Greater Morgantown

Metropolitan Planning Organization

180 Hart Field Road

Morgantown, WV 26508

www.plantogether.org

 

 

Technical Advisory Committee

July 11, 2006

Morgantown Municipal Airport

1st  Floor Conference Room of the AARF Building

1:30 – 3:00pm

 

MINUTES:

 

        I.      Attendance:

 

The meeting began at 1:35 in the 1st floor conference room of the AARF building located beside the Morgantown Municipal Airport.  Those in attendance were:  Mark O’brien, Zane Schuck, Asel Kennedy, Ron Kyle, Donald Williams, Ann Ogoreuc –URS, Donald Bailey, Ed Sneckenberger, Dave Bruffy, Mac Warner, Monty Warner, Chet Parsons and Bill Troe –URS.

 

      II.      Public Comments

 

There were no public comments at this time.

 

    III.      Housekeeping

 

No issues were presented at this time.

 

   IV.      Regional Transportation Plan – Phase II

 

A meeting will be held on Thursday, July 13, 2006 in Charleston with the WVDOH to discuss funding.  URS will be explaining the proposed methodology to make sure it is still consistent with the funding levels.   It is anticipated that an estimated cost will be determined.

 

Two primary goals for today’s meeting are to: 1) reduce the number of projects list into 1 or 2 potential improvements and 2) provide a generalized priority list of the projects.  Also, during the first round of the screening it was suggested that the members should come up with some ideas about the vision of Morgantown.  They were encouraged to provide five descriptive words that depict Morgantown in the year 2030.  Bill Troe advised the TAC to consider weighing the evaluation criteria based upon some of the adjectives that the members provided. 

 

The second phase of screening developed a scoring system for the environmental, social, and engineering impacts.  Zero points reflected poorly and 6 points reflected positively.   These are the criteria that have been applied to establish the overall rankings of the projects.   Bill Troe informed the group that all criteria carry the same weight at this time.  Bill’s recommendation for weighting of the criteria is to keep them all the same.

 

Bill encourages the members to look for adjustments that need to be made to the scoring criteria.  He wants the members to start providing input on the particular projects and the specifics of the matrix.  Chet advises the group to start with the first column for each project and determine if they are scored accordingly.  Ed Sneckenberger asks where URS obtained the numbers.  Bill responds that the numbers were documented in the information that was provided in the Phase I screening.

 

Zane Schuck is interested in what Bill would perceive to be the major skeletal transportation network.  He believes that URS should be looking at the necessary  components that put the skeleton together which in turn, would influence many of the numbers in the matrix.   Chet states that once we get to a point where we have all the components identified, he believes that some projects will be quickly eliminated because they won’t be beneficial to the overall system. 

 

Don Williams asks how many projects will remain after the screenings.  Bill responds that the cost estimate for all projects is about 500 million dollars.  He believes that over the 20 years, the county will receive between 175 – 225 million dollars.  He also stated that not all of the major projects will be built within the next 20 years unless we find alternate funding sources.

 

Monty Warner commends the MPO and URS for identifying the corridors that create the large scale projects.  He was wondering if there is a way to preserve the skeletal network for future development when funding is available so that if Morgantown continues to grow as it is forecasted, it won’t be developed out of existence.   Mark responds that as long as you don’t remove all the value from the property, you can control future use of that land.

 

URS’ next role is to establish a system that can be funded.  Bill will be assembling packages together that will incorporate as many of the higher scoring projects as possible and still remain around 200 million dollar range.

 

Bill suggests that the members spend some time reviewing the matrix and respond to him via email about what they perceive the numbers to be.

 

 

     V.      Next Meeting

 

The next meeting of the TAC will be held on August 8, 2006 in the 2nd floor conference room of the Morgantown Municipal Airport.

 

   VI.      Adjournment

 

The meeting adjourned at 3:10pm.