As you may know, the Transportation Bond Oversight Committee (TBOC) has been meeting to prioritize General Obligation (GO) Bond projects over the next 5 years. Councilor Kebler and Transportation Engineer Robin Lewis put together a summary of what is happening and how neighbors can get involved, as there is an important meeting coming up on Nov. 9:
IMPORTANT LINKS
- TBOC webpage: http://bendoregon.gov/tboc
- TBOC agenda from last meeting (includes links to presentation on proposed list of bond projects for next five years): https://bend.granicus.com/GeneratedAgendaViewer.php?view_id=18&event_id=706
- TBOC Oct. 5 meeting on video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXUMssv7iKo
- GO Bond summary webpage with all GO Bond projects: https://www.bendoregon.gov/city-projects/safe-travel
LAST MEETING SUMMARY
On Oct. 5, TBOC discussed the proposed plan for transportation improvement projects that was presented by City staff (project list attached). There was a lot of discussion of the additional information TBOC would like to have, and the feeling that they needed additional time to digest the information and allow the public to comment. Ultimately, TBOC decided to continue to discuss the list of projects at a meeting on Nov. 9, and asked staff to bring them some specific information to help them with that discussion.
WHAT’S NEXT
At the Nov. 9 meeting, TBOC will likely vote to approve a list of projects to recommend to Council. This list of projects may also come with a recommendation that the City of Bend issue more debt in the first period of the bond than previously planned, so that we can tackle more projects. The TBOC expects to present to Council at the Council work session on Nov. 10. Council will have the final decision on the final list of bond projects for the next five years at a later meeting.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
- Look at the attached projects from Oct. 5 meeting. When posted, also look at the materials for the Nov. 9 meeting (posted about a week before the meeting). Send your comments about the project list to tboc@bendoregon.gov before Nov. 9. You can get very specific, or you can just provide general input about what types of projects in what parts of town you want the committee to recommend that Council prioritize. You can also attend the TBOC meeting on Nov. 9 and provide public comment.
- Advocating for Safe Routes to Schools or Neighborhood Street Safety Projects? The category you should request funding prioritization from is the Local Residential Safety Improvement Program. In the attached list of projects you will see Local Residential Street Safety in about the middle of the table. This includes the currently listed out Neighborhood Street Safety Program (NSSP) projects that the NAs and NLA have created (Providence traffic calming, for example), as well as funds for Safe Routes to Schools Projects.
The Final Project Scoring Summary is below. You can also find GO Bond information posted on our website.
