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"When politics enter into municipal government, nothing resulting therefrom in the way of crimes and infamies is then incredible. It actually enables one to accept and believe the impossible..." SustainEugene.org does not use "cookies" or other spyware to track visitors to contact this website:
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Bus Rapid Transit The Lane Transit District is part of the Lane Council of Governments and is part of regional priority setting for transportation projects. In November, 2007, the Lane Council of Governments approved a proposal to spend $817 million on road expansions through the rest of the oil age, even though car traffic has peaked and is starting to decline. Now that we are at Peak Oil, if LTD wants to find more money for running our system it could vote in the Lane Council of Government’s Metropolitan Policy Committee that our Regional Transportation Plan should not widen highways when extra road capacity is not going to be needed now that the era of cheap oil is ending and climate change is beginning. Oregon doesn’t have any local supplies of petroleum and we need to be very honest about the implications of Peak Oil for keeping our society functional. In 2002, when the TransPlan was updated to include more of the West Eugene Porkway, LTD was the only local government that unanimously expressed support for this proposed highway addition. Other local governments - Eugene, Lane County, even Springfield - were split on the idea, although all had majorities in favor of the WEP. It is strange - and revealing - that LTD's board was 100% in favor of a new, expensive highway project that does not even have a token tiny transit component. It is long past time for LTD's board to be elected by the voters -- perhaps those who regularly use LTD buses could be the electorate for picking LTD directors. If we had a more democratic political system, the voice of the union (bus drivers) would have a substantial say in these sorts of decisions, and the bus riders (the public) would be able to elect the directors of our public bus system. from www.greenwasheugene.com/roads-2010-2015.html 6. Franklin Blvd., Ferry St. Bridge to Springfield Bridge 25.0 million The City of Eugene had so much fun rebuilding Franklin Boulevard (for the Bus Rapid Transit system) that they want to rebuild it again. This project estimates that $100 million would be spent to redesign and rebuild Franklin, although this time over a longer distance. The initial $25 million would be for planning and right of way (evidently some stuff is in the way). This proposal would extend the "boulevard" treatment through Glenwood, since the City of Springfield hopes to replace the haphazard collection of industrial buildings, pawn shops and other low rent businesses with fancier stuff. However, the fantasy of relocating McKenzie Willamette hospital to the riverfront along Franklin Boulevard would be at least as dumb as the Peace Health "Riverbottom" location, since there are five dangerous dams directly upstream from this location. An ODOT official once told this writer that a dam break could result in a forty foot wall of water through Glenwood -- which would be a Willamette Valley tsunami. If McKenzie Willamette relocates, it should be further away from a river so in case of a major flood or earthquake induced dam failure there will be at least one hospital that is not submerged. A hidden reason behind this project is the U of O Basketball Palace -- despite the presence of Bus Rapid Transit, there is not enough traffic capacity to handle the crowds that are anticipated at this facility. The arena will have about twelve thousand seats - and the Bus Rapid Transit has about four thousand riders a day. Therefore, it would take three days of BRT service to have the so-called EmX serve the arena. Turn lanes from Franklin Blvd in the vicinity of the arena also would be massively jammed if not rebuilt for arena traffic. This is one of several examples of how the public is going to be forced to help subsidize this sports complex despite numerous promises from U of O President Frohnmayer and other stadium supporters that public funds were not going to be used for this project. In ancient Rome, the commoners were kept satiated with the distractions of bread and circuses (the latter included gladiator fights). In modern America, the public is similarly distracted with sports. The U of O has numerous buildings that would be death traps in an earthquake, there is a shortage of housing for students, university professors are being lured to higher paying jobs at other schools, and tuition rates keep rising. It is a sad sign of misguided priorties that an arena partially paid for by the blood money given by Nike CEO Phil Knight (money made through profiteering from quasi-slave labor at his factories in Indonesia) dominates the priorities at this institution ostensibly dedicated to higher education. It is also sad that the rhetoric of "sustainability" flowing from the University conveniently ignores this tremendous investment of energy and money so that people can watch other people throw a ball around. This project is probably the worst example of transportation greenwash in the metro area. The Bus Rapid Transit line is the excuse to funnel huge amounts of overdevelopment (at least as long as cheap credit to fund it holds out). However, since the fancy bus can only handle a minority of this new traffic, the rest of the people are likely to drive to these new facilities. This means that the bus is going to increase energy consumption and worsen traffic, which is not how this transit system was marketed. Even if the bus was converted to light rail and powered by electricity from burning coal, natural gas and damns (as some voices have been urging), this would not solve the broader problem of transit systems used to facilitate overdevelopment that ultimately worsens car traffic -- at least as long as the gasoline remains relatively affordable and available. The next BRT line planned for the metro area will go north from downtown Springfield to Peace Health's River Bottom site and Gateway shopping maul. Even if this would reduce car trips to the new hospital, it is not planned to open until at least two years after the new hospital site opens. It is still in the design phase now, but River Bottom is now open for hospital patients. A third BRT line is planned for West Eugene to serve the Big Box stores and West Eugene Industrial Area. Lane Transit District has started an EIS to study this route, and it is in the phase of scoping of alternative routes - whether to focus mostly along West 11th, along the Amazon bike path until it crosses West 11th, or to go on 7th Place to Bailey Hill to Stewart Road to Bertelsen to West 11th. All three of these routes have major problems. There is no room on West 11th for widening to accommodate a bus only lane (or lanes) between Seneca and Garfield roads. Building an express bus along Amazon has major environmental obstacles along with eminent domain issues. And routing BRT along 7th to Stewart would avoid the right of way and environmental problems, but building an express bus through a lightly populated area that is deserted at night (and Stewart Road is always deserted) would be a waste of money. A more reasonable BRT route would be along Highway 99 to the Bethel area, where large numbers of suburbanites live, but the City of Eugene is not urging LTD to prioritize that route. BRT on any West Eugene route would be mostly focused on commercial and industrial areas, not mixed use areas that are better served by public transit. One of the problems of West Eugene is that the populated areas are separated by tracts of big box stores, industrial warehouses and factories, and parklands / wetlands that are unsuitable for "development." If there is a partial solution for West Eugene, stopping the relentless construction of big box stores that are very car dependent would be a primary prerequisite. Worse, no land use shifts are apparently contemplated for West Eugene to make public transit seem more reasonable - and the City has now closed off the possibility of this by allowing Home Depot and Lowe's (now under construction) to dominate the last large "vacant" areas along West 11th inside the Beltline. Do City or LTD planners seriously think that anyone will take BRT to buy lumber supplies at Lowe's? Perhaps if the BRT line is ultimately reconstructed, the planners will choose not to have the route weave so much - a particularly poor design choice. Incompetence in public bureaucracies is usually rewarded with an increase in appropriation of tax dollars - in the short run, the only possible recourse the public has is to vote NO on the November 2008 transportation funding increase on the City of Eugene budget. from the official justification:
www.eugeneweekly.com/2006/02/16/news.html
This map shows Lane Transit District's long term plans for Bus Rapid Transit in the Eugene - Springfield metro region. The first segment is under construction (2005) between downtown Springfield to downtown Eugene. The next parts are Coburg Road and Pioneer Parkway. Ultimately, these two lines and the Eugene - Springfield line are to be linked up together into a circle line, with buses running clockwise and counterclockwise. The northwest Eugene and west 11th routes are planned for the distant future, but they should be brought forward as partial compensation for cancellation of the WEP. a good article about BRT is at www.postwritersgroup.com/archives/peir0819.htm
www.eugeneweekly.com/2008/08/07/letters.html FLATTENED DUCKS
Comments on Scoping of Alternatives for the West Eugene Bus Rapid Transit November 6, 2007 Mark Robinowitz - www.road-scholar.org and www.greenwasheugene.com
Limited Purpose and Need The Purpose and Need does not mention the reality of Peak Oil, which many experts in the oil industry state occurred in 2006. Whatever the exact timing of the peak of petroleum production, it clearly will have happened before the design year of the project (2030?). Therefore, the traffic model, economic growth projection, and energy assumptions need to factor in the reduction in energy consumption that will be forced by the end of cheap oil. While alternative energy sources do exist, none of them are more than a tiny fraction of current consumption / combustion of fossil fuels, and there are not any plans to rush substitutes into widescale implementation. The 2005 “Hirsch Report” from the Department of Energy stated that at least two decades would be needed to adequately mitigate the impacts of Peak Oil -- but the peak is either here, or will be here soon. The failure to prepare must be included in the Scoping for any transportation projects, whether for bus rapid transit or road construction. Sharp increases in the cost of oil and / or gasoline rationing, while hard to predict precisely, need to be considered as variables for future transportation demands and land uses. It seems obvious that energy shifts will reduce single use car travel and make transit much more necessary -- yet these changes are not yet really incorporated into long term planning. NEPA specifically requires that "new circumstances" must be included into an EIS or EA -- and the fact of Peak Oil is perhaps the most important "new circumstance" for a transportation project (whether bus route or highway construction). See "Peak Traffic: Planning NAFTA Superhighways at the End of the Age of Oil" at www.road-scholar.org/peak-traffic.html for details.
Historically, ODOT has overestimated the potential for traffic increases on West 11th (see Final EIS for the West Eugene Porkway, 1989/1990 version, which predicted Level of Service F by 1996 without the WEP). Projected increases in traffic are unlikely to materialize considering the limitations of rising oil prices and finite ability to increase levels of oil consumption.
West 11th is not a good “corridor” for BRT, since the road is entirely commercial west of Garfield. Few people are likely to go shopping at the big box stores via bus travel. There is no “multi use” zoning anywhere along the road, which shows the failure of Eugene’s planning department. Ideally some residential could have been infilled along the road (most notably the 11 acre site now occupied by Home Depot) but West 11th is mostly an example of how NOT to do urban planning.
The best thing to do with west Eugene is to down zone planned overdevelopment along West 11th west of Beltline. Virtually every square inch of proposed new paving of the landscape west of Beltline would destroy wetlands. There is no realistic way to accommodate more sprawl along West 11th west of Beltline via transit (BRT or regular bus) that would have more than a small percentage of use by the public. The proposed shopping maul at Danebo and West 11th (southeast corner) and Royal Node developments should be canceled since they would increase traffic and pollution - even if a few of the people using these facilities would ride a bus to get there. Ultimately, the development financing charges the city uses need to be changed so that speculative real estate developers pay the full cost of transportation, school, fire and police services for their projects. Forcing existing neighbors - and the broader community - to subsidize these speculators is immoral and should be illegal.
Goals & Objectives The study should examine alternatives of free, frequent bus service using existing bus fleets instead of the BRT system, since the existing BRT line between Eugene and Springfield is mostly an enhancement of previously existing service. The articulated double buses can transport about as many people as the BRT buses, and their use should be studied as a reasonable alternative. Any BRT study for West Eugene needs to factor in the extremely hostile pedestrian environment along West 11th, the lack of safe bicycling facilities, dangerous intersections, the lack of good crosswalks and other impediments to pedestrians.
Issues & Concerns A BRT line constructed merely to “greenwash” further car centric overdevelopment at the edge of the Urban Growth Boundary would be a waste of money. Building the BRT along Franklin Blvd. to justify the Nike Basketball Arena is not a reduction of car use - merely statistical sleight of hand to pretend that we are dealing with traffic and energy issues. LTD officials have stated that building a single lane track for the initial BRT route was a mistake, and have said (on KLCC!) that more money should be appropriated to fund this. One would have hoped that the project would have been built correctly at the start, although many construction projects seem to be merely schemes to transfer public dollars to private contractors who then make contributions to political election campaigns. Some real oversight of this dysfunctional planning process is decades overdue. A smaller issue is the name “EmX.” While some people might think that naming a bus route after Ronald Reagan’s missile experimental system (MX) is a good idea, it’s merely the type of boosterism public relations that spends lots of money without much result. An additional concern is the strange shelters built for the initial BRT route, which seem overpriced yet inadequate to shelter waiting citizens in heavy rainstorms if there is a crosswind. Adding shelters to existing bus stops, especially those where people wait in the morning (in the direction of downtown) would make bus riding much more pleasant during the wintertime. Shelters would also benefit from improved information about bus schedules -- the Portland OR bus system has an automated system that states when the next bus is scheduled to arrive. Some cities even have automated signs that state when the next bus will actually arrive - which is important for the many routes that do not have frequent service. Scoping of study area boundaries West Eugene has three areas of residential population: River Road, northwest Eugene (Bethel) and West 18th (South Hills). None of these would really be served with this BRT proposal (or the WEP). Connecting these three areas together is a higher priority that a bus rapid transit to Wal-Mart that few shoppers would use. In addition, a BRT to an “office park” such as the complex on West 11th beyond Terry Street would be inappropriate since few people would need to go to that location in the middle of the day - it would only serve the morning and evening rush hours, and that does not require BRT. A BRT on or near West 11th is likely to fail for the same reason the WEP would not mitigate traffic on West 11th - the trip origins and destinations are often not on West 11th, and neither a BRT nor a WEP would serve the main centers of population in West Eugene. Instead, a BRT alternative along from downtown to Highway 99 to Bethel should be studied as a reasonable substitute to a West 11th route. Much of the route would have enough space to add a lane for the BRT, and this section of town needs even more mitigation for its ugliness than West 11th. Any BRT would have to implement land use changes to the dysfunctional, ugly landscape of West Eugene to have any potential to reduce traffic congestion. The Amazon Creek routing for a BRT line needs to be dropped, since this would have major impacts on this damaged waterway and probably would require considerable seizure of private property. This is the old proposal for routing a road along this path that was in the 1959 and 1967 transportation plans, and it should remain relegated to dusty file cabinets. Section 4(f) of the 1966 Transportation Act would require examining prudent and feasible alternatives to the “use” of public parklands along Amazon Creek - since 4(f) applies to all federally funded transportation projects, not only roads. In 2002, LTD staff told me they were examining the potential for a BRT alignment slightly north of West 11th between Garfield and the Seneca / Fred-Meyer bus stop which would weave between the buildings to provide a dedicated route (since there is not any room for a BRT or other extra lanes on West 11th between Bailey Hill and Garfield). The fate of these preliminary studies should be included in the scoping of alternatives for the BRT. The WETLANDS alternative to the West Eugene Porkway - archived on the internet at www.permatopia.com/wetlands.html - should be considered as part of a broader west Eugene analysis of traffic, land use and energy issues. This alternative, West Eugene Transportation and Neighborhood Design Solutions, showed how intersection fixes along West 11th, some minor tweaks to the road network, and a reorientation of the land use projections would be a good substitute for the WEP. An introductory slideshow about the WETLANDS alternative is at www.permatopia.com/wep-slideshow.pdf - and should be incorporated by reference into the scoping for the West Eugene BRT If the “No Build” alternative for the WEP at the West Eugene Charette on June 18 & 19, 2001, had been adopted by the agencies that promised it (FHWA, BLM, ODOT, Lane County, City of Eugene), the WETLANDS alternative, or something similar to it, would have been built by now. The intransigence of Mayor Torrey and the Pape brothers are largely responsible for the fact nothing has been done to fix West 11th intersections over the past six years. More money has been spent to endlessly “study” the WEP than would be required to add turn lanes and good crosswalks for the key West 11th intersections. It would also be interesting to know why the City allowed the Dutch Brothers franchise to build a store in the right of way for the needed Chambers southbound to westbound West 11th turn lane -- the planner who permitted this should be fired for incompetence, assuming that accountability is a desired goal.
The planned land use and development patterns along West 11th would need to be changed to be more transit friendly in order to maximize the potential of BRT and/or improved regular bus service. West 11th is probably the least transit friendly section of Eugene, and merely adding a BRT line without making major changes to its land uses between Beltline and Garfield would be a waste of tax dollars.
The “growth” is the problem, not something to accommodate. The end of cheap oil means that a very different approach to urban planning is long overdue. Further suburbanization of the wetlands west of Beltline should be banned, with or without BRT.
Efforts to reduce climate change in West Eugene would be best accomplished by:
the "Saving Oil in a Hurry" study referenced in the previous email should be included into the Scoping of Alternatives, and the West Eugene study expanded beyond mere BRT to include a range of alternatives that would be able to reduce travel demand, oil consumption, carbon emissions, etc. Perhaps the most important "need" for these goals is to abandon the fiction that further paving of the west Eugene wetlands can be done in an environmentally acceptable way, and the wetlands west of Beltline along West 11th, and the wetlands at Roosevelt and Beltline (currently threatened by EWEB) should be protected for their flood control and carbon sequestration purposes, not converted to concrete and asphalt. |
