It’s fall bike education time for our local middle schoolers.

We are entering Year 2 of our Safe Routes to School Grant! The schools involved in this grant are Irving, Malabon, Meadow View and Prairie Mountain. In year one we purchased two portable speed monitors, celebrated Walk and Bike to School Day and Walk and Bike Month and encouraged kids to use “body power” to get to school! We also provided pedestrian safety education for second graders and bicycle safety education for fifth graders!
We are continuing with more of the same this year and kicked it off with International Walk and Bike to School Day this past Wednesday!

Eugene Safe Routes to School and 20 participating local schools will be joining thousands of schools from around the world to celebrate International Walk and Bike to School Day on October 5, 2011.

Thousands of students from area schools will be walking to school on Wednesday, along with parents, teachers and community leaders. Schools throughout the community will hold events with kids, parents and community leaders walking, biking, skating, and scooting their way to school under their own power.  Events ranging from juggling, unicycling, bike blended smoothies, raffles, poster contests and more will add to the event. Some highlights in our community include:

• Arts and Technology Academy and Family School students and parents will meet a “special mystery guest” near the Blue Heron bike bridge on the Fern Ridge Path at 8:00 am and walk across the pedestrian bridge on 18^th, through Westmoreland park, and onto school.
• Cal Young Middle School will be hosting a day long celebration with bike repair, bike blended smoothies and special treats
• Roosevelt Middle School will have a month long competition in the school kicking off with special give aways, bike blended smoothies, and more.
• Adams Elementary students have a big celebration to kick off a whole year of walk and bike encouragement programs!

In the U.S., International Walk to School Day is expected to include 5,000 schools from all 50 states. Walkers from the U.S. will join children and adults in 40 countries around the world.

Walk and Bike to School events work to create safer routes for walking and bicycling and emphasize the importance of issues such as increasing physical activity among children, pedestrian safety, traffic congestion, concern for the environment and building connections between families, schools and the broader community.

The event is being organized by Eugene SRTS, a project of Eugene School District 4J, the City of Eugene, point2point SchoolSolutions, and Lane Coalition for Healthy and Active Youth (LCHAY).

For additional local information, please contact Shane MacRhodes at (541) 556-3553 or rhodes_sh@4j.lane.edu

For additional information, please visit these Web sites:

Oregon Walk + Bike to School www.walknbike.org

International Walk to School in the USA www.walktoschool.org

National Center for Safe Routes to School www.saferoutesinfo.org

Please volunteer to join an easy family-friendly bike ride on Saturday, Oct 8th from 2:30-5 to celebrate the launch of the Covered Bridges Bikeway in Cottage Grove.

The event is organized, but we still need some more people to help with the ride along Row River Trail.  Hopefully that help is you!

The coordinator, Heidi, is looking for people willing to ride at a casual pace with the group that likely includes kids.  It’s 3 miles along Row River Trail to Mosby Creek Trailhead from downtown Cottage Grove, and 3 miles back the same way.  Out at the Trailhead will be sweet treats and giveaways to celebrate the launch of the Bikeway (which you are more than welcome to partake in) and remarks by Alex Phillips, State Scenic Bikeway Coordinator.

Everyone is welcome to attend, and I encourage you to.  It’s a beautiful Rail-Trail in a gorgeous setting.

Please let Heidi know if you can volunteer-  heidi.beierle@gmail.com

Everything begins at 2:30 at Trailhead Park in downtown Cottage Grove (30 min drive from Eugene) at 10th & Main.

Covered Bridges Scenic Bikeway Launch Event- Sat. Oct. 8th

NEW streets
NEW sidewalks
NEW cycle track
NEW transit station

Smoother for motorists and buses, safer for bicyclists and pedestrians, better for business, and more comfortable for family cyclists!

Tuesday, September 27
1 – 1:30 p.m
13th Avenue and Kincaid Street
in front of Taylor’s Restaurant

Special Guests:
Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy
Eugene Councilor Alan Zelenka
Oregon Department of Transportation Director Matthew Garrett
Oregon Transportation Commissioner Mary Olson
Oregon Representative Terry Beyer
Oregon Representative Nancy Nathanson

Parking is limited in the area. Take EmX to the Dads’ Gates Station, east of Kincaid Street on E. 11th Avenue, and walk south along Kincaid Street. Or just ride in on the new cycle track!

For more information, contact Lisa VanWinkle at LTD, 541-682-6212, or Eric Jones at Eugene Public Works, 541-954-2938.

Update: There will be an open house for the plan on Monday, September 26 from 5 to 7 PM in the Bascom/Tykeson Rooms at the Eugene Public Library.

The draft Eugene Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan is now available for public review. City staff is seeking input on this draft plan through October 14. The plan can be found at www.eugenepedbikeplan.org where there is also a link to a survey for people to provide input on the plan.

This is an essential time for families to look over this plan and make sure that your neighborhood is safe for walking and biking! Review it and make sure what is broken now is down to be fixed so that other families will feel comfortable walking and biking to school more often!

The Eugene Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan provides the City of Eugene with the projects and policies necessary to create a first-class city for bicycling and walking, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, and provide for a well-designed, integrated, safe, and efficient multi-modal transportation system. The Master Plan will serve as the Pedestrian and Bicycle element of the city’s Transportation System Plan.

The primary elements of the plan are as follows:

* A proposed set of pedestrian and bicycle policies that are recommended for adoption as part of the TSP update;

* The list of proposed capital projects and feasibility studies that will replace the pedestrian and bicycle projects in the current TransPlan;

* A list of intersections that have been identified for further analysis to identify safety issues and potential improvements; and

* Recommended code revisions.

Staff will present the plan to the City Council on Wednesday, October 12.

Please contact Transportation Planning Manager Rob Inerfeld at 682-5343 or rob.inerfeld@ci.eugene.or.us with any questions.

A couple weeks ago I attended the 3rd Annual Safe Routes to School National Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I got to present our program as well as Kidical Mass but the best part was definitely the inspiration and energy gained from what is happening around the country with Safe Routes to School. The mood was a bit different from the conference that happened two years ago in Portland. At that time the Federal Transportation Bill was still “just around the corner” for renewal and there was a lot of excitement for the potential for SRTS. The question asked then was “how much for Safe Routes”? Will it be at the same amount or ten times the original program?  At this years conference, as we STILL wait for a new transportation bill, the question was more like “what about Safe Routes, will we even be in the next transportation bill”?

At the same time there was a whole new energy to the conference as a wide array of people working on Safe Routes projects around the country were sharing their success stories. There were health care providers, business people, teachers, transportation engineers, DOT leaders, political leaders, community leaders, parents and youth all engaged and excited to be getting more kids walking and biking to school.  There was a lot of networking and sharing that went on and after gathering my thoughts here are my top ten takeaways from the conference:

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