Eugene Planning Commission                         Rick Bronson       
LCOG						   745 Foothill Drive
125 East Eight Ave,				   Eugene, OR 97405
Eugene, OR 97401                                   June 9, 1998


Dear Eugene Planning Commission,

  I would like to give you my opinion on Transplan.

  First of all I think that Transplan is flawed and should be rejected
out of hand.  Only the Chamber of Commerce and the road and land
developers could like it, as it is so slanted toward their goals.
Those goals being development of a transportation infrastructure that
facilitates the movement of one or two person petroleum based vehicles
while giving other modes of transport a very paltry increase in
infrastructure.  It's very obvious that only commercial interests were
considered when Transplan was formulated.  If Transplan is adopted we
will need to change the Oregon Map motto to "Things look different
here (except Eugene)", because Eugene will look like every comparable
city in California.

  What follows are some assumptions that I believe followed by my
suggestions.

  Assumptions

1. The more convenient you make it for motorists, the more traffic there
will be.  This is obvious to me, the more roads you build, the easier
you make if for people to use their cars the more they will do so.
Using "congestion" as an excuse to build more roads is ludicrous as
the more roads that are built, the more people will turn away from
alternative modes of transport because driving will be much easier.
This in turn will generate more traffic and in turn cause a "need" for
more roads to be built.

2. Every increase in motorized traffic automatically causes a lowering
of non-motorized traffic.  Have you every tried walking near or biking
on a busy street?  It can be very frustrating with the choking air
that envelopes these streets and with the worry that someone close to
you is going to make a mistake and hit you.  With more traffic comes
more pollution and danger to non-motorized transport and hence some of
this transport will take the path of least resistance -- use a car.

3. Some day the world is going to run out of oil.  No one can argue
with this, the only question is when?   Even if it's 50 years from
now, we should start planning for it by building less roads and
developing a system of non-motorized transport.

4. The use of a car raises our standard of living.  Most would
agree with this.  When we use our car we are lowering the standard of
living of other people.  This may not seem obvious.  Consider
that when you use your car you are causing air, water, and soil
pollution, noise, traffic accidents, deaths and injuries, etc.  The
point here is that there needs to be a balance between providing a
motorized infrastructure and encouraging non-motorized transport.


  Based on these assumptions, here are my suggestions.

1. Build only a very few or no new roads.  We don't need or want any
more roads.  The only people who will tell you that they would be
willing to fund roads are those that profit from them.  The only other
ones who will tell you we need more roads are the ones that live away
from the new road.  Many people would use alternative transport but
the lure of the convenience of the car keeps them from doing so.
Building more roads will only increase this convenience.

2.  We need to make it easier to use non-motorized transport in order
to decrease the use of motorized transport.  Right now using
non-motorized transport in Eugene is difficult because contending with
motorized traffic is painful and dangerous.  We need to change this so
that it's easy and safe.

2.1 Close some less traveled streets such that they become "virtual"
bike lanes.  Put "right turn only" at every 3 or 4 blocks in both
directions like this (the X's are barriers to cars only):

     |  |     |  |     |  |     |  |     |  |     |  |     |  |     
-----|  |-----|  |-----|  |-----|  |-----|  |-----|  |-----|  |-----
     X                          X                          X        
                 X                          X                       
-----|  |-----|  |-----|  |-----|  |-----|  |-----|  |-----|  |-----
     |  |     |  |     |  |     |  |     |  |     |  |     |  |     

  An example of this is Alder Street but it needs to be expanded and
planned in with a grid of "bike only" streets.  For this to work
effectively there can be no stops for bikes except with other "bike
only" streets.

2.2 Start planning a non-motorized expressway in Eugene.  This idea was
proposed by Joseph Adler or Toronto.  The basic philosophy of this
concept is the construction of a network of expressways for bicycles
only, elevated at minimum 5 meters (15 ft.) above the street level and
covered.  We already have a start of this will the many bike paths
(not bike lanes) here in Eugene.  With this system we could obtain
up to a 20% commute rate that would be equal to that of many European
cities.  This has the potential of saving 100's of millions of dollars
over a 10 year period.


  I know Transplan doesn't address Oregon law but I believe there is a
desperate need to change Oregon law such that gas tax monies can be
used for other modes of transportation.

  Another change that needs to be made is to require all streets and
roads to be paid for either from gas tax or license fees, never from
land tax or any other tax.  Don't subsides car transport with money
from people who don't own them.

  Thank you

  Rick Bronson