The directors of Clark County’s transit agency on Tuesday moved a step closer to adopting a 20-year development plan that includes light rail, but they won’t decide how to ask voters to pay for it until later this year.

The nine board members held a public hearing Tuesday at the agency’s headquarters in Vancouver.

Only a handful of people weighed in.

Instead, the session was dominated by a discussion among board members about the $170 million price tag of capital improvements, including $72 million for a new bus rapid transit line along Fourth Plain Boulevard. C-Tran officials told board members they expect the federal government will pick up 80 percent of the cost of that line. The line, running between downtown and the Vancouver mall transit station, would carry passengers in their own dedicated lane with fewer stops and quicker trips than standard buses.

The rest of the money would come from 30-year municipal bonds, repaid by boosting the sales tax, if voters approve.

The first decade of the 20-year plan includes high-capacity transit — light rail from Portland and the new bus rapid transit route along the Fourth Plain Boulevard — as well as expansion of commuter and local bus routes and a boost to C-Van service for disabled riders.

If the C-Tran board adopts the plan at its regular meeting next month, board members then will have to set a ballot proposal to pay for it.

Voters would need to boost the sales tax by three-tenths of 1 percent to cover the first 10 years.

A third of that increase — one-tenth of 1 percent — would be split between building the bus rapid transit line and the $2 million to $3 million annual cost of operating Portland’s light rail transit system on the Washington side of the Columbia River. The remaining two tenths would go to improve bus and C-Van service.

The board may choose to ask voters separately to approve the light rail and bus rapid transit portions.

“There’s nothing in adopting this plan that boxes the board in,” Scott Patterson, the agency’s public affairs manager, told the board.

C-Tran commissioned a survey of 600 people within its service area earlier this year, which indicated 61 percent of respondents strongly or somewhat supported boosting the sales tax 0.3 percent to pay for the 20-year transit plan. Currently, C-Tran collects 0.5 percent sales tax within a service area defined by Vancouver and its urban growth area and Clark County’s incorporated cities.

The current sales tax rate in Vancouver is 8.2 percent.

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