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Quick Take:
A traffic safety forum drew about 100 people to Roosevelt Middle School, a short distance from where a UO doctoral student was hit by a car and killed on Patterson Street. A UO professor showed a mockup of how Patterson could be reimagined.
On Feb. 12, more than 100 people — city officials, residents and transportation experts — gathered at Roosevelt Middle School to discuss how Eugene could make its transportation network safer.
The meeting’s discussion was spurred by the death of University of Oregon student Erick Munene Njue, who died after he was hit by a vehicle last month at Patterson Street and 22nd Avenue, a 5-minute walk from the meeting’s location.
Njue’s death marks the third in a string of Eugene cyclist deaths amid a growing number of traffic crashes on Eugene city streets. The Eugene Police Department recorded 55 collisions last year, up from 37 the previous year, according to police spokesperson Melinda McLaughlin.
Sarah Mazze, program coordinator for Safe Routes to School, one of the groups that organized the forum, said at the meeting that these deaths are unacceptable and that Eugene needs to make systemic changes in transportation design.
“Human beings are not perfect,” Mazze said. “We make mistakes, and the infrastructure and the systems need to be set up so that when we make mistakes, people don’t die or experience life-changing injuries.”
Mazze said safe road design is one answer. Protected bike paths, narrower car lanes and wider sidewalks are among the measures city planners can use to make streets safer.
Marc Schlossberg, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of Oregon, provided mockups of what a redesign of Patterson Street could look like.
To inform his design, Schlossberg recorded traffic on Patterson Street at 9:30 a.m. on a Monday. His recording showed little traffic. When cars move smoothly on the street, drivers often exceed speed limits, he said, increasing the risk of crashes.
“We can look at poor street design as one that overallocates space for cars. When you have a wide-open street that overallocates space for cars, that induces speeding,” Schlossberg said. “Speed is the problem. Speed is the thing that we need to address.”
Schlossberg’s design for Patterson Street provided more space for foot traffic, included a dedicated lane for cyclists and pedestrians, and narrowed the existing traffic lane in order to lower driver speeds.
The meeting organizers implored attendees to come up with their own ideas for preventing traffic deaths. Groups proposed ideas such as “no motor Mondays” or increasing bus frequency. Of the dozens of ideas proposed, all shared a central theme: reducing the number of cars on the road.
Eugene Mayor Kaarin Knudson was at the meeting and thanked the attendees for their ideas. She emphasized the importance of these organizing efforts.
“It is critical that you all continue to show up and advocate,” Knudson said. “It doesn’t have to always be in person. It can be an email, it can be a postcard in the mail, but to let us know, to let other elected leaders know that this is truly a priority.”