CC Minutes - 01/16/02 Work Session

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Mr. Kelly requested a paper copy of Mr. Russ' presentation. He also expressed frustration over the lack of time allocated to the topic, because he did not think the council would be able to provide the direction that staff needed. Mr. Kelly endorsed both goals A and C in the packet, and his interest in the pedestrian and bicycle connections serving the area. He determined from Ms. Laurence that the renderings did not indicate the internal circulation road in the Iow-build option, and noted it would provide better circulation and traffic distribution inside the area than currently existed. He had counted the number of lanes that must be crossed by a bicyclist or pedestrian to reach the river with each option. According to his calculations, the first, or Iow-build, alternative meant there would be no lanes to cross because of the new pedestrian bridge; the second alternative would require a pedestrian or bicyclist to cross nine lanes of traffic, and the third alternative would require passage over eight lanes. He suggested from the standpoint of connectivity, the experience was easiest with the Iow-build option. Mr. Kelly emphasized the need to integrate all design elements. Ms. Nathanson asked Ms. Laurence for information on how frequently pedestrian overpasses were used. It was her observation that people often did not use them and crossed at street-level anyway. She cited the manner in which the overpass at Westmoreland Park was used. Ms. Laurence termed it a "low-level compromise"; one must make the pedestrian bridge accessible and it did not provide good bicycle access and it limited use. She said the approach was much less than ideal. Ms. Nathanson would have liked to have seen a project goal that was related to the improvement of downtown. She was concerned about the potential unanticipated negative consequences of the project on the downtown. If that was included as a goal, Ms. Nathanson questioned the th th relative importance of the options in achieving the goal. For example, the 6 and 7 option only provided one lane going downtown, and it was her hope that people traveling from the east to downtown would be invited to come downtown rather than through or past downtown. She asked if there was something about the street design and the proposed amenities around it that would th attract people to downtown. Ms. Laurence said the 6th and 7 option split local and through traffic. Staff had considered narrowing Broadway to four lanes and installing a t-intersection to ensure the dominant traffic movement went to downtown. She appreciated the goal mentioned by Ms. Nathanson and said staff needed to look how to connect the river to downtown as well as vice versa. Ms. Bettman also questioned how the options affected downtown and how much traffic went downtown. She said the 6th and 7th option would bypass downtown and 6th and 7th avenues were already a barrier that existed right now between downtown and the river and the 5th Street Historic District. She agreed with Mr. Kelly's remarks about crossing the added lanes in options 2 and 3. Ms. Bettman thought the options had some good points, but the City did not have needed buy-off from ODOT on the mitigating elements that would make the option a worthwhile tradeoff. She feared that without the mitigating elements, the result would be a State highway directly along the river and the creation of more pedestrian conflicts, more asphalt, and more of a barrier. Ms. Bettman said if the council was going to evaluate that option further, she wanted to see another option that applied a boulevard treatment with medians to the existing configuration of Franklin, Broadway, and Mill streets, and which included a pedestrian crossing, which she thought would MINUTES--Eugene City Council January 16, 2002 Page 2 Work Session