CC Minutes - 04/14/08 City Council Meeting

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Charles Biggs , 540 Antelope Way, said he was a long-time bicycle advocate and had also been involved in neighborhood associations. He expressed pride in the CDCT, noting that the plan had been a long time in coming and that the Crest Drive area residents had worked hard with the City and with neighbors. It concerned him that the bicycle community was coming in “at this late hour” and advocating for something that was not in the plan. Sherie Hawley , 3484 Storey Boulevard, supported the CDCT design. She asked the council to approve the design and the four-foot sidewalks. She noted that the Crest Drive neighbors had been working on the challenge of redesigning winding, steep streets in that area. She stated that the results of the community- based process were a redesign that worked for everyone. She stressed that all involved had made compro- mises; compromise had been “key.” She pointed out that everyone on Storey Boulevard and middle Crest Drive were losing all of their on-street parking. She said the neighbors were not incited to become involved because the street was unsafe, but because the City had wanted to redo the street which was full of potholes. She could not recall any bicyclist or pedestrian injuries in all of the years she had resided there. She said they had a committee called the Crest Drive Advisory Committee and they were still fine-tuning designs. Len Bailey , 2932 Friendly Street, supported the CDCT design recommendation. He pointed out that any changes to the proposed streets for the Crest neighborhood could have serious repercussions and unintended consequences. He said at present the streets were 18 feet wide with no sidewalks, no bicycle lanes, no on- street parking, and no bioswales and there had been no accidents. He pointed out that an addition of a bicycle lane would eliminate bioswales, which he considered a key element to sustainability. He understood th that easy bicycle access existed to Lorane Highway from 29 Avenue and from Madison and Chamber Streets. He thought it would be absurd to create bicycle lanes on Storey Boulevard, Friendly Street, and Crest Drive if Lorane Highway was the main destination for bicyclists. He noted that Lorane Highway had no bicycle lanes, and little or no shoulder, and “nobody seemed to mind.” He averred that the sidewalks had been carefully thought out to address the needs of the neighborhood. Kathy Saranpa , 3015 Friendly Street, said she had served as a member of the CDCT and was also a member of the Crest Drive Citizens Association (CDCA). She averred that the design process had not been perfect, but she did not believe any democracy anywhere could be characterized as perfect. She felt the council had the opportunity to prove that democracy worked. She wished to underscore that the CDCT was not anti-bicycle, anti-child, anti-safety, or anti-sustainability. Nonetheless, they disputed the usefulness of a five-foot wide strip of pavement that would benefit a handful of “elite, recreational bicyclists.” She alleged that the bicycle representative had not opposed the design without bicycle lanes during the process. She said there were alternate bikeways plotted in City documents and one of the team members was researching them. She felt it would be a more productive use of a concerned bicyclist’s energy to work with that team member on identifying them and getting them built rather than “agitating” against the CDCT at this point in time. She stressed that the neighborhood association supported the proposed design. Barbara Donovan , 885 Crest Drive, said letters against the Crest area street design contained misinforma- tion. She suspected that signers of the petition were not given the whole story. She related that it was only during the last meeting that a negative vote had been cast by the bicycle representative. She read a portion of the Eugene City Street Classification document which indicated that bicycle lanes on local streets were almost never used. She reiterated that the whole design process had begun because area residents had not wanted the roads to be classified as collectors. She related that area neighbors still opposed the change in classification. She felt that the “windy, steep streets at the top of a watershed” were the perfect place for Eugene to “join in on a movement toward the shared livable green streets” that had been studied. She MINUTES—Eugene City Council April 14, 2008 Page 6 Regular Meeting