line to polygon

question: I have a line file that dissects a polygon. This polygon is varying distance away from the line feature that runs down the middle. Think stream center line line and polygon stream boundary.
to Complicate this the line feature is broken up into small segments where as the polygon is not as detailed.

What I am trying to accomplish here is do a buffer of a specific location.

• If I use the center line if may not find the location, as its not truly representing the width of the stream.
• If I use the polygon I don't get the information from the line.
• If I buffer to find the polygon, then spatial query to get the line in the polygon I will be grabbing more lines due to the size of the polygons (I could inadvertently grab a stream segment 1/2 mile down stream), I would then have to do another query to find the lines in an optimal location in regards to the original buffer.

I think it might be wise to do some up-front development on the layers themselves to make things easier in the long run.

1. What I was thinking of is trying to offset the line (left and right) to the polygons border. I cant simply buffer the line feature because I need to to represent the boundary of the stream, as this width varies.
2. Or some way of buffering the line feature (creating a polygon feature) not by a specified width but until it hits the polygon border...is this possible?
3. Or Merger the Polygon into one, then break the polygon based on the length of the line segments. I can then do a simply spatial query to get the data from the line to the polygon.

Any other thoughts on 1-3 above? Is number 3 possible? Getting the data into a format we can use...data from the line a newly created polygon (based on original poly boundaries)