Hundreds discuss improving South Willamette at forum
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EUGENE, Ore. - The City of Eugene Public Works Department held their first of several public forums on improving South Willamette Street.
It was standing room only at the cafeteria at Roosevelt Middle School on Tuesday night.
Hundreds of residents from South Eugene listened as officials discussed ways to improve the highly traveled south Eugene corridor.
The South Willamette Concept Plan's goal is to help South Willamette Street become a vibrant urban corridor by bicycle, foot, car, and bus.
Some ideas the officials touched on included creating center lane turning lanes, bikeways, roundabouts, and crosswalks for pedestrians.
South Eugene residents also gave their opinions on what could be done to ease up the congestion.
"I would like to see bicyclists and pedestrians separated from the sidewalk," said Nancy Ellen Locke, a Friendly Area Neighbor. "Bicyclists are intimidating to pedestrians and if they had their own bike lanes, that would add to the pedestrian experience."
"If we could do something with the electric poles, if those could come down, I think a lot of things would open up visually," said Katherine Lavine, Co-Owner of Holy Cow on South Willamette Street.
Tuesday night's public forum is the first of four forums. The next forum will be sometime in January.
The bicyclist are totally indifferent to the auto traffic. They expect to ride right-up to the store front, and refuse to compromise one bit. They don't care if taking traffic lanes for their express bike lanes creates a traffic mess. They are extremely inconsiderate. The spandex crowd have made sidewalks unsafe for pedestrians.Â
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The bicyclist mentality was demonstrated on Territorial when a woman was riding too close to the bicycle in front of her. That person fell, she couldn't stop and tragically fell into the path of a log truck. Then, the group of cyclist blamed the truck driver for not crossing the center to avoid them, on a blind corner! No bicycle safety there.  Â