Here’s the fourth in a series of reports from our Bicycle Boulevard Campaign visits to bike-friendly cities.
Last Monday the BTA’s Bicycle Boulevard Campaign team visited Eugene as the third stop in our tour of low-traffic facilities in bike-friendly cities. (Read more about our Davis and Berkeley trips here.)
Now, in over 5 years of working for the BTA, I’ve heard plenty about Eugene’s legendary bike-friendliness, but somehow I had still never been to Eugene. (Can I blame it on not owning a car?)
We were welcomed by city staffers Rob Inerfeld and David Roth, who planned a route to highlight Eugene’s low-traffic bicycling facilities. We were able to experience and analyze their many existing bicycle boulevards and multi-use paths, as well as tour some of the routes they’d like to improve for bicyclists.
Our overall impression is that Eugene bicyclists have it good. In fact, it was hard to believe that they had only been awarded a Silver Level Bicycle Friendly Community Award from the League of American Bicyclists. Hey, LAB — how about a gold award next time around?
In particular, we were impressed with Eugene’s extensive multi-use path system through parks and along rivers, and how well it was integrated into on-street biking routes. Best of all, Eugene has five exclusive bike-ped bridges over the Willamette River, and only four auto bridges! I’ll tell you, anyone who’s ever biked over Portland’s Sellwood Bridge understands my bridge envy after experiencing these beautiful, pleasant structures.
Eugene also has a number of outstanding bicycle boulevards already. Passing through beautiful neighborhoods, these routes are particularly pleasant because a) the stop signs have been turned to stop the side streets, so bikes can keep pedaling, and b) there are frequent “diverters” which block through auto traffic but permit bikes to go through — which keeps car traffic on the street to a minimum. Our experience in Eugene reinforced our belief that these two factors are a huge contributor to making a neighborhood street into a true “bicycle boulevard” that’s safe and comfortable for cyclists of all ages and abilities.
We talked with Rob and David about their plans for new bicycle boulevards, and what the barriers were. Just like we’ve seen in Portland, Davis and Berkeley, crossing major streets is the biggest barrier for bicycling. We brainstormed solutions for one particular crossing (at Friendly and 18th), and were able to share a new idea we had based on a design we saw in Davis. We were also able to give them feedback about their plans to install new bike route signs (similar to Portland’s recent upgrade).
We were thrilled to have Jonathan Maus from Bikeportland.org join us on our trip (you really start to feel like somebody when you bring your own reporter along). Check out his trip report and ride photos too.
