NO BIKE LANES FOR
HAZARDOUS WILLAMETTE
A draft “Concept Plan for South Willamette” by city
planning staff has left out one of the top safety priorities
for the city’s bike plan — bike lanes on Willamette
Street.
Willamette ranked as the third most dangerous street
in Eugene for cyclists in a recent city study. Bike lanes
on the street were the top priority among more than 600
comments for the city’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Master
Plan, and the lanes were included in a draft plan accepted
by the Eugene City Council.
But the city’s planning department appears
disconnected from the city’s transportation planning and
has not included the bike lanes.
“I was absolutely amazed,” said bike shop owner Paul
Moore of the lack of bike lanes. “That’s what everybody
has been after for a long, long time.”
Moore runs Arriving by Bike, a shop on south
Willamette emphasizing bike commuting. Instead of bike
lanes serving the many destination businesses on
Willamette, the plan designates a winding bike route on
side streets one or two blocks away. “What they’re
showing on there already exists,” Moore said. “It adds
absolutely nothing for bicyclists.”
“It’s as if whoever put that in there is not clued into
the fact that bicycles actually are transportation,” Moore
said of the plan’s car emphasis.
Patricia Thomas, the city planner in charge of the
Willamette Plan, was evasive about why the planned bike
lanes were excluded from the city’s plan for south
Willamette. She would not say whether she had read the
bicycle/pedestrian plan or its many comments calling for
the bike lanes. “There are many ideas that come out of
the community,” Thomas said.
Moore said that at a meeting presenting city plans for
the area, the city called for increasing car traffic on a side
street connecting Willamette to Amazon Parkway.
happening people
“People were like, what, are you crazy?” he said.
“They’re thinking differently by a long shot from what
I’m thinking and what I’m hearing the community
thinking in the meetings.”
Bike, pedestrian and livability advocates for decades
have called for reducing Willamette to two travel lanes
and a center turn lane to allow space for sidewalks and
bike lanes while maintaining traffic flow. But a “design
workshop” in October was apparently dominated by
business interests who opposed bike lanes on Willamette
or the three-lane solution, according to a city “summary”
of the event.
In an online city slideshow, Thomas said the plan
features “vehicular oriented commercial areas” in a “all-
business area” near 29th and Willamette. Farther north is
the “walkable heart of the district,” she said.
The vague plan apparently includes some eventual
widening of existing narrow sidewalks in the “walkable”
area. But it’s unclear when even that would happen. “We
are talking about a long-range plan that might get
implemented over decades —10, 20, 30 years or even
more than that,” Thomas said in the online presentation.
The city plan would allow a huge increase in
development in the area. The plan has tall apartment
buildings next to existing single family homes. The plan
lines Willamette and 29th with apartments and calls for
conversion of adjacent single family neighborhoods into
higher densities.
The city plan calls for converting the old Willard
School site at 29th and Lincoln into tall apartments and
row houses. The city leaves about a third of the large site
for a park.
South Willamette “seems to be on the verge of an
exciting resurgence,” Thomas said online.
But the city’s plan could set up the area for choking
car traffic if the massive development the city envisions
is not served by attractive sidewalks and bike lanes that
will encourage alternative transportation.
The city plans to finalize its plan for the area in March
and conduct a traffic study this spring. “If the community
prefers,” Thomas said, it’s possible she may include the
Willamette bike lanes in the final plan. “This plan is not
final; it is out there for comment,” she said.
View the plan online at eugene-or.gov/Swillamette and
comment by email to patricia.thomas@ci.eugene.or.us
— Alan Pittman
BY PAUL NEEVEL
GARY CORNELIUS
A graduate of Clackamas High School, Gary Cornelius
edited the college paper at Clackamas Community College
and wrote for The Oregonian and the Enterprise Courier
before he ran off to Alaska, where he drove a cab on the
night shift in Anchorage. “My passengers were hookers,
airline pilots, drunks, little old ladies and dancers,” he says.
“I loved Alaska.” He also became a father, and after he and
his daughter’s mother broke up, he moved back to Oregon
as a single dad, looking for work. “I started as a receptionist
at Clackamas County Mental Health,” says Cornelius, who
soon moved on to a clinical position. “I worked with
patients on practical matters.” He worked in mental health
for four years in Clackamas County and three years in
Klamath County before moving to Eugene, where he
worked 14 years in mental health, then eight years in
developmental disability services. He retired in 2010 at age
55. “It’s the youngest I could retire with a pension,” he
explains. “I wanted to get into the Peace Corps.” Later this
month, he will fly to Philadelphia, then to South Africa, for
a two-year Peace Corps assignment as an HIV outreach
worker. Cornelius has maintained writing skills by way of
frequent op-eds in EW, the R-G, and The Oregonian. Last
March, he published a novel, Crashing Through the
Underbrush, concerning the struggles of a county mental
health worker in Oregon. Learn about the book and follow
the author’s African adventures on his website,
garycornelius.com. His dog Carly will stay behind with his
daughter Megan and her three kids in Cottage Grove.
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
biz beat
Holiday Market vendors we talked to
reported the best sales they’ve seen in recent
years, and that was confirmed by Kim Still,
manager of market promotions at Holiday
Market and Saturday Market. Still tells us the
reasons for the bump is sales are many, but the
general consensus in that the economy is
looking better and more people are now aware of
how important it is to support the local economy.
Belly Restaurant in Eugene plans to open a
second, larger restaurant downtown in April at a
location to be announced. Belly’s original
restaurant is 291 E. 5th Ave..
Mountain Rose Herbs was honored with
three environmental awards in 2011 for
sustainability efforts. Mountain Rose was named
Wholesaler of the Year by the Oregon Organic
Coalition, and won the Eugene Area Chamber of
Commerce Emerald Award for environmental
values. BRING Recycling also gave Mountain
Rose the RE:think Award for waste reduction and
conservation of natural resources, according to
Jackie Logan of Mountain Rose.
Business Oregon has begun accepting
applications for awarding $16.5 million in federal
small business assistance. The funding from the
U.S. Treasury’s State Small Business Credit
Initiative is expected to generate lending up to
10 times the amount received, or an estimated
$165 million over the next four years through
existing Business Oregon financing programs.
Small businesses interested in applying for funds
can get more information at Business Oregon’s
website, http://wkly.ws/15c
Oregon’s minimum wage increased from
$8.50 to $8.80 an hour starting on Jan. 1 and
will mean an extra $624 a year for a family with
one full-time minimum wage worker. The raise
effects more than 100,000 Oregon workers.
Send suggestions for Biz Beat items to editor@eugeneweekly.com
with “Biz Beat” in the subject line.
ACTIVIST ALERT
• Parvin Butte gravel mine owners (see story
last week) have appealed the fines the county has
assessed for their illegal mining and a hearing is
scheduled for 2 pm Thursday, Jan. 5, in Harris Hall,
125 E. 8th Ave.
• Comedian Tom Wilson will perform and emcee
at the free Opal Hour gathering of mental health
activists at 5 pm Thursday, Jan. 5, at the LILA Peer
Support Club, 990 Oak St. in Eugene. Call 345-9106
for more info.
• Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy will give the annual
State of the City Address at 5:30 pm Thursday,
Jan. 5, in the lobby of the Hult Center downtown.
Council Vice President George Brown will be emcee
for the event.
• Cheese Wars III is a Greenhill Humane Society
benefit for homeless pets featuring sit-down tasting
of gourmet cheeses, beers and wines, with two-
hour sessions at 5:30 and 8 pm Thursday, Jan. 5, at
16 Tons Union Café, at 2864 Willamette St. Tickets
are $25 and participants must be 21 or older. See
http://wkly.ws/15l or stop by 16 Tons for tickets.
• “Occupying the Heart and Mind,” a silent
meditation/ prayer circle, will gather again at 11:45
am Friday, Jan. 5 at Occupy V headquarters, 7th
and Polk. Meditation will be from noon to 1 pm.
• Lane County Board Chair Faye Stewart will
deliver the State of the County Address at 6 pm
Tuesday, Jan. 10, at the County Fairgrounds Gleason
Atrium.
• Springfield Mayor Christine Lundberg will give
the annual State of the City Address at 5:30 pm
Wednesday, Jan. 11, at the Wildish Theater, 630
Main St. in Springfield.
EUGENE WEEKLY JANUARY 5, 2012 7