The Eugene Safe Routes to School mission is to serve a diverse community of parents, students, and organizations: advocating for and promoting the practice of safe bicycling and walking to and from schools throughout the Eugene area. More about Eugene SRTS.
What a great way to kick off the Walk + Bike Challenge Month at Roosevelt Middle School. The designBridge team received final approval on Monday for the new bike parking structure they designed, permitted and constructed over this past year and Roosevelt students now have a great new, safe, and dry space to park their bikes at school.
The designBridge project originally worked with Edison Elementary during 2008/2009 to rebuild their bike parking area to include new racks, a beautiful mural, new lighting and benches. That area is now a magnate for parents and kids to gather at arrival and departure times and shows that biking is a valued form of transportation at the school.
"Old School"
For 2009/2010 a new designBridge team started working with Roosevelt Middle School to reconstruct their bike parking area which included a cover that didn’t actually keep the bikes dry because it was so high, an unattractive chain link fence, and out of date wheel-bender racks all tucked away at the very back of the school. Working with students, staff, and parent volunteers the designBridge students worked through the Fall of 2009 to come up with a design and during the Winter and Spring they worked on permitting, fundraising, refining the design, more permitting, more fundraising, more revisions of design until finally it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen during the school year. But the persistence of the team and it’s leadership had them working through the summer to continue the process. Many issues were dealt with and it turned out to be a great learning experience for the University of Oregon School of Architecture students. The project coordinator, Sylvan Cambier, along with other team members, worked hard to refine the design and find donations and funding that would complete the project. They received final approval to start building in the Fall and between their other school work, Roosevelt’s class schedule, all the rain, surprise pipes, and final design tweeks they completed the structure in April and received final approval from the City and 4J to start using the structure at the beginning of May. As National Bike Month and Oregon’s Walk + Bike Challenge Month it’s perfect timing! read more…
May is Walk + Bike Challenge Month and throughout Oregon 135 elementary and middle schools and 19 high schools and colleges are registered for the event which is in its 3rd year. This is the first year that Eugene/Springfield schools are joining in the competition and there are 12 elementary and middle schools registered: Cal Young, Camas Ridge, César Chávez, Edgewood, Family School/ATA, Homesource, McCornack, Network Charter, Path Finder Program, Ridgeview, River Road, Roosevelt, Thurston Elementary, and Yujin Gakuen.
There are some exciting things happening throughout May (and into June) as part of the Challenge. Here are some of the highlights: read more…
proactive |prōˈaktiv|adjective(of a person, policy, or action) creating or controlling a situation by causing something to happen rather than responding to it after it has happened : be proactive in identifying and preventing potential problems. reactive |rēˈaktiv|adjectiveshowing a response to a stimulus : pupils are reactive to light.• acting in responsetoasituation rather than creating or controlling it : a proactive rather thanareactiveapproach.
There is a clear example happening right now of how the City of Eugene needs to improve it’s standard operations to increase safety and comfort for students and families by being proactive rather than reactive. A group of parents and staff have been asking for a marked crosswalk in front of the Village school for years. A recent exchange between parents and Public Works (Traffic Operations Department) highlights the city’s lack of interest in answering parent concerns and increasing comfort and safety for families even though they have stated that is a goal.
A clear example of the false logic that is driving (pardon the pun) the City to not place a crosswalk was stated in an email from Traffic Operations: read more…
As part of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign a meeting for youth was held last Friday at the White House about Childhood Obesity. A youth documentary film maker who won a CNN contest was in the audience. This is his 8 minute video on Childhood Obesity, it’s pretty good. It touches a bit on the transportation picture which is part of this very large problem:
This past Wednesday night the City of Eugene hosted an open house to discuss the resurfacing and redesign of Alder Street (from 18th to Franklin). The City is interested in improving this important “bike corridor” by redesigning the street to improve access for cyclists and carrying them all the way down and across Franklin (currently you are diverted off at 13th). At the same time they see it as a great opportunity to not only improve the road surfacing but also keep or increase parking and improve the general street-scape.
There are five design options on the table right now and those include:
-No Build, improve current conditions
-Contraflow bike lanes (similar to 18th to 13th now)
-Two way cycle track
-Two way car traffic with shared space
-A Combination of above options
Could Alder have a Cycle track like this in it's future?
“No build” doesn’t connect cyclists to the river and Alder continues to be a ‘missing link’. “Two way car traffic with shared space” is not very ‘bike friendly’, it could work if designed right but isn’t the most comfortable (think riding Willamette and Broadway downtown). “Contraflow bike lanes” the whole way down would work but the design that seems to be the most “family friendly” and comfortable for cyclists is the cycle track option. The cycle track is the closest feeling to a path on the street and would show Eugene’s true commitment to getting more people cycling more often. Located next to the nations first ‘cycle track style’ infrastructure on the north side of 13th (between Alder and Kincaid) this major new facility could be Eugene’s first major bike infrastructure innovation in the last several decades. It would show a renewed commitment to active transportation modes and that Eugene can still be on the cutting edge. This could be the longest (and one of the first) two-way cycle tracks in the nation and could be the start of a whole new way of creating space for all types of cyclists on Eugene’s streets. Like the vision of the path system in the seventies this type of facility could be the next type of improvement to put Eugene back at the top of the list of bike friendly cities. This could be a Platinum style facility.
Is your family ready for a ‘transportation challenge’? Do you know one that might be? Point2Point Solutions is looking for a family to join the Eugene Drive Less Family Challenge this May put on by Oregon’s Drive Less Save More Campaign and local Eugene partners. They’re looking for a total of three families to compete against themselves for a single week in cutting back on their driving. Experts will work with the family in putting together a customized plan that outlines step-by-step ways to cut down on road miles, plus give personal consultations. These could include getting expert advice on home organizing, bike commuting and/or tapping into local transit. They will also give each family “Drive Less Kits” that include handy organizers and custom meal planning/shopping list pads, biking and walking gear, transit tickets and gift certificates for home delivery services.
Last weeks report on April first brought an interesting response from across the web and the community. First off we had the highest daily traffic to the site since we started it, over 400 visitors when we rarely just break into double digits. Most of the traffic just read the main story but some folks did check out the Confident Cycling for Families class, signed up for the Enewsletter, or went to some other page on the site which made the ’story’ worth it right there. But we also got some great responses from folks, some who ‘fell for it’ and were very excited about the plans and even some who fell for it and were angry that it really wasn’t happening (including the censoring of one comment with profanity). We also had more than 75 people sign up for the Facebook group “Connect the Paths” including a 4J School Board member and the Mayor (the real one, not Poni). Clearly there is a big interest in completing our path system with family-friendly, safe, comfortable, and convenient connectors.
The reality of the situation is that the City of Eugene is NOT turning High St. into the “Burley Active Corridor”. Yet. read more…
Google Maps is already preparing for the new route
In connection with today’s SRTS grant announcement the City of Eugene has announced plans to convert High Street, from East 19th Avenue to 2nd Avenue into an active transportation ‘highway’ called the “Burley Active Corridor”. As part of the cities repaving and pothole program the City of Eugene Public Works Department has announced plans to turn the two lane northbound road into a non-motorized corridor connecting the Amazon Creek Path to the Ruth Bascom River Path.
Aaron Stones, the City of Eugene Public Affairs Manager, stated in a press release today that “converting this public space into a multi-use, non-motorized throughway meets many of the goals of the City including sustainability, livability, and economic vitality.” Final design elements are still being worked out within the City of Eugene Public Works department but Ron Thompson the Cities Traffic Engineer states that every effort will be made to create a facility that the whole community will feel comfortable using, including families with kids. Thompson said that the city “realizes that people make decisions on how they travel based on how easy and comfortable we make certain transportation modes. In the past the city has made driving very easy but we haven’t done a very good job of building infrastructure that makes walking or biking as easy of a choice. This new corridor will help change that. The City is changing how we prioritize transportation modes and we’re working to create more comfortable spaces and giving more choices for people wanting to walk or bike.”
When asked about concerns with limiting northbound access for drivers of motorized vehicles Bert Storey, Public Works Director stated that based on average daily traffic for northbound motorists the parallel roads of Hilyard, Oak, and Willamette would be able to meet current demand. “Our studies show that not only do we already have the capacity for motorists but that we lack the capacity for other modes” Storey stated. read more…
For 2009/2010 a new designBridge team started working with Roosevelt Middle School to reconstruct their bike parking area which included a cover that didn’t actually keep the bikes dry because it was so high, an unattractive chain link fence, and out of date wheel-bender racks all tucked away at the very back of the school. Working with students, staff, and parent volunteers the designBridge students worked through the Fall of 2009 to come up with a design and during the Winter and Spring they worked on permitting, fundraising, refining the design, more permitting, more fundraising, more revisions of design until finally it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen during the school year. But the persistence of the team and it’s leadership had them working through the summer to continue the process. Many issues were dealt with and it turned out to be a great learning experience for the University of Oregon School of Architecture students. The project coordinator, Sylvan Cambier, along with other team members, worked hard to refine the design and find donations and funding that would complete the project. They received final approval to start building in the Fall and between their other school work, Roosevelt’s class schedule, all the rain, surprise pipes, and final design tweeks they completed the structure in April and received final approval from the City and 4J to start using the structure at the beginning of May. As National Bike Month and Oregon’s Walk + Bike Challenge Month it’s perfect timing! read more…
Is your family ready for a ‘transportation challenge’? Do you know one that might be? 
