Eugene’s motto may be a bold statement for the city to live up to – “World’s Greatest City of the Arts and Outdoors” – but with the heavy involvement in community activities such as Tuesday’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Open House Plan, citizens definitely lend credibility to the claim.
Tuesday night’s open house event was a mix of spandex-wearing bicycle riders chatting with city officials about safety issues on the roads, while advisory committee staff helped to discuss their role in the Eugene Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Plan.
The “outdoors” for Eugene residents includes a long list of events, pastimes and hobbies that residents enjoy in the area. However, biking, walking and running have become such a part of daily life that city officials and community members formed the Walking and Biking Summit last year to improve conditions for pedestrians and cyclists, leading to the new safety plan.
“This is a kind of recipe for making Eugene a better place to walk and bike,” said David Roth, a public works employee. “This plan definitely has a strong connection to the (city’s) title, and we are trying to make that connection even stronger.”
The walls of the Bascom Room in the library, where the event was held, were decorated with posters displaying the 80 goals, strategies and actions that make up the plan. The city’s public works department officials would like to see these actions implemented over the next five years, but wanted the public’s input before the plan was finalized.
Sticky note pads were placed in front of those posters so the more than 60 people who attended the event could write suggestions and revisions for each of these strategies. The notes will be gathered and then city officials will “decide what changes to make to the draft based on the suggestions” before the final draft of the plan is submitted early next year, said Rob Inerfeld, the transportation planning manager for the city’s public works department.
“We’re known as being a very bikeable and walkable city, but there are people, including myself, who feel we could do more,” Inerfeld said.
Some of the suggestions called for an increase of bike racks on city buses to “make it easy to take your bike on the bus,” according to one note. Other notes displayed recommendations such as 6-foot-wide bike lanes, encouraging businesses to reward employees to walk or ride their bikes to work, drafting a law requiring lights to be sold with all bikes, and increasing the number of foot and bike police patrols.
The plan includes more than just safety issues, but also promotes alternative transportation awareness.
“One of the elements of this plan is trying to find ways to educate University students who walk, bike or drive to school on how to be respectful of sharing the roads,” said Matt Peterson, a third-year graduate student at the University. Peterson is also a GTF for the Community Planning Workshop, a class and program at the University that helped create the pedestrian and bicycle strategic plan.
“This plan is a community based plan where it will be implemented by the community, and there are a number of ways students can get involved,” he said.
The goals of the plan are more recommendations than mandates or regulations the city must implement. During the next five years, however, the community members and advisory committee officials involved with this plan will be working with the city to implement as many of the goals as possible, and city staff look forward to a finished plan.
“Transportation and the outdoors are a natural match,” said Cindy Clarke, the city’s transportation options coordinator for Eugene. In downtown city offices, Clarke said there is a “pretty high percentage of employees who ride their bikes or the bus to work, and it’s something the city is looking into even more now.”
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