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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 2013)
LET TERS take yet another standardized test, then carpooled to Salem to give testimony for HB 2664, Oregon’s testing accountability bill. Diane Ravitch, Reagan’s testing czar, now says high-stakes testing is ruining education. National organizations are forming to oppose the tests. Opponents of testing are winning school board elections. Come hear from a teacher and a student from Seattle’s Garfi eld High School. They captured national attention with their inspirational entire-school boycott of the local standardized test. They will be at Springfi eld High School on Nov. 21 at 6:30 pm. Come join the movement! Roscoe Caron Eugene BUY THE STADIUM I support a resolution that the city of Eugene preserve the stadium. Per Donna Taggart’s Viewpoint column in the Nov. 14 EW, I endorse the Friends of Civic Stadium proposal that the city purchase Civic Stadium. It would be a shame for it VIEWPOINT to go into the hands of developers for more parking lots and box buildings in our city. Barbara Sophia Douglas Eugene WHAT DEFAZIO LEFT OUT Congressman Peter DeFazio’s “A Long-term Solution” Viewpoint [11/14] defending his O&C bill interestingly didn’t talk about long-term solutions such as forest’s role in climate change, habitat for wildlife and clean air and water for future generations. Why not explore getting paid to maintain healthy forests for the carbon they sequester? One acre of healthy forest sequesters 3 to 4 tons of carbon a year. He didn’t mention the thousands of jobs thinning forests, the need to increase the timber harvest tax to similar levels of Washington and California. The timber industry wants to get their hands on our public forests because they have overcut theirs. The only forests left that are halfway healthy are our public- owned forests. There has been a huge increase in clearcuts on private forests here in Lane County and if we allow his bill to go through (the Republicans love his bill; what does that tell you?), the eco-systems will begin to fail quickly. He also makes it sound like all the oldgrowth will be protected; not true. There are hundreds of thousands of acres of forests that have trees a hundred or more years old to be cut in his plan. This is a gift to the timber barons, not future generations, wildlife or unemployed in southwest Oregon. We need to be creative and look for alternatives for revenue for the state and jobs for the unemployed. The forests have been tapped and need time to repair and heal. Pam Driscoll Dexter KIMCHI CONNOISSEUR My daughter and I are kimchi lovers but don’t make it. We try it everywhere. We saw the EW [blurb] for Best Kimchi on Highway 58, and respectfully suggest that the fi eld be opened in order to have fair competition. And we have our own nomination. In our opinion, the most balanced and the most satisfying kimchi can be enjoyed at your Best Hangover Breakfast restaurant, Brails. Today, as we speak, Joy Knudtson is making up the perfect batch — perfectly balanced so it’s not too fi shy, the chili does not overwhelm and aged just right. Almost melts in your mouth. Since I buy in bulk, and she is making it today, I am sharing a quart with your kimchi connoisseur so they can see for themself. Maki Doolittle & Misa Joo Eugene KENNEDY & MORSE Fifty years ago, on Nov. 12, 1963, Sen. Wayne Morse had a private meeting with President Kennedy at the White House. JFK told Morse that he had decided to pull out of Vietnam. On Oct. 11, 1963, Kennedy signed National Security Action Memorandum 263, which called for removing a thousand “advisers” by the end of the year, with the BY JIM WILCOX Ban Bikes on Willamette PESKY RIDERS GET IN THE WAY OF REAL TRAFFIC L ocal media is all abuzz about a pro- posal to reconfi gure Willamette from 24th to 32nd. Writing in the Nov. 3 Register-Guard, Jack Billings clearly identifi ed cyclists as the driver of ef- forts to alter South Willamette — efforts that would remove one car lane and add two bike lanes. Quoting Billings, “The discussion [about Willamette] is only about bicycles. Were it not for the small but organized bike lobby, there would be no debate about reconfi gu- ration.” Billings doesn’t know the half of it. For decades cyclists have steered debates about road design toward a radical pro-bike agenda. In the early 1970s, RINO Republican Don “1 percent” Sta- thos pushed a bill that dedicated highway monies for bike lanes, stealing from diminutive state highway funds. Locally, the growing war chest and sense of en- titlement provided traction for fi rst female mayor Ruth Bascom, who pedaled her green bicycle agenda on an unsuspecting City Council pressured to approve more bike lanes and bike paths. Over time city staff has conspired with bike advo- cates, relentlessly pursuing an aggressive campaign to provide bike access on nearly every road. Justifi ed by so-called community-crafted documents such as the Pedestrian and Bicycle Strategic Plan, Envision Eu- gene and the Regional Transportation Plan, these doc- uments are nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to make roads bike friendly. Not only has the city marginalized motorists, they’re creating bike lane gaps that taunt cyclists. No- where else is this more evident than the six-block sec- tion from Willamette between 23rd and 29th, the half mile of road under debate. The recent addition of bike lanes to 23rd and the earlier installation of bike lanes south of 29th, entice cyclists to “ride the gap” of miss- ing bike lanes. 6 November 21, 2013 • eugeneweekly.com Gap riders must be stopped. With over 16,000 cars per day on Willamette, gap riders will slow speeding motorists and increase the danger of this section that sees twice the accidents of similar roads. And how can any driver pe- ruse storefront windows if they are preoccupied with gap riders? With cyclists riding on side- walks as is common now, and an infl ux of gap riders, it’s time that the City Council take immediate action and prohibit any bicycle rid- ing, any time, on this section of Willamette. A cycling ban on Willamette is not a hardship for cy- clists given convenient access via back streets. South- bound riders can simply turn onto Portland Street, then continue south where they meet two fl ights of stairs that access the Woodfi eld Station parking lot. After some quick vertical biking down 25 steps, parents can pause to collect scattered children and diapers. Safe on the lot, they mount their bikes, swerve behind delivery trucks and journey through a maze of cars. Here, in- advertent collisions provide motorists and cyclists an opportunity to meet, share insurance information, and the location of the hospital receiving their injured. Going north is even simpler. Just before 29th and Willamette, turn right into the Hawthorn apartments, slalom a couple of residents, then take a left, continu- ing north on Oak. Where Oak meets 29th, wait just a few or several minutes to cross this busy street, then dart across three lanes of traffi c. Safely across 29th, zig-zag further on Oak, turning east on 27th. Arriv- ing at Amazon Parkway, exiting motorists provide a refreshing swoosh of fresh air as they speed by. Nearly home free, bikers then take Amazon to 24th, negoti- ate the heavy traffi c, then hop on the bike path. Even those who don’t bike can see cycling on side streets is a separate, but equal option, negating the need for bike lanes on Willamette. No bikes, no bike lanes and no center turn lane is a win-win- win. No bikes mean no bike racks, freeing space for parking one customer where seven bikes parked before. Without bike lanes, buses blocking a full traf- fi c lane give stopped motorists a chance to window shop, smell the diesel and fi nger wave to passersby. And without a center turn lane, mo- torists pressured to make a hurried left, arrive earlier at their destination — sometimes. A decades-long cascade of events has conspired to create a false dilemma regarding Willamette. The choice is not between bikes in four lanes of car traffi c or bikes in separate bike lanes. Instead, it’s whether people on bikes should be allowed on Willamette at all. Clearly people on bikes can, and should, travel somewhere else. Let’s go back to a time 60 years ago, when gas was cheap, obesity was rare and bikes were for children. For safety’s sake, let’s ban bikes on Willamette. And let’s rethink pedestrians on this stretch. After all, hard- ly anyone walks there, and those planned 9-foot side- walks could be two more travel lanes. With so much traffi c, we could pave paradise and put up a parking lot. Jim Wilcox writes occasional satire. He is the director of BikeLane, the mission of which is to promote cycling until it has achieved total domina- tion of all transportation systems.
