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OTC to discuss highway projects Meeting set in Medford Friday to decide eligibility for state bonds The Oregon Transportation Commission will meet in Medford Friday to discuss ranking highway projects that qualify for a potential $600 million in state bonds. The discussion is part of the commission meeting that starts at 9:15 a.m. Friday in the Siskiyou Room of the DoubleTree Hotel, 200 N. Riverside Ave. The discussion is scheduled for 11:05 a.m. The five commission members, including Stuart Foster of Medford, will spend this afternoon visiting actual and projected highway and street construction projects in Medford and Grants Pass. Among them are the north and south Medford interchanges with Interstate 5, and the realignment of Highway 238 in west Medford. Those projects, estimated at $62 million, are on a statewide list that the Oregon Department of Transportation compiled as examples of unmet highway needs. The 1999 Legislature approved higher gasoline taxes and vehicle registration fees, part of which will pay off $600 million in bonds for new projects. The commission will have to decide how to rank the $725 million in projects statewide. The process is expected to be similar to its review of projects for its four-year statewide transportation improvement plan. The review involves local officials and regional transportation panels. The commission and ODOT are to submit their project rankings to a special legislative committee, which would ask the Legislature's Emergency Board to approve the bonds next year. The bonds still are not a sure thing. The Oregon/Idaho chapter of the American Automobile Association says it will petition to refer the gasoline tax to voters because the Legislature tied it to a replacement of the weight-mile tax on trucks. If opponents gather enough signatures, the issue would be on the May 16 primary ballot. Environmental groups, including 1000 Friends of Oregon, have argued that many of the new projects will encourage urban sprawl. "Some of the items on the list may be good projects," Robert Liberty, executive director of the land-use watchdog group, wrote in urging a veto by Gov. John Kitzhaber. "Others may be innocuous, or could be designed to be innocuous. "But many of the projects may be based on out-of-date transportation plans. Still others may not reflect current understanding of the relationships between land use and transportation or recent research on unintended effects of new or wider roads." In other business Friday, the commission will consider early approval of two local highway projects in the 2000-03 statewide plan. The actions will allow preliminary engineering to proceed on the Fern Valley Road interchange with Interstate 5, near Phoenix, and a project on Jacksonville Highway at Oak Grove Road. The engineering for the Fern Valley Road interchange is estimated at $367,000; the project, $3,142,000. The engineering for Jacksonville Highway is estimated at $47,000; the project, $447,000. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA