Recently, I’ve noticed changes like lowered speed limits and more active policing in the River Road/Santa Clara area. As a daily driver and resident in the area, I see at least one close call every day. However, these types of changes are often a temporary fix and don’t address the root of the problem: the design of streets.

As I’ve pointed out while giving feedback to the city, and as research consistently shows, roads with larger lanes, straighter paths and fewer visual cues like trees to narrow the perceived lane width tend to encourage people to drive faster than those of the opposite conditions. This is why streets like River Road still have people regularly driving 40 to 45 mph and higher, while streets like Howard Avenue have more people driving 20 to 25 mph.

Additionally, multilane road designs (like River Road and Division Avenue) encourage more crashes by creating an uncontrollable number of conflict points and differing driver speeds.

While completely redesigning roads can be costly, a street like Silver Lane could be redesigned to have smaller lanes and plastic barriers to protect bikers. On Maxwell Road, plastic could be used as a cost-effective alternative to concrete to create a one-lane roundabout that would reduce speeds in the school zone. Changes like these are relatively cheap, quick to implement and could be reversed if the public disapproves.

I understand that the area has varied land ownership and finances can be a concern, but safer designs tend to cost less in the long run and allow areas like this to become better connected and welcoming.

Devon Finney-Gaitan
Senior, North Eugene High School
Eugene