Join leaders from across Oregon for two days of discovery, networking, sharing best practices, and shaping the future of transportation at the Oregon Active Transportation Summit (OATS). Your registration includes a full day of keynotes, plenaries, and breakout sessions, light continental breakfast, plated lunch, and no-host bar reception on Monday, April 21st as well as a full day of tours, mobile workshops, and meeting opportunities on Tuesday, April 22nd. Register by March 31st at http://oat-summit.com for $10 off your registration!

This morning Gil Peñaloso gave a great presentation titled “Creating Livable Communities for Everyone“. It was a partnership with the UO student group LiveMove, LTD, the City of Eugene and several sponsoring businesses and organizations.  He spoke about what it takes to create a great livable and vibrant city. Guess what, it involves more kids walking and biking!  It means building a city where kids 8 years old and senior citizens 80 years old feel safe and comfortable moving about the city by walking, biking or taking transit. While this isn’t news to us he shared some inspiring words to motivate those in the audience to continue our work to create that city. He talked about the real problem not being money, space or other resources but political will and leadership.

I highly recommend watching his video (or catching him tonight 5-7pm at the Downtown LCC building as part of the LiveMove student group’s speaker series). My wish is that every city council member, local elected official and city staff leader would watch this video and become inspired to take action now.

One of the ideas Gil spoke about that resonated as we work towards improving our city for families to walk and bike more often is the idea that we need to stop working towards consensus on every decision. We need to take the bold steps to make the change that will create healthier communities. We need to listen but then we need to take action now that is for the greater good rather than delayed action that is mediocre for everyone.

To get more kids walking and biking again we need separated bike facilities, connected sidewalks and better crossings. We need to start at the core of our city and connect what we already have.

It’s not about if we have the money, the plans or the space to do it. It’s about the political will. It’s about the leadership to push to make it happen.

One vision of a bold step I’m inspired to continue pushing that relates to this talk? Let’s build the High Street Active Transportation Corridor. By creating a separated two way bike facility and running path down High Street we could link the Amazon Path to the River Path with a separate, safe and comfortable facility for people to walk, run, bike and connect on. This corridor would serve to connect:

• The Amazon Path to the Ruth Bascom River Path
• Our Ridgeline to our River
• Our youth with our senior citizens (Roosevelt & South with Campbell Center)
• People to their new City Hall (on High)
• Our different parks and recreational opportunities (Amazon Park and Pool, Hilyard Center, River Play, Alton Baker, Spencer Butte, Skinner Butte, etc.)
• An active transportation corridor through our downtown
• With a facility being discussed on 13th to connect UO to Downtown
• With each other

Making this connection is already part of our Pedestrian Bicycle Master Plan, which will be adopted as part of our Transportation System Plan. It also aligns with almost all of the City of Eugene’s seven pillars of Envision Eugene, especially planning for climate change and energy resiliency, promoting compact urban development and efficient transportation options,  and enhancing natural resources and neighborhood livability.  We know it’s something that can and should be done. We just need leaders to make it happen. Elected official guiding staff to implement it, staff open and willing to make it work and citizens pushing to make it happen.

We have the vision on many great projects. We know that complete streets, like a more walkable and bikeable South Willamette street, are needed. That shouldn’t even be a bold decision. Being bold on South Willamette would mean doing something completely different like separated bike facilities on the street, wide sidewalks, reduced speeds and more. Not doing anything shouldn’t even be part of the discussion. The street does NOT meet the needs of anyone not in a car with the current design. We shouldn’t rebuild it the way it is just because a select few think it’s better for them. Period.  The “option three” of bike lanes on the street and a center turn lane will improve it for everyone (walkers, bikers & drivers) but it isn’t going to get us to the 8-80 level of service.  So let’s choose projects that WILL inspire us to build a better city.   All of our energy should be going into bold projects to make our city better for everyone. Let’s start building Eugene and Springfield so an 8 year old can easily walk to school easily. Let’s start building a bike network where biking is the safe, convenient and easy choice. It’s going to take bold leadership and brave community members to make it happen but we can do it!

Thanks Gil for the inspiring talk.

This just in from Bike Friday. Vote for them to win a FedEx small business grant ($25,000) and help them set up a Bike Safety Education grant program to help communities buy OSOTA bikes for their program.

Via Bike Friday:
If Bike Friday wins we will use it to set up a way to grant money to school bicycle training programs that are having trouble financing their fleets.
The Safe Routes to School program has become very effective giving young riders real skills that both keep them safe and emancipated them for transportation under their own power. But finding money to buy their fleet bikes has become very difficult. We at Green Gear Cycling have been looking for ways to help them.
One of our first steps was to design a ‘made in the US bike’ that is specially designed to fit people from under 4 ft tall to over 6 ft tall. OSATA – One Size Adjusts To All. They are perfect for these programs.
Green Gear would like to help the more. This money could help set up a crowd sourcing program for SRTS and even start a special pool that Bike Friday owners could donate to for the bicycle education of children everywhere. This is a clear win-win-win….

Alan Scholz
Co-founder Green Gear Cycling/BikeFriday

Vote Now and Vote Often.

Emma Newman was recently hired as the first Springfield SRTS Coordinator for the Springfield School District. She brings her academic background in environmental studies and active transportation research at the University of Oregon to the position, as well as a passion for improving people’s personal health. Emma was the former City of Eugene Sunday Streets Coordinator and is excited to continue working in the field of active transportation.

Emma will be working with elementary and middle schools to create safer walking and biking routes to and from schools, and to encourage more students to choose active transportation options. The Safe Routes to School program also involves incorporating pedestrian and bicycle safety education into elementary and middle schools. During her first year, she will be working with Agnes Stewart Middle School, Hamlin Middle School, and Thurston Elementary School. Next year, she will create SRTS action plans for Briggs Middle School, Page Elementary, and Yolanda Elementary. If you are interested in volunteering with Safe Routes to School, please contact Emma at emma.newman@springfield.k12.or.us

Also, you may have noticed that our website address now reflects our broader regional focus. Well our Facebook page also has been expanded and Emma has started a new Twitter account for SpringfieldSRTS to join EugeneSRTS! Join us on the inter webs and stay connected to what is happening with our newly expanded regional SRTS program! Then give Emma a tweet and welcome her to the regional SRTS Team!

This is the time of year for many schools to do their Surveys and Tallies and it’s also a good time to update Action Plans. As part of any schools initial action plan or rework of an existing action plan is the important step of the “walkabout”. It’s hard to know what exactly needs to be done without getting out onto the street and walking it, especially during arrival and departure times.
This month’s inforgraphic is from Metrolinx from Canada; the numbers may be slightly different for our community but are not too far off.

Have you heard of Drive Less Club Oregon?

Drive Less Club Oregon is a non-profit statewide initiative of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Drive Less Save More campaign. Drive Less Clubs are youth-powered programs intended to promote conservative travel habits in Oregon by engaging pre-driving teens, 12 -15 years old and young drivers, 16 – 24 years old. The purpose of Drive Less Clubs are to build awareness about the importance of reducing single-person car trips and to change driving habits by promoting alterative travel options such as Drive Less Connect (ridesharing), carpooling, biking, walking and public transportation to name a few.

Young people who are interested in creating a Drive Less Club in their school or community will be given resources to become a Drive Less Club Intern to create initiatives in their community and in their schools by undertaking a variety of activities aimed at engaging key influencers. Students can create clubs in their schools where they will host events and activities that bring awareness to Drive Less Save More campaign initiatives. We will provide all the tools that students/young people need to participate and make the campaign successful. Our goal is to empower teens to create activities that will resonate with their community, schools and in their homes. Participation will appeal to students who need extra curricular activities to build college and/or job resumes. In return for their work, the teens will receive a recommendation letter from the DLSM leaders in their area, and/or other high-ranking officials. Our goal is to create Drive Less Clubs in Portland, Eugene/Springfield, Salem, Corvallis, Bend, Roseburg & La Grande

If you would like to learn more about our campaign, feel free to visit our Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/DriveLessClubOregon or email us at DriveLessClubOregon@gmail.com