The Clackamas County Board of County Commissioners is now scheduled to take action next week on the Lake Oswego to Portland Transit Project Steering Committee’s recommendation for the streetcar alternative to advance for further study. The county action follows affirmation of the steering committee recommendation by the cities of Lake Oswego and Portland and the Portland Streetcar Inc. Board of Directors earlier this spring. Public testimony will be accepted at the meeting, which will begin at 10 a.m. Thursday, June 9.
The Lake Oswego to Portland Transit Project Steering Committee, made up of elected and appointed officials from each of the project jurisdictions, based its recommendation on recommendations from the community advisory committee and the project management group, and the nearly 500 public comments received by the project between Dec. 3, 2010 and Jan. 31, 2011. The recommendations and public comments were in response Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which presents information about both the adverse and the beneficial potential impacts of the three alternatives: no-build, enhanced bus and streetcar. The analysis includes the future effects that each alternative would have on communities, traffic, travel options, parks and the natural environment.
Multnomah County has not scheduled time to discuss the project; TriMet will most likely address the recommendation this summer. The recommendation will then move to the regional transportation committees and the Metro Council for final action. If the streetcar is adopted as the Locally Preferred Alternative, preliminary engineering and work on a Final Environmental Impact Statement would follow, potentially beginning later this year.