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