpool, ride sharing, off-
peak work trips, that type of deal. That is always part of every plan. It is always a lot cheaper to take a car off the road than a road to put the car on. What I wanted to bring to
you then is those high points of what the plan is involved with, remind you about the open house tomorrow, lots of displays and things. You have a little hand-out there that you can
read some of the key points from, and let you know that we will probably be coming back to you folks sometime in June to let you know what kind of plan we have come with following all
of the public input process. One of the key things for you folks to help us with is how to prioritize these projects. We are looking at in the range of $500 million dollars if you include
west of the Y and east of the Y, which is more than any of us is going to make all week. And it is going to be a real fight to figure out which is the one to build first. So we will
be coming back to folks in June or so with that concept plan. That is the end of my brief presentation this afternoon. Do you have any comments or questions for me at this time?
Bird: Mr. Mayor.
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Dave, you know your saying, I am not for the Five Mile interchange in anyway, but you say you like to stay 2 miles apart. I see Robinson Road or Star Road and Garrity being worse
coming on, getting off. If you are going to say the 2-mile deal, McDermott is the ideal thing. You are going to give Nampa with the Carture deal; you are giving the five interchanges.
We cannot get one. I think it is going to wind up being very expensive if you go to the Robinson Boulevard, and it is going to be a traffic nightmare. If you look at your mileage, you
will have more distance between the end of the interchange and the start of the Five Mile then you will from the end of the on or off-ramp at Robinson to the on or off-ramp at Garrity
Boulevard. They have already taken Garrity and halfway down that mile is a 2-lane exit. I cannot see how that is very good planning for future. I would think that regardless of the traffic
I know is heavy on Robinson right now, but you get the interchange on McDermott; it will get heavy. A lot of people are going to come down Star/Robinson Road and swing off, get on the
interchange and go to Garrity and flip off instead of taking the Franklin Road. So you have cars merging in from Boise trying to get off at the same time and these getting on and off.
That is the one plan that I do not think is practical to be truthful with you.
Splet: You are closer to the truth than you think because we were just talking to the state about that, how to build it, and some of their traffic folks do not think that it is buildable
either for the same points that you brought up. As a consultant we are sort of trapped because the Committee wants one thing and we have to march it through. So that is a good comment
if you can come and add it to us tomorrow or you have done it now because I have already kept track of it. Thank you.
Bird: I have one other comment. You said that Ten Mile was assumed to be still in the plan.
Splet: Our instructions were to leave it in the plan, leave it in the model and reexamine it.
Bird: Okay, it better stay there I hope. I would like to see it number one on the plan.
Splet: In fact, that is one of the things you folks should consider too because there are only so many dollars, and if it all goes to Five Mile you could build three other interchanges
for the price of that one. Because your one here, we could probably do that. The ramps would be fairly cheap. The bridge is difficult to replace. I understand there is a chance for some
private funds to help accelerate that now.
Bird: But what is the Ten Mile estimate now for price?
Splet: $15 to $20 million.
Bird: And what is Robinson?
Splet: About the same thing, a little more. Robinson is a little tougher because of the point that you came up with. It is only a mile from Garrity which means you have to add an extra
lane to the mainline for the weaving and merging, so you have to buy extra land and build that in there too. One of the long term things that we are not up to yet is we have to figure
out what is going to happen with Highway 16. You probably know that Senator Bunderson really wants that examined. I do not think it is going to be possible to bring it down Ten Mile
Road. So it will probably end up at Black Cat or someplace between Black Cat and McDermott, and if we get too far west of that then we may only end up with one interchange in the long
term. But there are too many other issues to solve first. We have not figured out what the best point is. General rule if there is no bridge or anything in a site now it costs about
$20 to $25 million to build a new interchange. If you have a bridge and some roads the price drops. A good place to start is $15 million or so to $25 depending upon…
Bird: Thank you very much Dave.
Splet: My pleasure.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor.
Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd.
De Weerd: Dave, are we also considering the overpass at Linder? Are you doing just interchanges or are you also looking at overpasses?
Splet: Linder was not part of our task. I understand ACHD it would be their road and no interchange. That was not part of our scope because what would happen if that were built it effects
the mile roads on either side, Ten Mile or Meridian Road in this case. Same thing as the Locust Grove Bridge is. We are not looking at that because there is no interchange.
De Weerd: Okay.
Splet: Did I remember to say that the mainline that we are also recommending be 8-lanes from Meridian Road to the Y? And then 6-lanes west of there all the way to Caldwell and then 4-lanes
through Caldwell and out.
Bird: How much more frontage on each side of the road would we have to purchase at that time Dave if it goes 8-lanes?
Splet: We can get 8-lanes by putting it in the middle.
Bird: Oh, okay, we would not have the –
Splet: We do not need more land until we get to the 9th and 10th lane.
Bird: Okay.
Splet: We just have to build one of those small walls in the middle. We can go inwards.
Bird: Good.
Splet: So we do not have to buy any land.
Corrie: Anything else?
De Weerd: No, thank you very much.
Bird: Thank you very much.
Splet: Thank you and hopefully we will see one or all of you tomorrow night.
Corrie: Thank you Dave. Thank you Mary.
Bird: Mr. Mayor.
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Before we start the other meeting I would move that we go into Executive Session as per code 67-2345B.
De Weerd: Second.
Corrie: Motion made and seconded to go into Executive Session. Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT
Corrie: Before we start we tonight there is a sign up sheet in the back if you want to testify for any one of the Public Hearings, you need to put your name on it so we can go by that
sheet.
Bird: Mr. Mayor.
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we come out of Executive Session.
Anderson: Second.
Corrie: Motion made and seconded to come out of Executive Session. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT
Bird: Mr. Mayor, I move that we close the special meeting.
Anderson: Second.
Corrie: Motion made and seconded to close the special meeting. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:05 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR
ATTEST:
WILLIAM G. BERG., JR., CITY CLERK