Connector vote should be good for Wilsonville

  • Published: 12/18/2009 6:00:00 AM
Last Thursday, Metro’s Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation forwarded its recommendation about the Regional Transportation Plan  to the Metro Council with much of the language the city of Wilsonville wanted.

Over the course of the last year and a half, we have committed many hours to covering the Highway 99W to Interstate 5 connector project. We felt was an important story for commuters, not just in Wilsonville, but around the south Willamette Valley.

We have witnessed many things about this process that have made us question how projects of this scope — by some estimates more than $1 billion — are planned and negotiated.

During the alternative analysis last year, meetings were moved, cancelled and conducted with no notice all too often. Public comments were limited during meetings, information was doled out at the last minute and even minutes were questionable.

It was a farce. So when the project moved forward to Metro, we hoped that a more open process would be used.

Over the course of the past few months, a regular alphabet soup of committees talked about, negotiated and crafted language for the RTP regarding this project. Behind the scenes staff members and elected officials from Washington and Clackamas counties, and the cities of Sherwood, Tualatin and Wilsonville were talking about what the language should look like.

In the end, there was no consensus, and the partners from Washington County voted against the recommendation.

We don’t know all the details of the negotiations over the last quarter, but what we do know is that we are happy this issue seems to be put to bed.

Wilsonville did get caught up in some of the political game playing, but, for the most part, city officials tried to use reason, facts and figures to make their arguments. Overall we hope that’s what lead to the decision made last week — reasonable arguments about one of the area’s many transportation problems.
Before the vote, Washington County Commissioner Roy Rogers opined about the “old days” when they could find a way to bring everyone to the table, supporting the RTP.

Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder had it right when he pointed out that in the “old days,” there wasn’t the funding problems we have today.

In the end, if the RTP language stays the same, no federal funding will be available for a southern connector between Sherwood and Wilsonville at least until 2018. That is, until the next RTP update.
Let’s just hope between now and then, regional partners can complete an Interstate 5 south corridor study that will help find a solution to the east-to-west traffic flow that plagues highways and byways from Highway 217 to I-205 to Tualatin-Sherwood Road.

While the solution to the traffic problems may have been put off, at least it looks like now the region is ready to look at the problem in a holistic way.

You can thank city of Wilsonville officials and Clackamas County representatives for that.

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