Council gives solar trail the OK

All testimony given at meeting was in opposition of the trail project

By Kara Hansen

The West Linn Tidings, Nov 12, 2009 (9 Reader comments)

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West Linn will accept as much as $250,000 in federal money to design a new trail overlooking Interstate 205.

The city council voted 3-2 Monday to move ahead with early planning and design work for a solar highway trail, intended to highlight an Oregon Department of Transportation project undergoing studies on the same southern West Linn hillside, facing Oregon City across I-205.

Mayor Patti Galle and councilor Teri Cummings opposed moving ahead with the new path, citing questions about the project’s cost and its connection to ODOT’s plan for a utility-scale solar-generation site. The state wants to install 2,000-foot-long rows of photovoltaic panels alongside the freeway, generating power to offset the cost of lighting the transportation system at night.

“We didn’t ask for this,” Galle said. “I say no trail, no solar highway. If forced … I say task force.”

Cummings questioned whether the transportation agency could forego the city’s land-use process, which isn’t required for developments in the public right of way for “transportation purposes.”

In this case, ODOT would work with another entity, most likely Portland General Electric.

“It’s PGE,” Cummings said. “I don’t see that as transportation.”

But council president Jody Carson and councilors John Kovash and Scott Burgess cast the winning votes to push ahead with trail planning, viewing the state’s offer as an opportunity to tap outside funds for a project already in the city’s long-term parks and recreation master plan.

“Without this,” Burgess said, “we’re going to spend our funds to determine the same things.”

“It’s an opportunity to actually study what is the best location and do the environmental studies,” Carson said, recommending that the city consider neighborhood residents’ ideas for a route.

City staff plans to use engineering reports and public input to choose a route, which might run along the top of the slope behind Barrington Heights homes or at its base, closer to the freeway.

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