The editorial asks, “why the city chose to extend Boeckman Road, rather than Barber, or why the city didn’t just finish both projects at the same time.”

Boeckman Road had to be extended in order to avoid gridlock on Wilsonville Road and to discourage Sherwood commuters and truck traffic from cutting through Villebois.

Traffic engineers, city leaders, and Villebois developers all agreed that the Boeckman extension was essential to the development of Villebois.

The road improvement projects associated with Villebois are being funded by tax-increment financing from the city’s Westside Urban Renewal District, which was supported by an overwhelming 80 percent of Wilsonville voters in 2003. Rather than having all residents underwrite the costs of new development, urban renewal uses the increased property-tax value of the newly developed land to pay for infrastructure improvements such as sewer, water, and roads that serve the newly developed properties.

When originally planned, neither the pace of Villebois development (the source of road funding) nor the completion of Washington County commuter rail could be projected with absolute certainty.

The widespread financial and real-estate downturns have resulted in a decreased level of Villebois home sales, as well as a bankruptcy filing by one of the major Villebois developers.

With a shortage of homebuyers there is less new development, resulting in a slower return of the tax-increment needed to complete Barber Road.

Building roads is very expensive and time-consuming, especially when building over environmentally sensitive wetlands as is the case with the Barber extension.

The City has worked with Villebois master planner Rudy Kadlub of Costa Pacific Communities and Congresswoman Darlene Hooley to secure $4 million in federal commitment for Barber, a project expected to cost $10-$15 million.

Without the Barber connection, providing regular fixed-route service between Villebois and commuter rail is long and expensive. Implementing this new service would require raising the business payroll tax that funds SMART’s operations even higher than the recently approved 51 percent increase designed to provide timely bus service on current routes to the train station.

The City heard quite clearly from the business community that this substantial increase in the transit tax was the most they could support at this time.

Since 2006, the Transit Master Plan has called for full service to Villebois starting in 2011, after the completion of Barber.

In the meantime, SMART is working with residents and the developers to provide other transportation options, including dial-a-ride, regular shuttle-van service, and improved bicycle and pedestrian access to the train station. Implementing these alternative strategies will require cooperation from all the parties involved.

As a rapidly growing city that was a small farm-town just a few years ago, Wilsonville is contending with various transportation challenges that include insufficient sidewalks in some parts of town and the need for adequate transit services to all residential areas.