March 28, 2024

Whole Community News

From Kalapuya lands in the Willamette watershed

With ped-bike projects on the way, ATC looks to help change our mobility habits

7 min read
Outgoing advisor Steve Abbott advocated for, and the ATC adopted, a work plan dashboard.

Outgoing advisor Steve Abbott advocated for, and the ATC adopted, a work plan dashboard.

The Active Transportation Committee prepares for 2022. With four new members coming in January, they re-visited their mission, work plan, and bylaws. New leaders and new staff roles look to triple our travel by foot, bike, e-bike, and other small-e options.

[00:00:17] Susan Wolling: I think we really need to keep focused like a laser on the whole point of this is to get more people walking and riding bikes and using micromobility, you know? So it certainly seems like there should be an overriding, that is the goal, and that should be guiding what we choose for the things we focus on.

[00:00:37] Shane Rhodes (City of Eugene): I think the really important piece of this is that action items are tied to these goals. And I think really delve into what those action items are going to be for the year because these are pretty broad goals, like ‘assisting in the development and implementation of walking and biking projects and programs contained in our TSP and our Ped-Bike strategic plan.’ That’s really big. There’s a lot of projects and programs within that. But that is a general sort of container. And the question is what fits in there, those action items. And so if you can, in your meetings, really drill down into what those action items are.

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[00:01:21] Grace Kaplowitz (outgoing committee co-chair): We do have a long list of potential future topics that’s on the end of every one of our agendas. So maybe looking to that for inspiration, as well as some of the previous projects we’ve talked about and having a little bit of a timeline to go along with some of these goals and action items, I think could be super helpful.

[00:01:38] John Q: To track their goals and action items, one outgoing advisor recommended the “Work Plan.” He saw how effective it was in Springfield at their Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee. Steve Abbott.

[00:01:49] Steve Abbott: Yeah, I would just mention that my observation of BPAC is that they really successfully have been using this tool as a way of focusing on what are the projects, who’s responsible, and what are the end dates. Anybody who’s ever been involved in project management you’ll know that’s the critical thing: Whatever you measure gets done, what you don’t measure and doesn’t have an accountability or an end date doesn’t get done.

[00:02:13] And I think we’ve suffered some from that in the last couple of years as a committee, that’s been my observation. So I would say, don’t get too caught up in the weeds of a lot of detail here, but really look at it as a tool at 30,000 feet to say: What are the goals, what projects are we taking on to support those goals, who is taking individual leadership, accountability, and one of the things, what are the tasks, and what are they going to get done? It’s an amazing, enabling tool if you use it that way.

[00:02:41] Bryce Mayall (Springfield BPAC): I really like having the work plan. It gives us I see is an outline essentially, and it’s good to know where different people are and what we’re working on. And it’s a really good reference to be able to pull. It’s it’s both like a, kind of a glance, a snapshot, of where we are and also where we want to go at the same time. It’s been pretty helpful. I think it’s quite useful and I do see the value in using it as a template for you guys.

[00:03:08] John Q: One outgoing advisor pointed out, a joint city and LTD project could lead to many bike and ped improvements. New LTD board member Pete Knox.

[00:03:17] Pete Knox: The City and LTD are going to be making some decisions on what’s called MovingAhead with regards to five major corridors in Eugene, between either not building, doing an enhanced corridor, which would have a huge amount of impact in active transportation, by the way, and then putting in a full EmX line.

[00:03:40] If the latter two options are taken, there’s going to be a huge amount of improvements and work around their biking and walking. Those corridors are Highway 99, River Road, Coburg Road, Martin Luther King, which does not have an EmX option, and 30th Avenue, from downtown through Amazon Parkway out to 30th.

[00:04:01] They’re going to have a joint meeting between the LTD board and the City Council, moving forward with MovingAhead, if you will, and, we’ve already had some movement in LTD. I’ll be participating in the Oversight Committee, which will be very important how that all unfolds.

[00:04:22] Shane Rhodes (Eugene Transportation Planning): The bridge that we’ve been discussing over Beltline, and looking to connect that to North Eugene High School, that report is looking promising. It’s a big project, high dollar amount, in our current estimates. But with this new federal funding and some work that we’re doing with ODOT, we’re hopeful that we can scrounge up some funding for it and keep it rolling. We’re now calling that the Ruby Bridge because it connects to Ruby Ave and there’s a great connection with Ruby Bridges in that name as well, that I love.

[00:04:50] I’m very interested in working with some ATC members on, in the next year, as we look at creating some bike rack program / bike parking program, where we not only analyze existing conditions and build off of the previous bike parking assessment that was done, but look to actually create a program where people can request racks and we can actually do installs and those kinds of things. But figuring out what the specific projects there are that ATC members might be interested in that fit in with the goals and help to make that happen. I’d love to have on the work plan, something around having some ATC members involved in the planning of this.

[00:05:29] John Q: Springfield and Eugene advisors are looking at bike parking.

[00:05:33] Bryce Mayall: There’s an app, I believe it’s just called ‘Bike Parking,’ written by a guy named Nathaniel. You might want to look at that. It has it’s a map of the area and it shows all these parking by racks of different types all over the place. There’s also he just, I contacted him a while back and he may be able to provide data on places that people want to have bike racks. Now it looks like he’s added that functionality for people to say, ‘Hey, I would like to have a bike rack here’ and it shows up on the map. You might want to check out the app, it’s pretty useful.

[00:06:05] Mary Christensen: We are exploring the possibility of working on a project around bike parking, because as those of us who bike around can really see that some places have no place to park and other places are really exemplary. And so we are exploring maybe taking on seeing if we can support, promote, educate, inform so that we can grow the bike parking. Shane told us that Dan Brown and Mark Schlossberg are also working on some bike parking aspects, so we’re just looking at, okay, this is what they’re doing, and is there something else we can do? Steve has developed a document that we can start recording examples of places that do not have bike parking, or is really not so great in places that are really exemplary so that we can acknowledge the really good ones and, maybe do something to promote the ones that need work.

[00:06:58] We met with Sarah Mazze from Safe Routes to School about walking school bus programs, something that some of us are interested in and we are going forward with that. Sarah has figured out which two schools perhaps she wants to work with to develop a walking school bus. And the goal would be to have fewer car trips to these schools. It would be a pilot program, and it’s going to start in the spring after spring break. Andrea and I have volunteered to step in as volunteer coordinators at one of the schools. So that enables her to go forward and talk with principals and say, yes, there will be a walking school bus, and hopefully they’ll get the funding. And if not, we’ll support that. And we’ll also be helping other people might be able to support that as well on this committee.

[00:07:45] And then Daniel (Wilson) is starting his organizing disaster relief trials. Be great to hear from him if we have time and this meeting he’s going off to ATC, but we asked him to stay in touch with us about that, something that we, many of us as individuals, support.

[00:08:05] Daniel Wilson (outgoing committee member): I’m hoping to get a disaster relief by bike event going sometime in 2022. If you or anyone you know might be interested in organizing such an event, please reach out to me.

[00:08:18] John Q: As MovingAhead and federal funding open a window for ped-bike infrastructure, the Active Transportation Committee prepares.

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