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.