QuickTake:

University of Oregon student groups and traffic safety advocates have banded together to seek changes along Patterson Street in Eugene, where a bicyclist was hit and killed in January. 

University of Oregon students and other community members put up signs along several blocks of Patterson Street in Eugene, reminding motorists to slow down and be mindful of students, children and bicyclists along the stretch between 19th and 23rd avenues. 

The group gathered Wednesday, May 27, to put out the 20 signs. Participants also saw an aspirational plan with drawings of potential improvements along the corridor compiled by students in LiveMove, a University of Oregon group that works on transportation and liveability projects for officials to consider.

The event came in the wake of the death of Erick Munene Njue, a 30-year-old doctoral candidate at UO and former high school teacher in Kenya. In January, Njue was riding his bicycle when he was killed in a collision with a vehicle at 22nd Avenue and Patterson Street.

Njue’s death is spurring calls for safety improvements along that stretch of road, a one-way street near UO that bicyclists and motorists share.

Bicyclist deaths have increased in the city. According to a city report, five bicyclists were killed over a three-year period from 2022 through 2024, up from one bicyclist killed in the three years from 2019 through 2021.

“Erick was like a son to me, so this is very visceral for me,” Mokaya Bosire, a UO linguistics professor, told the group before they put signs along the road. “Every time these kinds of things happen, I am reminded that I’m not going to see him again. I am so grateful for the way that the community has rallied to bring change.”

The LiveMove project, designed by students, suggests block-by-block redesigns along Patterson Street between 19th and 24th avenues that include reducing two car lanes to one car lane and adding two-way protected bikeways and dedicated bus pullouts. 

“Right now, the street prioritizes motor vehicles and cars, and we wanted to change this and prioritize the people who live and use it every single day, the kids, the families, the elderly,” said Dean Wysocki, a senior in planning, public policy and management at UO. “As you all may know, there’s been lots of speeding due to the design, so we really wanted to focus on reducing speeds, reducing possible or more deaths on the street, reducing injuries.”

The groups gathered included Associated Students of the University of Oregon and the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, which represents about 1,400 graduate teaching fellows and assistants. Njue was among them. 

“We’ve seen connections between groups that had not previously worked together and many new faces join a fight for a more livable city, which gives me a lot of hope,” said Jacob Schmidt, vice president for external relations for the graduate student organization.

Better Eugene-Springfield Transportation, a nonprofit educational organization, has helped get the groups together and keep the discussion about transportation safety moving forward, here and elsewhere.

A city government representative didn’t speak at the event. Marion Suitor, a city spokesperson, said in an interview that the city “has not identified a specific course of action” yet.

Multiple options are on the table, Suitor said, adding that funding is always a challenge. As a result, the city is always on the lookout for creative ways to make improvements, she said. 

“The speed of transportation and transportation funding and construction is incredibly slow, and it’s just not built for the response we would like to have and the community would like to have,” Suitor said.

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.