Minutes - 04-19-2001 - Laserfiche WebLink

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transportation far the Triangle over the next 25 years. The four mayors all agree that doing nothing about transportation in the Triangle is not an option. He said that it was quite likely that the Triangle region would experience a 111 % population growth over the next 25 years. The vehicle miles traveled will increase 144%. He said that there would have to be mass transit to deal with this problem. He said that there has to be more four-lane arterial roads to encourage cars to stay off I-40. He spoke about freeway improvements, surface streets, managed lanes, pedestrian and bicycle facilities, and regional and local transit. He said that it would take 10 billion dollars mare than the 7.7 billion dollars to accomplish these goals, which will keep mobility at its current state in the Triangle. This amounts to about $8,300 per person in the Triangle aver the next 25 years. He said that the federal government could fund two billion dollars in mass transit. He stressed the importance of a multi-modal strategy. There will have to be cooperation from all levels of government. Each level of government should try to use local resources before going to the state for funding. He asked that the governing boards consider a resolution that can be presented to the legislature. Mayor Waldorf said that DCHC and CAMPO have officially endorsed this study. She made reference to the memo from three of the four mayors and said that it was very important to have the endorsement of the elected officials throughout the region. She spoke about possible funding options such as RTP, transportation impact fees, sales tax increases, and aone-percent real estate transfer tax. She asked that all elected officials endorse this study and consider supporting other measures to move this along. 2. SHAPING ORANGE COUNTY'S FUTURE REPORT Chair Halkiotis pointed out that items 2-6 were not public hearings, but a chance for all elected officials to get up to speed on the issues. Environment and Resource Conservation Director David Stancil introduced Jay Bryan, a member of the Shaping Orange County's Future steering committee, who led the conversation. He read the two questions on the agenda abstract to facilitate the discussion, as follows: 1. Which recommendation from the Task Force report do elected officials feel will improve the quality of life for County residents by the year 2030? 2. What are the mast important points to convey to the Task Force as they wrap up their work and issue their final report? Jackie Gist that she has heard over and over that the document needs to give equal weight to social issues as it does to other issues. Jim Ward said that we could continue forever to want to see the report done differently. He feels that the public advisory role has run its course. He feels we should value the document more or less as it is and give it the value that would make it part of the Assembly of Governments meetings and came to some resolution at this level. He encouraged the governmental agencies to start addressing this and making some decisions. He feels that this report needs to move ahead. Jay Bryan asked if the Chapel Hill Town Council had ever reached same critical response to the report and Jim Ward said no because it was not a priority and the document was so large. Diana McDuffee said that it is a wonderful document. When the Carrboro Board discussed it, they felt it was overly prescriptive in some places and general in other places. She said that this report and the report about transportation lay out some broad guidelines of how to come together on certain topics and move ahead. Joyce Brown said that this report does recommend cooperative attempts to reach solutions to some of the problems. One of the real fears of the group was that the document would be just another report that would sit on a shelf. Such a tremendous amount of work has gone into it and we really need to work out some way of using the report and of letting the task force know about some of the concerns.