Agenda - 10-20-2009 - 4a - Laserfiche WebLink

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7 1 "DCHC MPO adopts Orange County CTP (area inside MPO)" as the second bullet and then all 2 the other bullets will be pushed down. 3 Commissioner Gordon made reference to the survey on page 13 and said that she had 4 a tweak. She said that the four most common names are Smith, Jones, Johnson, and Williams. 5 She said that the thing about "Smith" is that it is very close to the name of a road that actually 6 exists. She suggested leaving out Smith and substituting Williams or another common name. 7 Commissioner Gordon made reference to page 14, #11 and suggested that it say, "do 8 not make NC 86 an expressway." 9 Commissioner Gordon made reference to Attachment 4 on page 20 and said to change 10 adoption from 2009 to 2010. 11 Commissioner Jacobs said that if DOT is really trying to make the process transparent, 12 then the less "planningese" and "transportationese" is used when it is presented to the public, 13 the more likely it will be a transparent process. He said that there are so many acronyms and 14 nuances that the professionals are aware of, but the public does not need to know unless they 15 ask. He suggested just laying out the basics. 16 Commissioner Jacobs asked about the map of the Burlington-Alamance MPO and who 17 decides where an MPO impinges on a county. Karen Lincoln said that Mebane and the rest of 18 Alamance County agreed to become part of the Burlington-Graham MPO, and so the urbanized 19 areas became part of that. She said that she has contacted the Burlington-Graham MPO and 20 Mebane to see if they would like to participate in this process and she has been sending 21 updates and information. 22 Commissioner Jacobs said that when the TARPO was created, the Orange County 23 Board of Commissioners made a conscious decision not to make all of Orange County a part of 24 the MPO. Presumably, Orange County has some capability of determining for itself where it 25 wants to have those lines. He thinks that if one of the possibilities is that another MPO keeps 26 moving into Orange County, then Orange County's MPO may want to preemptively move into 27 where the RPO was. It would be like annexation, only for transportation. He said that the 28 County Commissioners should have a say before other boards adopt transportation jurisdictions 29 within the County's border. 30 Commissioner Gordon said that the definition of when an area has to go into an 31 urbanized area or not should be added. Her understanding is that, once the area is designated 32 as urbanized, it will become part of an MPO. The MPO has a certain status with the federal 33 government. She thinks that this process should be clarified for the Board. 34 Commissioner Jacobs said that since the Board is only approving the timeline and the 35 release of the survey, he would like this to come back to the Board of County Commissioners 36 for further analysis and discussion -this issue of MPOs and how they relate to the 37 Comprehensive Transportation Plan. 38 Commissioner Gordon said that it is really important that the Board of County 39 Commissioners get involved in this discussion of the MPO boundary as early as possible. 40 Commissioner Jacobs said that it has been the position of the Orange County Board of 41 Commissioners not to have NC 86 as a four-lane divided highway. He wants to know how this 42 got there and if there is going to be an expressway, there should at least be bike lanes. He 43 wants this information before it goes into a survey. 44 Commissioner Jacobs made reference to page 15, #13 of the survey and said to give 45 people some suggested alternatives of getting around downtown Hillsborough and give a list of 46 options. He said that this would be a good place to talk about multi-modal options. 47 Sarah Ezzell said that the ultimate vision for NCDOT is for statewide mobility. There is 48 also a goal to show NC 86 as an expressway somewhere because that is the category of 49 highway that was determined that this area needed.