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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 1, 1999)
Thursday, .April I. 1999 Weather forecast Today Partly Cloudy High 56, Low 34 Friday Mostly Cloudy High 55, Low 36 Wrangling for dollars The Student Senate sets the budgets for the EMU and for the Programs Finance Committee after a long and heated debate/PAGE 3 Hoops hopes The men’s basketball team 1 hopes to keep up the momentum ofthis season's last half/PAGE 9 An independent newspaper Volume 100, Issue 122 University of Oregon www.dailyemenild.com aim. . | . Amanda Cowan/Emerald Although solutions such as speed bumps, stop signs and stop lights have been proposed, the battle between speeders and pedestrians on Alder Street continues. How canyon Speeding on Alder Street is a major problem, and solutions can’t be easily implemented By Felicity Ayles Oregon Daily Emerald Y es, the speed limit on Alder Street is still 25 mph. And resi dents of the street, University JL. officials and the city of Eugene are working together to help those drivers who keep forgetting. Benjamin Cutler, a senior biology major and resident of Alder Street, brought the speeding problem to the city’s attention at a Campus Community Relations Task Force meeting on March 5. Cutler proposed solutions for the problem and is now trying to work with the city and the University Office of Public Safety to make his suggestions a reality. “The most important thing right now is to get the city involved,” he said. At the meeting, Cutler asked that the city consider adding stop signs, speed bumps or even traffic lights to Alder Street to alleviate the speeding problem. But Nathan Duke, Eugene neighbor hood transportation planner, said the so lution is not that easy. He said the city has liability and funding issues to address also. “We can't just go out and do what we want and what the public wants,” Duke said. "We have guidelines that go beyond safety issues.” The addition of any kind of traffic-re duction device is dependent on many things. For instance, the transportation department does not usually place stop signs on heavily traveled streets, Duke said. "We don’t use stop signs to control speed,” he said. Duke said the area has to meet certain criteria developed by state and federal agencies before changes are made. As far as other ideas to slow traffic, Duke said the city has placed a morato rium on speed bumps because of the damage they can do to emergency vehi cles. But he said if speed bumps were a pos sibility, it would only take up a small por tion of the neighborhood transportation program’s $30,000 budget, as they are rela tively inexpensive to construct. That is the positive side, but the nega tive aspects of speed bumps outweigh the positive ones, Duke said. “Speed bumps just cause real problems Turn to SPEEDING, Page 7 Proposed Alder Street changes The changes would include two new lour-way stops, speed bumps and traffic routed around one block of Alder Street between 16th and 17th avenues. Higher-ed funding rally storms Salem Advocates from around Oregon lobbied legislators for increased state funding for universities By David Ryan and Teri Meeuwsen Oregon Daily Emerald SALEM — Oregon Senate Majority leader Brady Adams told a crowd of higher educa tion supporters in Salem on Wednesday he believed in their “powerful story" and pledged to try to give the State Board of Higher Education an additional $100 mil lion dollars. In front of about 300 higher education supporters drawn from colleges across the state, Adams (R-)ackson), House Majority Leader Lynn Snodgrass (R-Portland) and Rep. Barbara Ross (D-Corvallis) all signed a symbolic check representing the $100 million they want to give higher educa tion. “I believe we must build a better univer sity system,” Adams said. He also said he wanted to continue the tuition freeze and provide college instructors with "the salaries they deserve.” “But the bottom line is this doesn’t hap pen unless you have adequate funding,” he said. “That's why you must complete this powerful story with $100 million by the end of this biennium.” Snodgrass said the Oregon budget had $1 billion more in its budget this session than last. “It’s plenty, it’s there, it’s available,” she said. Alice Dale, Oregon Public Employees Union’s executive director, agreed with the Republicans. “We have a lot of money in Oregon; the question is how we are going to spend it,” she said. "If we’re going to invest in Oregon education, we have to invest in higher edu cation.” university senate president Jen mirwit said the way the budget is being presented, higher education funding is being pitted against K-12 funding. Gov. John Kitzhaber recently pledged to give $4.96 billion to the K-12 education sys tem. “The state budget is a pie,” he said. “The larger piece is K-12 by far. It shouldn't be a tug of war. They’re natural allies. The bet ter-educated the high school graduates, the better off we are. We have no interest in un derfunding K-12 but not at the expense of higher ed.” John Marshall, director of legislative services for the Oregon School Board As sociation, said members of K-12 also don’t want to play tug-of-war with higher edu cation. “We’ve never suggested to just funding K-12 and to hell with everything else," he said. “The whole system is extremely im portant.” Sen. Susan Castillo (D-Eugene) said she saw no reason why money for K-12 should be pitted against higher education’s budget when there were budget surpluses. “We just need to sit down and work it out,” she said. Turn to LOBBY DAY, Page 6