Item 1: Resolution 4919 - Street Widths in the Crest Drive Area

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expand the scope of the CSS process to include Middle Crest. A Council work session was held on September 19, 2007 and continued to October 8, 2007 to provide information on the City’s Design Standards and Guidelines for Eugene Streets, Sidewalks, Bikeways and Accessways to aid the Council in deciding whether the design standard pertaining to minimum travel lane width should be reduced from ten feet to nine feet in the Crest Drive Area. The Council directed the City Manager to hold a public hearing on October 15, 2007 on a resolution to amend the Design Standards and Guidelines for Eugene Streets, Sidewalks, Bikeways and Accessways to establish a design standard minimum travel lane width of nine feet for the Crest Drive Area. Context Sensitive Solutions Process History After several months of work the members of the Crest Drive Community Team (CDCT) approved their group operating agreements for the CSS process for the Crest Drive neighborhood. There are 21 members of the CDCT including two City staff, Lisa Gardner, Planning Director and Mark Schoening, City Engineer. The CDCT developed group agreements addressing decision-making, meetings, communication and support. Each member of the CDCT signed the group agreements. The CDCT also developed a mission statement that reads: To recommend a street design for the identified sections of Crest Drive, Storey Boulevard, and Friendly Street using the context sensitive solutions process while taking into consideration the entire neighborhood context. To support the design efforts of the CDCT the City conducted a topographic survey of all of the streets under consideration, including all of the trees within the public right of way. The City’s survey crew surveyed 15,846 data points including the existing edge of pavement, property corners, public and private utilities, structures, and trees. All of this survey information was used to generate a set of maps to aid in the street design process. The design process involved City staff working with five separate street teams on five separate street segments – Upper Crest, Middle Crest, Lower Crest, Storey and Friendly. Each street team presented its conceptual design to the entire CDCT. As part of the design process each street team evaluated its design using the Themes and Values developed and approved by the CDCT. Over the course of two CDCT meetings on June 28 and July 12, the CDCT reached consensus on the conceptual design for all five street segments. However, the CDCT did not reach agreement on the overall design concept because of an outstanding issue regarding the minimum street width. Through a consensus based decision process, the CDCT has determined that there are compelling reasons to support a minimum street width of 18 feet (two nine-foot travel lanes). Reasons supporting the recommendation include the CDCT’s themes and values regarding preserved neighborhood livability, reduction of traffic speeds, efficient use of urban land in a rural setting, increased safety for all modes of use and focus on a footprint that fits the neighborhood’s character. As such, an 18-foot street width is perceived to be more consistent with the CDCT’s adopted themes and values than a 20-foot street width. Based on these collaboratively developed values, it is the consensus recommendation of the CDCT to pursue a legislative change to the minimum street width (18 feet rather than the prescribed minimum of 20 feet) prior to making a decision on the overall design concept.