Photo by Dennis
Rollin along
Although the combustion engine attracts many followers, Genie
Lynde, left, and Robyn Braverman are devotees of old-fashioned
manual power.
Heard of the Erie locks?
Wait for the Eugene Canal
By E G. WHITE-SWIFT
Of the Emerald
Don't look for an urban channel
on your cable television. It is not
next to Channel 9. Instead, it
loops throughout the
metropolitan area.
Eugene has several urban water
channels that some local
canoeing enthusiasts consider
ripe for development. If they had
their way, the Amazon Slough
would become a major commuter
route for paddle-toting
businessmen.
On the clear, crisp fall days,
University students would have
the opportunity to rent canoes
down on the Mill Race (next to
Murphy's and Me tavern), and
spend a lazy afternoon paddling
out to Fern Ridge Reservoir to
watch migrating snipes.
is all of this really possible? In
some cities, no. In Lane County,
where Ecotopia is the password
and livibility is the first word in
the lexicon, canoeing as an
alternative form of transportation
could blossom.
Urban run-off channels and
irrigation canals that link parts of
Eugene could be modified
through a series of coffer dams,
pumping stations and water
diversion projects.
The cost would be rather high,
and it would require an
enlightened civic movement to
THE “ANIMALS” ARE TAKING
OVER 11TH AVENUE!
... so LTD announces its Bus Detour Schedule.
11th Ave. will be closed to trucks and buses
between Alder and Hilyard, due to filming
of the movie, “Animal House.” Mon. -
Thurs., Oct. 24 - 27. Mon. - Thurs., Oct. 31 -
Nov.3. Service returns to normal on Fri.,
Sat. and Sun.
The following routes will be affected:
10 - Hayden Bridge via U of O
20 - Thurston via U of O
5A - Vida/Blue River
5B - Vida/McKenzie Bridge
6 - Springfield/Jasper/Lowell
11 - LCC via Harris - Harlow Rd.
12 - U of O
How detours will work:
Detour on INBOUND portions of Routes
10, 20, 5A, 5B, and 6:
Franklin, left on Patterson, right on 11th,
resume regular route. No interruption of
OUTBOUND service. Routes will
operate as usual but will not stop on 11th
between Kincaid and Alder. A temporary
bus stop for U of O riders coming from
Springfield will be located at Franklin
and Onyx.
Detour on INBOUND portion of Route 11:
Hilyard, left on 11th, resume regular
route. No interruption of OUTBOUND
service on this route.
Detour on INBOUND and OUTBOUND
portion of Route 12:
13th, left on Hilyard, left on 11th, resume
regular route.
® LANG TRANSTT DISTRICT
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONCERNING TEMPORARY BUS STOPS DURING THE DETOURS,
CALL LTD SCHEDULE INFORMATION AT: 687-5555
implement a series of canoeways
throughout Eugene.
Canoeists compare the initial
resistance to bikes as a tran
sportation alternative when they
conjure up the potential of
canoes or kayaks.
The Amazon Slough has a good
potential for canoeway
development.
Amazon Slough begins
somewhere in the bowels of
south Eugene, winding along
through Amazon Park, skirting
the southern fringe of the
downtown area (only several
blocks from the Mill Race, at one
point) before drifting lazily
through west Eugene and finally
emptying into Fern Ridge
Reservoir.
During the rainy season, the
Amazon has enough water flow to
allow canoeists to ply their
paddles from about Amazon Park
all the way to Fern Ridge.
However, the water quality is not
anything to savor.
If Lane County’s water quality
improvement program for urban
run-off channels is successful
over the next few years, the
Amazon could become a
canoeway and also Eugene's
longest swimming pool.
However, if canoeing as a
commuter solution is ever to
succeed, the water level and
quality of the Amazon will have to
be maintained at high levels. And
therein is the hitch — where do
you find the water?
There are several possibilities.
Water from the middle-fork of the
Willamette River could be
diverted by pipe and pumped up
to Spencer’s Butte where gravity
would take over and a constant
supply of water would flush the
Amazon.
Or, a large number of wells
could be drilled in South Eugene
and used exclusively for
replenishing the Amazon Canoe
Expressway.
Or rainwater could be trapped
and stored on Spencer’s Butte for
summer use in the Amazon.
Another part of Eugene’s
reclusive canoeing freeway
system is the Q Street channel in
Springfield.
“Everybody and their brother
ignores or forgets that part of the
Q Street mill race is already
suitable for canoeing,” says local
storm water buff Gerritt
Rosenthal. "There are existing
links from it to the Alton Baker
Park canoeway.”
What the Q Street canal needs
is a little more water over the
dam. For that matter, it needs a
dam somewhere upstream on the
Willamette or McKenzie rivers to
divert water. Again, the costs are
the iargest factor in any
development.
Keeping all this fantasy
together is the fact that no one
ever believed they could build the
Erie Canal, or the Panama Canal,
or for that matter, the Brooklyn
Bridge.
Bring on the engineers and the
dollars and canoeing in Eugene
will never be the same.
Organized hitchhiking
gets thumbs-down attitude
No money, no wheels and you’re stuck.
The plight isn’t a stranger to many students, but some find a way
out of it by thumbing.
Thumbing, alias hitchhiking, is legal in Oregon so long as the
hitchhiker positions himself on the road’s shoulder as far from the
roadway edge as possible and faces oncoming vehicles, according to
the Oregon Re/lsed Statutes.
With thumbing a popular mode of commuting to and from campus
among college students, the Survival Center and the urban plainlno
department attempted to initiate an organized hitchhiking system called
RideStop for the Eugene-Springfield area in 1973.
RideStop involved 24 posted arses where hitchhikers could stand
and wait for rides. The spots were similar to bus stops and were
spread throughout the Eugene-Springfield area.
Few hitchhikers took advantage of the system, however, and one by
one, the RideStop signs disappeared so that by 1974, RideStop was
only a memory.
Looking back on the potentials of RideStop, former University
student Francesca Moravcsik decided to analyze the failed program for
her master's thesis in 1974.
Moravcsik polled a few drivers and came up with some Interesting
statistics on drivers’ attitudes toward hitchhikers.
Of the 15 drivers she interviewed, 44 per cent told her they would
pick up only those hitchhikers they knew personally; 33 per cent
would pick up a hitchhiker in an emergency; 15 per cent would stop for
a hitchhiker if the traffic allowed a safe stop without threat of accident,
and seven per cent would give a lift if they knew the hitchhiker's
destination.
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977 i. 13th Mit to 00 Bookstore “upstairs" 345-5594