Central Oregon Transportation: Whose Roads Are They Anyway?
In its March Forum, the City Club of Central Oregon will focus on transportation and how the public participates in transportation projects. Bend Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, Mike Schmidt will lead the discussion panel which includes Region 4 ODOT representative Bob Bryant and City Council member Jim Clinton, representing the Bend Metropolitan Planning Organization and the city of Bend. Speaker Bios
The group will discuss the public process in transportation planning and the traffic impacts of road decisions. This discussion will help us learn more about what we as citizens will have to do to begin working toward a solution.
Please join the City Club on March 20, 2008, from 11:30 to 1:00 to hear the panel presentation and engage in discussion about Central Oregon Transportation and what citizens can do to participate in the process. The Forum will be conducted at St. Charles Center for Health and Learning located at 2500 Neff Road in Bend.
Members and nonmembers are welcome. Online Pre-registration is required by March 17th at 5:00 p.m. After the 17th please call 541-633-7163. Register on line by clicking on the link below and paying with your credit card, or email robyn@cityclubofcentraloregon.com to be placed on the list to pay at the door. Cash or check is accepted at the door.
This Forum was rescheduled from January 31, 2008. If you have previously registered and paid, please email the City Club to indicate you will attend and would like to use your January credit for the event.
RECENT ODOT REQUEST FOR INPUT
The Long Range Planning Unit at the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is seeking early public comments on the Oregon Transportation Commission's (OTC) and ODOT's draft update of their Public Involvement Policies and Procedures (adopted in 1994). An update to the current Public Involvement Policy and Procedures has been prepared to include recent federal, state, and local regulations regarding public involvement, and reflect current ODOT Policies and Procedures.
A copy of the draft public involvement policies and procedures can be downloaded from the following site www.oregon.gov/ODOT/TD/TP/LRPU.shtml
Background Research on Transportation Forum - January 2008
Transportation is one of the most important aspects of any community’s well being. It is highly complicated and affects almost all other aspects of everyday life. The basic building blocks of all transportation are roads; all other questions concerning transportation derive from them.
The planning, placement, and payment of road systems has an effect on everyone and everyone tends to have an opinion, frequently emotional, on where roads should be and how they should look. But, almost no one knows that much about how they come to be. We hope that our forum this month will shed at least a little light on the topic.
In preparing this background research we have found there is little published information. There are several reasons for this. First, roads are a local issue, so there is scarce national information on them. Second, the responsibility for roads rests largely with governmental bodies. So, although they attempt to communicate with the public, much information is obscured by the complexity of the issue, the number of agencies, committees, etc. involved, and the workings of the various bureaucracies themselves. Finally, the issue of road placements etc. is so complicated and involves so many constituencies that it can be almost impossible to clearly understand why particular decisions have been made. This is somewhat analogous to trying to understand an astrophysicist’s equation – it may be explained as carefully as possible to you, but you are unlikely to really grasp it.
Five pieces of material have been developed that should help with a basic understanding of the question of roads, which you can reference:
1. Answers to Questions.doc (9 pages)
We put together a list of questions concerning; Planning, Procedures, and Payment for road issues and asked ODOT (for the State) and Dennis Luke (for the County and the Bend MPO) to answer them. These are their replies.
2. Transportation Committees.doc (6 pages)
The sheer number of committees and people involved give some idea of the complexity of the decision-making. Rather than be overwhelmed by the numbers involved it might be helpful to quickly look through the lists to see if you are acquainted with any of the members, then call and ask them about their thoughts on what they’re doing.
3. Transportation Research Websites.doc (1 page)
These refer to the governmental websites and include directions for navigating through them to get to the pertinent sections. The sites also illustrate just how hard it is to get to the information you want, despite the various attempts to provide information to the public.
4. Bend Bulletin Transportation Article.doc (4 pages)
This copy of a recent article is a good example of how information on particular projects is disseminated.
5. Chamber Transportation Policy.doc (3 pages)
This piece includes selected sections from a document that the Bend Chamber of Commerce is currently preparing. It addresses alternative possibilities that might be considered to help us find other means of funding if historical sources are unable to meet future road-project needs.