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Work on Blanton Ridge Improves Trail, Enhances Habitat, and Reduces Fire Risk <br />Eugene Parks and Open Space Division’s Natural Resources staff is implementing projects this summer on Blanton <br />Ridge to improve the Ridgeline Trail, reduce fire risk, and improve oak and pine habitat. <br /> <br />Staff began the work with several weeks of blackberry and <br />exotic tree removal on Blanton Ridge near Pinewood Drive. <br />This work reduced fire risk to neighbors along Pinewood <br />Drive, which is one of the few areas in Eugene’s Ridgeline <br />where houses are uphill from Ridgeline Park. An added <br />benefit of the fuels reduction effort is that it creates space <br />around oaks and pines, helping to improve growing <br />conditions for these ecologically important remnant trees and <br />the other plants and animals associated with their habitat. <br />Natural Resource staff will be following up this fall with <br />reseeding of native wildflowers and grasses along with <br />additional weed control work. <br /> <br />s <br />Blackberries in thiarea were cleared to reduce fire risk to <br />Beginning in mid-July, a trail contractor will begin the first of <br />nearby homes and create space around oaks and pines. <br />several planned projects to improve the 1.8-mile-long <br />Blanton Ridge segment of the Ridgeline Trail. The trail follows the ridge between Willamette Street and Blanton Road <br />while passing through fir forest and oak woodlands. Wintertime views of the city to the north and east offer a unique <br />perspective of Eugene. Since the trail’s construction in 1985, several segments of the trail have become so narrow <br />that segments are increasingly dangerous to users, and trail maintenance equipment cannot access the trail. The <br />trail contractor will install heavy timber retaining walls at narrow segments on the trail to widen the trail and will then <br />resurface a quarter-mile stretch of trail with gravel. The trail may be closed between Pinewood Drive and Solar <br />Heights Drive for up to three weeks starting in mid-July. Signs will be posted at the trailheads and at the closure <br />points. Staff will seek to perform additional repairs to the trail in subsequent years as funding allows. <br /> <br />For more information, contact Natural Resource Specialist Jesse Cary-Hobbs at 541-682-4843. <br /> <br /> <br />Travel Writer Carl “Lunatic Express” Hoffman at Eugene Public Library <br />The downtown Eugene Public Library will host a free talk by award-winning travel writer, Carl Hoffman, the author of <br />“The Lunatic Express: Discovering the World Via Its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains, and Planes,” on <br />Thursday, July 21, at 6 p.m. His visit is part of the Public Library’s Summer Reading 2011, a series of events for all <br />ages united by the theme, “One World, Many Stories.” <br /> <br />After years as a successful travel journalist, Hoffman found his attention drawn to <br />those brief news items with striking headlines like “Indonesian Ferry Sinks,” <br />“Peruvian Bus Plunges off Cliff,” and “African Train Attacked by Mobs.” Though <br />offering little detail, they clearly reflected the difference between the travel-for- <br />pleasure Hoffman wrote about and the travel experiences of the vast majority of the <br />world’s people, who must get where they’re going by any means possible. <br /> <br />Inspired to learn more, Hoffman designed a six-month journey including a perilous <br />flight from Havana to Bogotá, overcrowded ferries in Indonesia and Bangladesh, <br />commuter trains in Mumbai, a bus ride through war-torn Afghanistan, and the <br />Greyhound bus from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. In his book and talk, he <br />recounts these stories and shares how the trip changed his perspective. <br /> <br />The Wall Street Journal named “Lunatic Express” one of the 10 best books of 2010, calling it “funny, warm, and filled <br />with astonishing characters.” The New York Times Book Review included it on a list of recommended travel reading <br />for this summer. <br /> <br />A four-time winner of the Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers, Hoffman has traveled to <br />65 countries. He is a contributing editor at National Geographic Traveler, Wired, and Popular Mechanics. At his <br />Eugene talk, books will be available for purchase and signing courtesy of the UO Duck Store. For more information, <br />contact the Eugene Public Library at 541-682-5450 or www.eugene-or.gov/library. <br /> <br />Eugene Public Library Wins $17,000 “Big Read” Grant <br />The Eugene Public Library has received a grant of $17,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts to host The Big <br />Read in March 2012. <br /> <br />EUGENE CITY COUNCIL NEWSLETTER PAGE 3 <br />July 14, 2011 <br />