Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation (JPACT) formally identified the Westside Corridor between downtown Portland and Washington County as the "next priority corridor for major investment". Leaders from Metro and Portland's regional transit agency, TriMet, then called on local governments and businesses in Clackamas County to pursue alternative sources of funding, and a dispute between Washington and Clackamas county officials followed after the latter persisted requesting a share of the regional funds. As a compromise, Metro published a transit plan in 1989 that reasserted the Westside Corridor's priority and commissioned preliminary work for the I-205 proposal. In April 1991, the Port approved a master plan for Portland International Airport, a 20-year, $300 million phased expansion of the passenger terminal, to serve predicted passenger traffic growth through 2010. The plan included a long-term goal for an extension of light rail to the airport and thus reserved space for a light rail station near the southern end of the terminal's arrivals hall and baggage claim area. By 1993, the airport had already served 8.5 million passengers, an annual growth rate of 18 percent, which far exceeded what the Port had projected for the year 1997. Meanwhile, environmental studies conducted in the early 1990s caused Metro planners to shift plans away from the I-205 corridor in favor of a north–south route farther west and closer to downtown Portland between Hazel Dell, Washington and Clackamas Town Center, which was ultimately adopted and called the "South/North Corridor". Voters rejected local funding proposals for the South/North project in 1995 and 1996. Seeking alternative sources, Metro, among other proposals, proposed combining the project with a locally and privately funded airport light rail extension; this would in turn allow Metro to ask for more federal funds to match the overall project. TriMet later opted to ask Portland-area voters to provide local funding instead, who declined through a 1998 ballot measure. Meanwhile, engineering firm Bechtel, wanting to acquire property near the airport, had by then initiated discussions with the Port regarding the feasibility of an airport light rail line and assigned a former Federal Transit Administration (FTA) employee to help develop a plan. The Port expressed its support of Bechtel's unsolicited proposal in January 1997, and a preliminary engineering study commenced that December. After long deliberations, agreements were made between Bechtel, the Port, TriMet, and local governments and agencies in October 1998. A part of the agreements authorized Bechtel