City Council - Regular Meeting

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6 city council work session. Thank you for joining us in this hybrid meeting work format. For work sessions like this one where there is no opportunity for public comment. Those wishing to access the meeting can do so by watching the live stream available on our website, the broadcast on Comcast channel 21, or by calling into one of the phone numbers listed for this meeting on the public webcast and meeting materials web page. Thank you again for joining us. I call now the April 15th, 2026 work session of the Eugene City Council to order. I am going to turn to our new city manager to introduce our first topic. However, I just want to say very briefly a huge thank you for uh to Matt Rodriguez for filling in um as city manager um in this interim period. You've done such an amazing job keeping us stable and leading us with confidence and humility um and a huge welcome to Jenny um our new city manager. Thank you.

Well, thank you. I just take a real quick opportunity to introduce myself to those that are watching and those that are in the audience. My name is Jenny Haryama. I'm the new city manager and I am incredibly thrilled and honored to be here today and just wanted to recognize the incredible work that's been done to date. Um, and that's a testament of the engaged community that we have uh and that you know are very thoughtful. So, uh, with that brief introduction, I'm happy to introduce the work session that's before you this, uh, afternoon. I got to get used to saying this afternoon. I'm used to saying this evening. Um, but today we're going to talk about Vision Zero. uh you'll hear a little bit about what's happening now, the work that's underway, uh what is in progress, and what's to come. And so we've got uh Logan Telus uh our associate transportation planner that's going to give you that presentation this evening. Sorry, this afternoon. I wish it was this evening. Well, hello uh Mayor and council. Um we're here today to talk about Vision Zero and give an update on some of the traffic safety initiatives we have underway to try reducing fatal and serious injury traffic crashes. Uh it's a big topic and there's a lot to cover. Uh so let's get right into it. For anyone who might not know, Vision Zero is an approach to transportation safety that focuses on eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries on our streets. Um Vision Zero uh at a high level involves cities acknowledging that traffic deaths are not inevitable occurrences. um that we can affect

positive change through things like roadway design, enforcement, and public education. Um so there's a number of important guiding principles associated with vision zero. Uh but designing forgiving roadway networks is a really high priority. And when I say forgiving, I mean we acknowledge that people will make mistakes sometimes and the goal is to make sure folks don't pay for those mistakes with their lives. Um to do this, Vision Zero really holds up the value of systemic level work and also speed reduction work because speed is one of the most important determining factors in how severe traffic crashes are when they do occur. Uh what I have on the screen now is 10 years worth of fatal traffic crash data. This is 2015 through 2025. The blue portion of the bars are fatal crashes that exclusively involved motor vehicles. The orange are fatal crashes that involved pedestrians and the green are fatal crashes that involve bicyclists. Um this is all within the urban growth boundary scale. So some of these occurred on city streets, some on county streets, and some on ODOT facilities. Um, a big takeaway from this chart is that the city of Eugene, like many communities, experienced an increase in traffic deaths following the beginning of the CO 19 pandemic. Some communities saw that impact right away towards the beginning of the pandemic. We had a little bit of a delayed effect for us. 2022 through 2024 were our worst years for fatal traffic crashes. In 2022, we had 14 fatal traffic crashes. In 2023, we again had 14 fatal traffic crashes. And then in 2024, that grew to 22 fatal traffic crashes. Now, 2025 uh represented the first decrease in traffic deaths that we've seen since the beginning of the pandemic. Um and it was a pretty notable decrease. It

represented a 55% decrease from 2024 totals and a 41% decrease from the 2022 through 2024 three-year annual average. Uh that being said, 10 community members losing their lives in 2025 was still entirely too many and the city remains committed to the goal of pursuing zero. To help contextualize some of the local data I just showed, here's some state level data over that same time frame. You can see that increase following the beginning of the pandemic and then a decrease down. Um, and in more recent years, we're starting to see numbers that look more similar to prepandemic totals. And that that is mirrored at the national level as well. If you look at the um at the federal data, uh, with that, let's get into talking about safety funding. Um, so I want to start by emphasizing that our ability to deliver large capital safety projects on our roadway network is highly grant dependent. staff are constantly applying to state and federal grant opportunities to help fund new safety infrastructure. This includes programs like the state's all roads transportation safety grant, the safe routes to school grant, the federal safe streets and roads for all grant, so on so forth. Um, and when we do receive grant funding for a project, it typically involves the state or federal government paying 80 to 90% of the project costs and then we come in and pay the remaining 10 to 20% with local funds. Um, sometimes those can be SDC funds depending on what the project is or road fund. The transportation bonds are another important funding source for safety work. As some of you probably remember, uh the 2022 transportation bond included $13 million that could be spent on walking, biking, and safety infrastructure. Those funds were programmed in a manner that involved a lot of community engagement,

council review of the project list, and council approval of the project list. Because uh this work is so grant dependent, we see a lot of fluctuation um from year to year in how much we deliver. But overall, looking at 2020 through 2025, um we're estimating we spent over $27 million in walking and biking safety infrastructure, uh which averages out to about 4.5 million per year. This included a lot of treatment types. Uh there's a ex more exhaustive list in your packets um with with project details, but just to highlight some of what was built during this time frame. Uh we delivered a lot of new protected bike facilities, including the 13th Avenue bikeway, high street bikeway, the 8th Avenue protected bike lanes, which include included safety improvements for other modes as well. We delivered new sections of off- streetet shared use path such as the Roosevelt uh path extension. Uh we did a lot of crossing improvements. Many of these were uh curb extension foldouts that were done with ADA curb ramp upgrades. Uh so those curb extension bumpouts are great for reducing pedestrian crossing distances which reduces their exposure to to vehicles. Um but the curb ramps are also great or the uh the curb extensions are also great for uh mitigating speeding through turn movements. Some of the crossing projects included new RRFB crossings, which are the flashing yellow pedestrian beacons. You hit the button, the yellow lights flash um to alert drivers that there is someone in the crosswalk. Um we did a lot of new RFBs, many of which were in locations where we expect vulnerable pedestrians like children uh near schools, parks, and community centers. DVG also delivered the first protected intersection in our community with the River Road and Hunziker intersection. Uh, and we built new sections of

sidewalk infill where sidewalk hadn't previously existed. I'll also highlight we did a lot of traffic calming during this time period and and delivered a number of projects that included new speed humps and speed cushions uh on neighborhood streets to help reduce speeding. Uh, looking over the next few years, uh, we have even more funding lined up for safety. Um we're estimating we have nearly 22 million secured through the end of 2028 currently. Um that number could potentially increase. Um we have some funding applications out right now um that we're waiting to hear on for decisions. Um but this would average out to about 7.3 million per year over um the next few years that we have firmly locked in currently. I'm going to give you some key projects that that's included in those numbers. Um, but first I want to take a little bit of a step back and talk about the process and and strategies we take to identify roadway uh infrastructure projects. Um, so I'm going to walk you through some of the planning studies we have active and coming up. Um, the first of which is the vision zero intersection study. This is a project that did data collection at 10 high crash intersections in Eugene. Um those intersections include Highway 99 in Roosevelt, River Road and Silver Lane, sixth in Garfield, seventh in Jefferson, seventh in Washington, eighth in Washington, Royal and Danabo, Amazon Hillyard and 30th, Cobberg and Oakmont and Senica and Roosevelt. We got a lot of interesting new data points for these intersections that we didn't previously had. We looked at things like near misses between roadway users. Got red light running counts for the intersections. We looked at the speeds for various movements through the intersections, pedestrian push button

usage, where pedestrians and bikes are crossing outside of crosswalks. A lot of interesting data metrics. Um, and we're working on kind of summarizing the the data analysis piece of the project right now. The next stage of the project is going to involve working with our engineering consultant to do a deeper dive uh development of planning level project concepts for some of the intersections. So this study is still currently underway um but we expect it to be complete this year. Implementation of the projects that come out of this would be on a longer timeline. Um but we are working on the study. Another planning project we're working on this year is we're doing corridor studies for both Highway 99 and River Road. Um, this is a partnership with LTD. So, we are going to be looking at transit efficiency improvements for the corridors uh with this, but safety is another huge goal here. And we're going to be doing safety evaluation with the consultant team that's working on the project with the goal of identifying uh future safety infrastructure for both Highway 99 and River Road. Um, this is on a 18-month completion timeline. We just signed the contract with the consulting firm. So, um, we're expecting to have project kickoff very soon. Uh, and this is a really important important one because we know River Road and Highway 99 are are certainly high safety priorities for the city. Uh, I'll also mention there's going to be a lot of engagement with this project, but I'm not going to speak too heavily on engagement today because I know one week from today, the Office of Equity and Community Engagement is going to come back and have a session with you all uh regarding neighborhood planning in this area and they're going to touch uh more in depth on some of the upcoming engagement efforts for Highway 99. Another study we have um that we're working on this year is the first and last mile safety study. This is a project that's going to do a large data analysis to look at safety barriers that

people experience walking and biking to all LTD transit stops and select high priority school bus stops. In addition to the data analysis, there's going to be a lot of community engagement with this project as well. It's going to include a lot of communitywide surveying, but also focus groups centered on the needs of certain vulnerable demographics that are more likely to be transit dependent, such as writers with disabilities. Uh the grant award that we have for this has a bit of funding in it for quick build style projects. Um, so quick build, if you're not familiar with the term, would be a roadway project that uses bolt-own materials, like bolting down a flexible vertical plastic post, for example. Um, the quick build piece of the grant award is being uh programmed to us in a future phase of the project uh by the federal government. So basically that means um that piece of the funding is going to come to us after we complete uh the the planning study. Um, so we can't t tap into that funding quite yet, but um, it's coming to us in a future phase of the project after we do the planning activities. The city's also working on the development of a speed management strategy. Uh, this is really intended to help us identify which streets in Eugene are having the most significant issues with speeding. Speeding is a really widespread community issue throughout our community. We hear from neighbors all over town. Um, and so taking this comprehensive citywide look is going to be really helpful for helping prioritize uh locations for future speed reduction work. And that could include traffic calming. This data analysis can inform where we do uh future speed zone investigation requests with ODOT to look at lowering speed limits. It can help inform where we do more targeted enforcement. Um, so it has a lot of potential applications. And we're doing

this project with um anonymized aggregated data that is available from connected vehicles and uh cell data that's commercially available. So we're working uh through the data analysis piece of the project and moving forward from here. We're going to be taking thinking about how we take these speeding hotspots we've identified and and rank them and identify what the treatments might be for for all of those locations. Now, let's talk about some of the upcoming roadway safety projects we have planned. This is not everything we're building. There's a more exhaustive list of projects in your packets. Um, but I want to give you some of the highlights and I'll start with Highway 99 because it is such a safety priority for the city. What we currently have funded for Highway 99 includes a largescale street lighting upgrade project uh that we're planning to build this year. Um, that's going to involve both constructing new street lights on our section of Highway 99 that doesn't currently have street lighting and also it's going to include taking the existing street lighting and converting them to brighter LEDs. So, we're going to brighten up Highway 99 and hopefully that's going to help mitigate some of the nighttime crashes. That's not going to solve all of our challenges on the corridor, um, but it should help and it's something that we can fund. Right now, we're going to have to uh layer safety improvements onto the corridor over time as we're able to afford them. At the same same time we're doing the street lighting improvements, we're going to be doing ADA curb ramp reconstructions at six intersections along the corridor. And our engineer on that project has been looking for opportunities to potentially do a little bit of turn radius uh tightening at some of the corners to help mitigate uh folks speeding off of Highway 99 onto neighborhood side streets. We think we'll be able to do that with for at least one of the intersections included in the project, uh, Richard Avenue. Um, so that's something that's going to be

constructed this summer. Additionally, we're going to be coming back in 2027 and doing sidewalk infill on Highway 99. This is going to include constructing new sidewalk from Barger to Prairie. Currently, people who are trying to make that walking connection have to walk along the shoulder. So getting a sidewalk in there is definitely going to make that a safer and more comfortable connection for folks. River Road also has some safety improvements coming up uh because we're doing some paving on River Road and that presents an opportunity to do some striping safety improvements since we're going to be going and striping the new asphalt anyway. Um so what we're doing with the striping is we're extending the buffered section of the bike lane. Um, so the bike lane, um, has the painted buffer section on portions of it on River Road to give, uh, cyclists more clear space from vehicles, but it only goes up to a certain point. So, we're extending that buff buffer about, 1900 ft north towards Green Lane. Uh, and at the same time, we're going to be doing green pavement markings to highlight conflict points between cyclists and drivers. Um, and that is in the context of this project area primarily going to be at locations where drivers have to merge across the bike lane to get into a right turn only lane. So that green pavement marking is going to help highlight for folks that they should expect to see bikes in that space. Uh, we are also working with LTD to convert three existing bus stops to a floating bus stop configuration. And I know that's a new term for a lot of folks. There's an example image on the slide. Um, a floating bus stop essentially uh redesigns the bus stop to reduce conflict between a variety of roadway users. One of the things it does is it mitigates the need for the bus to merge into the bike lane and obstruct the bike lane. And then also it helps uh reduce conflicts between the bus drivers

and other vehicles because sometimes when a bus is stopped halfway in a bike lane, halfway in the general travel lane, it creates a sense of ambiguity and confusion about what safe passing behavior is. And so stopping the bus in the general travel lane makes it a little bit more clear for folks that they should either be fully stopping behind the bus or merging completely into the adjacent travel lane and passing the bus in the adjacent travel lane. Um so that's something we're working on with LTD. That's a that's something that they have communicated is a priority for them. River Road also has street light funding in under the the most recent transportation bond. Approximately 300,000 was allocated for street lighting on River Road. So, we're going to be able to deliver some street light improvements to River Road over the next few years as well. 18th Avenue is another high crash corridor where we have some upcoming uh safety work. Uh really on 18th, what we have is a couple of opportunities to do intersection redesign. The first of which is in 2026 we have funding to do a project at 18th and Hillyard that's going to include curb extensions once again to reduce those pedestrian crossing distances and help slow speeding vehicles that might be making a turn movement too fast. Um at the same time we're going going to be delivering signal upgrades and those signal upgrades are going to support a bike phase at the intersection. So, we're going to be better separating bikes from cars uh through signal timing at that location. Uh the other intersection that we have a redesign opportunity at is 18th in Chambers. So, we're going to be doing paving on Chambers in 2027. And in early stages of talking about that paving project, staff realized this is a great opportunity to potentially package in some safety improvements. Now, we're working with a consulting firm right now

to evaluate um what those safety improvements might be, um develop some layouts, talk about some of the constraints, but early conversations have included talking about curb extensions with bike facility upgrades through the intersection. Um I want to mention that we have multiple roundabout projects coming up. Uh you all are probably most familiar with Franklin. I'm not going to get too into Franklin because there's going to be a whole additional work session just focused on Franklin later this year. I don't think the date has firmly been scheduled for that, but I've been told that public works has requested a September date. Um, the other two roundabout projects we have on the horizon are we have funding to construct a roundabout at Bailey Hill and Burlesen, which is down by Wild Iris Ridge. If you can visualize where that is. um that's going to be a gate a great gateway treatment um to help slow folks who are coming out of rural Lane County at high speeds and they're transitioning into the urban environment that is Eugene. So having that roundabout there is going to help slow some of that speeding traffic and just visually highlight for drivers, hey, you're entering the city, you know, exercise an additional layer of caution. Additionally, we have roundabouts uh on the horizon for Division Avenue. We have funding to construct two roundabouts on the corridor with upgraded bike facilities and enhanced pedestrian crossings. Um that project has already involved a good amount of community engagement, a lot of business engagement. Um we're moving into the stage of the project where we're starting to develop the the engineering drawings with the assistance of a of a consulting team. Um so we're transitioning from the the planning concept level phase more into the the design phase of that. Um currently uh Franklin is currently estimated for

2027 and the other roundabout projects are currently estimated for 2028. The city has more protected bike lanes coming up as well. Uh we have funding secured to construct protected bike lanes on Lincoln in 2026 and on Oakway in 2027. I've talked a lot about infrastructure um but I want to take this opportunity to just highlight there are other important areas of safety work happening at the city. Um so I'm going to quickly go through some of these. Um uh first I want to mention that we're increasing FTE to support traffic safety work. The public works engineering division has recently created a new traffic engineering section um led by Christina Charvat here who's the new traffic engineer at public works engineering. Um I'm on this team. We're going to be adding a civil engineer to the team as well. And a huge focus for us is going to be traffic safety work. Um, additionally, there are policy improvements underway to help support safety. I mentioned the speed management strategy. That's a good example, but I'll to give another example, I'll highlight the complete streets design standards that public works engineering has been working on. Um, my understanding is we're going to administratively do adopt the design guide, but uh staff are going to be coming to council to work on some uh code amendments that would be paired with the design guide. So, there's going to be more on that coming up. Enforcement is another huge um a huge area of work for traffic safety in Eugene. We at public works greatly appreciate the partnership of EPD. The work that our traffic safety unit does um under Sergeant Pesky is is so important for making progress on our safety work. We also uh greatly appreciate the work of the major crash investigations team um that responds to

fatal traffic crashes and investigates the causes um under Joel Peckles. Um so those are those are great partners in the organization that we work with. Uh and I'm sure many of us have heard that traffic safety is a huge area of focus for EPD in 2026. They're doing a really large traffic safety enforcement push this year and that's been great to see so far. Lastly, I'll mention that education and outreach is a big area of work as well. The city does a lot of education and outreach, a lot of communications. To give a few examples, we participate in regional DUI and speed reduction public messaging campaigns. Uh we work on that with Safe Lane Transportation Coalition, uh which is led by Elco and there is paid regional advertising uh encouraging folks to make safer choices on both of those topics. Uh the city of Eugene holds bike safety education classes. Um and additionally, uh EPD does a lot of education on an ongoing basis as they make contact with folks in the community and they do traffic stops. Um they they take the opportunity to educate folks on on traffic safety and and what the law is. So with that, um I will hand it over for questions and discussion. Thank you so much for that presentation. Um I do now open the floor for discussion. I have um council gropes in the queue first.

Thank you council president and thank you for the presentation. Uh traffic safety and protecting our pedestrians and bicyclists is a a very important uh piece for me. And I actually want to start off by thanking Rob Enerfield for his work in helping us get an RFD crossing at by Churchill High School with ball fields near Pepper Tree. Um for any parents that are listening, that only works if your kids push the button. So activating that flashing light really does make a difference in drawing your attention to an area that has a curve on it and a lot of speeding traffic. So anyway, thank you for that and I'm happy to hear we're moving in a positive direction on some of these safety features. Um, the most common complaint I hear these days is about speeding traffic. Few years ago it was homeless camps and trespassing and now it's transitioned to speeding traffic and and I agree. I think the problem is everywhere. Um, out of our last five or so fatal traffic crashes, how many of those have been connected with criminal um, traffic infractions? And you've got the police here for phone a friend if you need it.

I don't know if I could give you an exact number off the top of my head. Uh, does anyone from EPD want to come up and help speak to that? It's also okay if we just need to get back on that question. Yeah, you can get back to us later, but I I would be interested in that because just my tally in my head from, you know, news reports, it seems like at least the last three have have had criminal charges filed against the operator of the vehicles. I I think that's that's a piece of this would be good for us to know. Um, another thing, you know, speaking of of police and fire, I absolutely believe in the data and we need to look at that, but I think it's good to have dialogue with our responders, too, because they see things I I know from personal experience, you see things that are not captured in the data, but are very contributive to bad outcomes. So, uh, you know, please please seek them out and get information from them as well. Um, also on the McClean Boulevard rebuild project, do we have a completion date on that? And the reasoning I'm bringing that up with traffic safety, I drive that street quite a bit and vehicles are going into the opposite lane on curves and everything just trying to avoid um the condition of that roadway. I know the curb bumpouts have already happened and you can't even see the yellow paint anymore from all the tire marks. So, um there's some bad things happening on that that is a boundary between W one and W 8 and it's a vector. So, uh if if we have do we have any information on when that's supposed to be complete?

Summer. This summer.

Okay, great. Thank you. I was hoping for that. Um for the fire chief, I know that we've uh we keep adding traffic calming, which is good. We need to be slowing down the speeds, but the fact that we have not kept pace with our staffing levels, what's that doing to response times and also response reliability? Councilor Groves, thanks for the the question. Um, so in previous reports we've talked about our response times are increasing both as the population grows, the density grows, um, but also our ability to to move about the community. Um, there's a lot of important work that's that's gone on for traffic safety to slow traffic in general. Um, and that that has a um impact on our ability to move around. And so we think a lot about that as we imagine where our next fire stations need to be. knowledge um partnership with some of the traffic staff who we take for rides. Um when we think about traffic engineering and how we do traffic calming and some of that work just in general when traffic slows down or there's only one lane with with folks not able to move out of uh our way, it does increase our response. You might be aware of it, but back in my day, Portland Fire Bureau did a really good uh study on that, and they have some good data, and I'm out of time, so I'm going to ask

Thank you, Councelor Groves. Um, we will certainly have a time for a second round. Um, councelor Kitting.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you all for the um overview and and information. Similar to Councelor Groves, I'm interested in the why. Uh when I look at at slides six and slides eight, both the local data and the national data in regards to fatalities um over the last decade, um I I wonder how much of the fatalities are woven in not just to well yes to criminal activities such including but not limited to DUIs and uh or distracted driving by use of of cell phones. Um moreover um I wonder um how much uh is con of these fatalities are contributed to additional users uh on the roadways. Uh not that I'm pointing fault. I am an ebike user, but I wonder how many because there's an increase in ebikes or there's an increase in scooters sharing the roadways. Um and I wonder if the education is not keeping pace with the amount of of diversity on on the roadways. But I'm keenly interested in in the u distracted driver piece in and the um in the DUI. So I look forward to seeing seeing that data. Just flipping through um on slide 12, the past five years of investment. I noted that uh I would welcome and I suspect my colleagues would as well a heat map of uh projects um in regards to traffic calming throughout the the community. Um there was a slide where on slide 18 where you indicated this this the speeding hot spots. I'd love to see that blown up but um that coupled with a heat map of the investments I would find um highly informative. Um and then sliding through to slide 23, the upcoming roundabouts. Um,

are we using any 2022 road bond dollars for these um proposed roundabouts at Bailey Hill, Burlesson, Franklin, and Division? Um, so there may be a piece of the bond that helps support the the grant match for the Division Avenue project. So remember I explained like uh when we're getting grant funding for a project, the federal or state government is typically paying 80 to 90% of the project costs and then we come in with a local match um for our piece of the funding. Um so we might need to use local funds to support the match for um the Division Avenue project. Uh I'm not sure off the top of my head for the Bailey Hill and Burlesen. Sorry, what?

It's a no. It's a no. For Bailey Hill and Burlesen. Okay. and the Franklin Boulevard project. I believe LTV is contributing a large piece piece of the match. I couldn't tell you if local funds from us are going towards that. I don't know off the top of my head. So to to clarify division, yes, because of potentially

um I I I alongside councelor Gross helped write the the voters's pamphlet statement in support and I don't recall there being any roundabout pieces connected to it. Moreover, if there were, I don't suspect it would have passed. So that's just my editorializing and uh I just want to articulate my my my concern about using the roundabouts as uh it it it clearly is a speed deterrent but again there I there's not a lot of information or education frontloaded for new drivers or even current drivers um here in the west. Um, yes, they have potential to decrease fatalities long term, but studies, as I understand it, indicate that they increase crashes or fender benders in the short term. I'll take a second round. Council President, thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Council King. Um, C is next. Um and really good work. Thank you for all this. It's uh uh the report in particular just lots of really good work in here. It's also very helpful for all those people that's think or don't know what we're doing. A lot of people say we're not doing anything. Enormous amount of work that's going towards uh helping us meet our vision zero. Although I am I'm continually amazed at how many uh the amount of traffic engineers and safety engineers we have in this city. I think the number um every time I talk to someone they're an expert.

We're having volume problems online. Okay, I'll talk a little after. Um roundabouts uh do have a learning curve. Um, but they do work really well and they're clearly and statistically safer for all modes. Can you talk about that a little bit more?

Yeah, I mean the safety benefits associated with roundabouts um are substantial. They help reduce speeds, but also um converting a signalized intersection to a roundabout can come with um reducing the number of overall potential conflict points between users since everyone's circulating in the same direction. Um, so that's another important safety benefit associated with roundabouts. Um, we do know that, um, some folks in the community might be a little bit unfamiliar with them. Uh, but as we build our first round of large roundabout projects, I think that a lot of folks in the community are going to gain that familiarity and keep that familiarity. Um and so uh yeah, we remain really interested in the safety benefits that they hold uh for reducing speeds but also mitigating turn conflicts

and and also for pedestrians and bicyclists. Yes, absolutely. Design keeps them separate.

Yeah. I was talking to the design team for Franklin and they were also saying that there is a learning curve but it's really short and and people retain that knowledge and once they figured out how roundabouts work then they use them easily and and they're much much sections. Um Matt was talking about slide seven and the decrease of fatalities from 21 to 25 in Oregon end in the US. Why is that happening? It's hard to point to any one specific factor. I will say um anecdotally that I think the increase we saw postcoid was kind of an intersection of several large societal issues that got worse during the pandemic. Um the pandemic, you know, probably had an effect on our community's challenges with substance use in some ways. Um potentially the mental health of certain folks. Um and also uh we know that our unhoused community members are particularly vulnerable to traffic and um the pandemic affected some people's housing stability. Um so there are there are a number of factors at play. Um and it's it's hard to call out any one specific thing to be honest with you, but it is encouraging to see the decrease. Um though like I said before, we remain committed to zero being the only acceptable goal and um and we're going to continue pushing towards that.

Yeah, it it is pretty dramatic decrease, but we're not to where we were before the pandemic. Um which is really interesting. Um the protected bikeways are fantastic and increasing them is good for our community and our safety. Um there's a there's a slide 31 on high bike and 32 uh high bike crash areas. Um what are we doing to educate people about keeping people off those roads and onto alternate routes that are safer both for walking and biking because the the the two top or the the top tier of each of those are the same roads.

Yeah. So, the city of Eugene works on developing uh bike maps. We update our bike maps regularly. We don't just share them online. We distribute physical copies. We do a lot to promote what we believe are the safest and most comfortable routes for people to be taking. Um we do a lot of wayfinding signage in the community to try helping folks find those safer routes. And then in addition to that, um the transportation options team at public works engineering just does a lot of work on bike safety education in our community. And I know a lot of that bike safety education that's done involves um education on what the safe routes are and and how you find a good route to get to where you're going and the risk factors that you might encounter and and how to maneuver around those risk factors.

Yeah, wayinding would be great. in alternative routes, you know, like going don't go down will it go off one of the side speeds if you're walking or or or biking. Um the curb extension bullouts with ADA ramps are great. Um and they're great for suit safety and reducing speeds, but there's an unintended consequence to them, which is that the landscaping part of them. Some of them are concrete, but a lot of them are not. And the and the planting responsibility, maintenance falls to the owner of that property right there. And it's very much a mixed bag. Um, some are great, some are just dirt and weeds. And, um, that's an item, Jenny, for another day. So, that's my first item for for you to do on your things to look into, but um, that's been a a mixed bag a little bit. I'll need a second round, too.

You councelor Zanka. Um, I have councelor Kushinsky.

Thank you. and thank you for all your work. Um, it's very important to the community and thank you to EPD. I've actually gotten I know people noticing the increased enforcement and expressing appreciation for it. So, thank you. Um, speaking of sort of the enforcement piece of it, I know that there's been kind of vague talk about speeding and traffic light cameras. Um, do we have any sense of a timeline or if that's actually a thing that's going to happen? Anything? So, so I'll start and EPD is welcome to join me if they'd like. Um, but public works is coordinating with EPD and the municipal court on exploring a pilot program that would test red light cameras at up to three intersections. Um, now that's been a little bit logistically complicated uh partially because we need to hire new staff to support the operations of the program. you know, we're increasing the overall number of citations that would be issued and we want to make sure the court has appropriate staffing to deal with that increase and not just overwhelm them. Uh, additionally, EPD would need staff to review and approve the citations. Um, and so that's another piece, uh, you know, mixed in there that we need to resolve before moving forward with the program. Um, but yes, it's on our radar. um red light cameras in the state of Oregon, you can legally do speed enforcement off them as well. So that would be the intention to do red light camera enforcement and speeding enforcement off of the off of the cameras.

Thank you. Um and second question, one of the things that I noticed uh in the crash report for this year was that three out of the four fatalities related uh for motor vehicles were actually motorcycles. um which in a lot of ways, you know, like a bicyclist, like a pedestrian, they don't have a steel barrier surrounding them. Um it is that proportion of the vehicle crashes being motorcycle crashes true in past years or was this year some sort of anomaly?

It can fluctuate over time, but I that is something that was notable to us as well as it stood out that three of the four motor vehicle crashes were motorcycles. Um, so I agree with you. It's an interesting notable thing to to think about. Um, and then when we're looking at potentially reducing speed limits, are we pairing that with infrastructure changes to drivers that this is a road that you should be driving slower on or are we more looking for places where people are exceeding what the safe speed for the road is?

So oftentimes the goal is both. oftentimes the goal is both to do speed limit changes and longer term infrastructure changes, but the timelines aren't always in alignment with those two things. Um the speed limit setting process in the state of Oregon um is essentially we put in a speed zone investigation request with ODOT and they deploy staff to do the the methodology um that is uh in the speed zone manual. uh they'll do the data collection, they'll do the analysis, they'll come to the conclusion about what road what speed limit they think is appropriate for the roadway um and either approve or deny what we've requested. Now, at that point, if if we get a denial, we have the ability to do an appeal process. Um but, you know, there's there's no guarantee that they're going to come to the same conclusion that we would. Um and we're kind of beholden to what what speed limits ODOT approves for our roadways. So that timeline is is more of uh a data analysis uh is kind of a a data analysis window. Whereas with construction projects, the timeline is really dictated by when can we get funding and the process of having staff develop the design drawings and and the contracting process and the construction process. So, it's usually a much longer term process getting to a construction um a roadway safety project uh being constructed.

And I'm I may be misremembering something I heard a long time ago, but is ODOT's speed limit setting process based on the speeds that people are currently driving on the road? Yeah, that's a big piece of it.

Okay. So, it's we run into a little bit of a chicken and egg. If we want people to slow down, but they're still going fast, ODOT's going to say that's the speed they're going, so that's what the limit should be. Okay. And then I think uh this is my last question um that I have right now. Um I know a lot of the streets that these uh fatal crashes were on were arterials. I know that we've had uh several uh fatal crashes recently that involved uh one-way streets with two lanes. um is that something that's being looked at as part of this is how do we address you know is that a significant factor and how do we address that? So, on the on the topic of the two-lane oneways, um the the Hilliard location, the ETH and Hillyard location where the fatal crash occurred in August, um we had already had long-term plans to eventually two-way that section of roadway. So, that's already on our radar radar for two-waying in the future. Um other locations are going to need to be evaluated on a more case-byase basis. Um, and our TSP update that we're going to be starting uh late this year, early next year, is a good opportunity to potentially do that larger scale systemic evaluation of which one-way streets might be appropriate for two-way conversion in the long term. Um, additionally, since um, those crashes occurred, we've done uh, a data analysis uh, process to try identifying which marked crossings do have more than one travel lane moving in the same direction. Um, you know, our our first crosswalk inventory that we've ever had was developed uh just last year with the with the assistance of uh aerial image scanning technology. And so we now have

this new crosswalks layer. We were able to do some data analysis to really refine, okay, here's a comprehensive list of everything where that configuration even exists. All of our marked crosswalks where that configuration exists. And so we've gone through and we've done some review and staff have identified signage and striping improvements um that we want to p pursue for a lot of those locations. So it's on our radar to make some adjustments. Um it's a matter of finding the funding um to to implement them. Thank you and thank you again for all the work on this. Thank you, councelor Kushinsky. Up to councelor clerk.

Thank you, Madam President, and thank you very much for the presentation. I appreciate all the information. Um, oddly, you just said in response in answer to councelor Zelena's question. You may I don't want to I don't want to put words in your mouth. Maybe you can remember your exact response, but I think you said uh we and I assume you mean public works, we know that um our our homeless population are particularly vulnerable to potential crash scenarios. My question is how do you know that?

Well, so the crash data itself does not um include housing status. So when a crash happens, law enforcement fills out a form that is a state standardized form and it doesn't have a box where you check the housing status of the individual. But nonetheless, um we do talk with our colleagues at EPD. Every time a fatal crash occurs, we have uh a debrief meeting um to go over some of the the factors that were at play, talk about the location. EPD walks us through what happened. And so we have transportation planners and engineers there to to talk through whether there are any potential things that could have um uh improved the the the circumstance, reduced risk, and um during those conversations, it's not uncommon for us to talk about the housing status of the individual, even if it's not officially formally recorded data.

Gotcha. Gotcha. That helps us understand that. Thank you for that. Um I wonder it it's everything that we seem to be doing and we're spending multiple millions doing it seems to be towards the goal of creating of issues that deal with proximity and speed. Would you say that's from pedestrians and and the travel lanes? Would you say that's correct? That's a big piece of it. are am I missing part of it in in terms of overall safety efforts?

So speed um kind of proximity of bikes and pedestrians to vehicles. There's also you know things that could be said to managing turn conflicts between vehicles themselves to present uh to prevent vehicle versus vehicle crashes. Um we could talk about lighting, visibility, things of that nature.

Sure. The reason I asked the question is because it occurs to me and I would I would be very interested in more data on causation as some of my colleagues have made reference to. But it seems like we're spending a lot of money efing entirely towards changing the expectations and behaviors of drivers and and I haven't heard anything about what what we might do with p with the expectations and behaviors of pedestrians that might aid in our all our mutual goal to try and reduce traffic fatalities in with with this type of of conflict.

Yeah, I I think you you rais a good point. Um, on the pedestrian side of things, we've been talking recently, you know, and like I said, the Vision Zero intersection study doesn't have any materials to show quite yet, but like I said earlier, we did start doing some some data collection around things like pedestrian push button usage, where pedestrians and bikes are crossing outside of crosswalks. Um, so we're we're getting some interesting data points on that front and um, we're still in the data analysis phase. We're going to have to talk about project recommen recommendations with the engineering firm we're working at with uh, when we get to that interval, but there there's some interesting lessons to learn from from some of that data. I I I think

well and that brings me to my larger point which I guess is a comment that I will say which is we as a city are spending multiple multiple multiple millions of dollars to come to a solution on our goal less people harmed on the roadways and that's a great goal and all of us share it. But it seems like we're spending a lot of money and making a lot of efforts before we have the best knowledge of what causes the problem. And for me that it seems like, you know, we're taking the prescription before we do a thorough analysis. So I'm I I have a little bit of concern with us spending this much money before we thoroughly examine why do most crashes happen. Thank you. Thank you, councelor Clark. I have council.

Thank you so much. Thank you, staff. So, I'll start first with what I appreciate. I first I really appreciate staff's grant writing. I um you know, my ward in particular has been a recipient of some of that grant funding for pedestrian and bike infrastructure and folks really appreciate it. Um some especially those blinky crosswalks. Uh they're very popular at least in my ward. So, uh, I want to just thank people for the time that it takes to write those grants and for going after them. Um, the second is I want to thank you for your strategy of looking for opportunities to take existing projects through a vision zero lens and seeing what can we add to those projects that we're already doing that we're already putting money into. Fantastic. I think we should be doing that all the time. Um, I think that's the right strategy. And I also want to appreciate how you use crash rather than accident. shifting our thinking away from these um incidents being random, unpredictable things that hap, tragedies that happen to us to seeing them as preventable through behavior change and street design is what we really need to do. Um that's what the data shows us. These are not random. They are preventable and we can invest funds that will make a tangible difference and save lives. Um so yes, definitely thank you for all of that. you know, the mayor wasn't able to do be here today, but I had an opportunity to talk to her earlier about about this because it's one of her major priority issues and one of the things she's actively working on is piloting lighter and quicker ways for us to um intervene and make adjustments in our streets. So my question is along those lines, I know other cities have and we've talked a little bit at this table about these mobile like traffic calming kits that they can take out and kind of pilot for a little while, see how it works, see if the neighborhood likes it. I'm wondering if we have had a chance to look into that at this point. the the closest thing we've done to that at this point is um there's been uh a

number of projects where we construct quick build style projects out of flexible vertical delineators. Um so an example of that would be the the roundabout we constructed out of flexible delineators at Clark and Adams a number of years ago. Um we've done some curb extensions constructed from flexible delineators in the past. Um, we don't have any, uh, materials that are for like a day setup or a week setup or anything like that. Um, it's something we can think about and get back to you on.

Yeah, I would appreciate that. I I I know people are often a little hesitant to like jump into a big change in their neighborhood, but being able to pilot it for a few weeks and see how it really works and what, you know, does it change behaviors? does it slow people down and whatnot? I think could be really helpful and make people more confident in those investments as they're, you know, making plans, especially maybe not on our larger streets, but some of the smaller neighborhoods where they're having conversations about about these types of investments. Um, so yeah, I'd appreciate hearing back. Um, and I I um I appreciate having the slides that that incorporated both the fatalities and the serious injuries. Would have been nice to have some of that at the beginning so the community could also kind of see that. I I realize that makes the graphs harder to do because there are a lot more serious injuries than there are fatalities, which is a good thing. But those serious injuries, it's part of vision zero, right? We don't want these lifealtering um injuries happening because they are I'm going to need another round. I'm gonna need another round. So, thank you.

Thank you, councelor. Yay. Um I have council Evans online. Thanks, Council President. I appreciate the opportunity to ask these these questions. Uh, I have a lot of them, so it I may have to bump into round two. So, going back to um some initial comments that you made in your presentation uh about the Franklin Boulevard roundabout, um my understanding after having some conversations with people a few weeks ago is that um the remedy for um the traffic issues that we're seeing on Franklin Boulevard in front of um the arena and uh the university has not been settled on. Is that correct? Uh we have not decided whether we're going to put a roundabout there or not.

Rob, do you want to come up here and speak to Franklin? One moment.

Okay. Afternoon, councelor Evans, members of the council. I'm Rob Interfeld, transportation planning manager. We are still doing the traffic analysis to confirm that the roundabouts will function as intended. It's turned out to be more complex than we anticipated. So, that's where we're at right now. We want to make sure we get it right. And that's the thing we committed to the community was that we're only going to move forward with the roundabouts if we are 100% sure that they're going to work as anticipated. So the traffic modeling, it's complex because it has the but we have the MX bus rapid transit going through the middle and we're putting a lot of there's a lot we're trying to accomplish with the project in terms of making the street safe, having the MX and still having a corridor that works well for for all modes of transportation. Does that answer your question, Councelor Evans? Yeah, to a certain degree. Um, and I appreciate that, Rob. Uh, but I'll throw in a a caveat of my own. Uh, if you don't can't use it at Franklin Boulevard, I want it on Highway 99 at four quarters. So, just keep that in mind because I think that that would be one of the critical solutions that uh we could apply to deal with some of the traffic issues that we have going on in that corridor. But moving on from that, um, lighting is another issue and I understand that we're going to have some light lighting changes along Highway 9. Uh, I've seen some of that on the bridge coming over that we're starting to do that implementation, but can you talk a little bit more about that? And then also um my concern is is how does this align with the concerns

that have been expressed at city council by various people about um our conflict with uh the night sky uh people and night sky issue.

Sure. Thanks for the question. Um the lighting project on Highway 99 I think has a lot of promise to to help some of the challenges we've had out there. Um, like I said before, we're adding new street lighting on sections of Highway 99 that don't currently have it, that are within our jurisdiction. Um, so for anyone who doesn't know, uh, the city of Eugene has jurisdiction of Highway 99, uh, till approximately a few hundred feet south of Belt Line. Um, and so there are certain sections, particularly the the northern side of that that don't have street lighting currently. We're adding more street lighting. And then as I mentioned, we're taking the existing LEDs for the segment from approximately Roosevelt to that northern extent. Um, and we're converting them to brighter LEDs. Um, and so that is going to help brighten up the corridor, help with pedestrian visibility at night, uh, which should help with the crash circumstances. Now, I know that there are many folks in the community who have concerns about light pollution and um and I will say LEDs thankfully have more downward focus than older street lighting technology. Um so we're going to lose less of the lighting upwards and it's going to be more directional downwards. Um so that's certainly going to be helpful there. Uh if anyone has concerns about light incursion into something like a like a motel room for example, um we can do shields on the back sides of the lighting to help prevent some of that spread backwards toward the building. Uh but overall the safety needs on Highway 99 are substantial. It's um staggering the loss of life that we've had out there and I think that the street lighting is is going to help. it's one intervention that can help the the traffic safety situation out there and and so it feels like a really important priority for us. Um

so two things along along those same lines with that. Um one is has staff had any kind of uh conversations with the night sky advocates? That's one. to um you in terms of overall safety, one of the things that I've uh been advocating for particularly with uh in in concert with vision zero is uh education for pedestrians and bicyclists about wearing reflective gear. And I wanted to know, have we had any analysis about what it would take for the city to invest in uh being able to provide re relective gear like vests or things like that uh for bicyclists and for pedestrians who are regularly uh uh transiting our uh corridors at night?

Well, I'll start with your second question. Um we participate in a regional partnership that does exactly that. Um the CNC and BCN campaign uh we hold regionally around daylight savings in the fall and uh the city of Eugene in partnership with Elco and other transportation organizations in our area. We distribute free bike lights, uh free safety vests, pedestrian reflectors that you can clip on backpacks. We give out a lot of free materials. Um, and a lot of it goes towards social service providers. Um, so we do a big outreach effort with the social pro service providers every fall as things start getting darker to try pushing out those materials to folks. Um, and it's something we we do annually and we plan to continue doing it annually. Um, on the dark Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

Go ahead. And I appreciate those efforts. I just really think that we need to have a more aggressive Well, you're out of time, Councelor Evans. Anyway, so we will move on and um I'm going to put myself in the queue. Um we've known for a long time that the River Road Corridor is one of our highest crash corridors, corridors without um reflective gear. I think we had a little bit of a technical difficulty there. Do I have more time to respond to him? Sure. If he's there. Yeah. Um

I can't see a clock. So, councelor, you're out of time, but um staff are going to continue to respond to your question. Well, just to chime in, we'll be down for round two. Uh uh council president. Okay. I can hold my comment if if we want to. Oh, go ahead and then then we'll get to round two when it comes back around. Okay. Well, I just wanted to quickly say to the your night your first night skies question, we haven't specifically engaged with any community advocates related to the highway 999 lighting project at this point. I I don't believe um but that's certainly something we can do. I would like to see that.

Thank you for um adjusting there with us with the tech issues. Um so, back to River Road. Um we've known that it's a high crash corridor and in desperately in need of a lot of um pedestrian safety improvements. Um as a council I think back in 2023 we moved forward and voted uh to to approve the enhanced corridor um kind of MX um improvements and I we haven't gotten an update on that for a good while. I'm I'm curious if you have a little bit of a brief update just status-wise. Um, I know a lot of that work is dependent on federal funding. Um, but also how these proposed improvements um can complement that future work. Um, or if there's any thing that we need to think about in terms of adjustments there. Um, and then I have I I will pause there and then continue. I think the River Road corridor study that we're doing this year is a good opportunity to look for infrastructure changes that can help support that enhanced transit service that we're envisioning for River Road in the long term. Um, for example, I know some of the transit efficiency improvements we're going to be looking at with that corridor study are really focused on trying to solve the um the uh question of how we get the bus through around the beltline interchange um during periods of congestion. Um how we can support better movement through that area and and that would help with frequency of bus service. Um, so I I think the corridor study is related to that and I think it's going to help refine some of our thinking on how we get to being able to deliver that more frequent transit service on uh, River Road. Um, Rob, do you have anything you want to add related to moving ahead?

We literally had the kickoff meeting this morning with that project. So, we're really excited. We have a great team of consultants on board and we'll be looking at a range of options for making the quarter safer. We have over a little over $2 million from the Central Lane M Central Lane MO for implementing what comes out of the River Road and Highway 99 study and there will be ample opportunities for public engagement. But we've already heard a lot from the community about the moving ahead and other processes about what the problems are. So, we want to make sure that we're taking all the information we've already have and not asking people to keep telling us what's wrong with it. And so, we're probably going to do a little less of the asking what the problem is than we have in the past. But we also know, you know, moving ahead was almost like 10 years ago that we did a lot of that public engagement. We know that at that time not everyone was involved and that also the populations definitely turned over a bit too. So, we're going to keep that in mind. That answer your

Yes. Thank you so much. Kickoff this morning. That's amazing. Um, good timing. Uh, yeah. I mean, I think that's really smart. We've I've seen decades worth of surveys in the neighborhood, the River Road, Santa Clara neighborhoods. Um, and it all very much aligns across time of what people want in that corridor. And it is walking, biking safety, and it's not something that we currently have. Um, I I would love to speak more towards that intersection, um, the Beltline area. It is extremely congested and people are very confused. there's a lot of movement in between the lanes without a lot of signaling because people are trying to get over to be able to turn right on Division Avenue. Um, and so I'm curious about the placement of the roundabout that you're proposing on Division. Is it is it the River Road Division corner or is it further up Division?

It's further up Division. So, it's uh the commercial driveway close to Burger King, if you can visualize where that is. And then down at the intersection with Lone Oak, which is closer to the Taco Bell. Um, and those are two of the higher crash intersections along the corridor. We've had a lot of severe crashes over the years involving turn movements in and out of those B busy commercial shopping centers. So, the roundabouts should help mitigate those turn conflicts.

Thank you for that. Um, I agree that that curve comes around. I think people are going a bit fast there, so that should slow them down. But just the one thing that I was most excited about, I live closer on River Road towards the Northwest Expressway intersection. It's also one that I've seen many many crashes on. Um, and the fact how how fast people can get even within just a short amount of time because it feels like that highway. Um, and the enhanced corridor option really looked a little bit more at what is it possible to put a median in here to make it feel less highway like and more like a residential neighborhood. Um, so I'm I'm very excited that we're moving forward with some projects that moving ahead is kind of getting going um with with more enhancements um along that corridor. Um I yeah kind of going back to that dark sky international lighting. I totally understand that that highway 99 area needs as much lighting as we can give it. It is so dark there. Um but is that if I if there's enough interest on this council to kind of investigate where we can look into the dark sky approved type of lighting. The thing that I I think has been really compelling for me and I'm sorry I'm I'm over time now too. So, I'm going to put myself actually back in the queue. Um, there's nobody to stop me. I'm running the show here. Um, so I'm going to put myself back in the queue. I'm going to go back to the top to councelor Groves for second round.

Thank you, Council President. Risk management 101. If it's predictable, it's preventable. And anytime we put a pedestrian or a bicyclist in a traffic lane, we are increasing the risk and opportunity and probability of conflict and a bad outcome. So we we need to be looking, I think, at all of our road designs, how we separate people. I'm always envious when I drive into Springfield and see Pioneer Parkway that really has a good separation of space for pedestrians and bicyclists from the two double travel lanes. Um, my next point too is just reinforcing what I said earlier and I think councelor Clark brought up the issue and you responded, "Well, we talk to police. That's how we know." That gets back to the point I made in my first round. speak with your public safety folks and fire and police. They see this all the time. They know what's happening out there, whether there's data to support it or not. They see it day after day after day. So, I think that that's a really good source of information. It's certainly something I draw on. And uh that's another piece. Uh, third point I wanted to make, uh, I agree with councelor Keading that I think if roundabouts had been in the vote, we might not have passed our last road bond. Um, the public I speak with are not in favor of roundabouts. Now, at the same time, I'm thrilled to hear ones coming in on Bailey Hill Road in Burlesen. That is a dangerous stretch of road. We have a Wild Irish Ridge Trail trail trail head there, parking on both sides of the street. And we have vehicles traveling in both directions with a little thin line between them traveling 55 miles an hour. That's 110 mph closure. You have a a wreck at that speed, they aren't survivable. Uh I am

thrilled. I also sit on MPC and we rep prioritized in our last meeting uh with our priority for ODOT projects. We put in our top five the uh section of belt line between Roosevelt and West 11th which is Highway 126. Right now it's one lane in each direction narrow line. I know I've personally cut people out of car wrecks on that. Uh and again it's the same thing. 110 mph closure speeds uh are not survivable. So that's something um that will be state funding, but and there's no funding assigned to it yet, but something I think we need to keep pushing for as a city. That's that's a dangerous stretch of roadway. Um a question I have uh on the speed limits now ODOT, they don't affect local streets. It's just collectors and arterials, correct? So, so technically ODOT regulates all streets uh regardless of whether we own them um or or they own them. Uh now they legislatively enabled cities to lower the speed limit 5 miles hour below the statutory speed for local residential streets uh a number of years ago. That also applies to collector residential streets. Um, and then we, as many of you probably remember, came to council and wanted to pursue the 20 is plenty project that did the widespread speed limit lowering down to 20 for our local residential streets and and we needed to do that uh via council ordinance uh because the state requirements uh are are are structured that way. uh for anything that uh we need to for anything that's not covered in that we basically need to go through the the speed limit setting methodology with ODOT. There's a

little bit more nuance to it than that. Um but essentially doing an investigation with ODOT or working with them to revert a designated speed limit to a statutory speed limit. Um getting their approval through the either of those processes is is required. Okay, thank you. That helps. I I hadn't heard that detailed of an explanation before. So, um and then another question I had Oh, shoot. I'm out of time again. Uh speed trailers, any plans to purchase more of those? They seem to be pretty effective in raising awareness.

EPD EPD does have plans to buy a couple more. I don't know if anyone wants to speak to that, but they're Yep. Here we go. Hang on one moment. All right, we reeled one in. Sorry, can you repeat the question really quick so I make sure I answer it correctly? Yes. Is there any uh plans to add additional speed trailers? Um they seem to like they work really well for raising awareness especially in neighborhoods.

Yeah, definitely. Right now, currently, we're approved for and we're looking for buying two more. And these two have been upgraded uh with real-time data. So, we can um we can simply with the subscription that it comes with pull through time of day action intelligible information in real time as to how many cars are traveling through and exactly the speed they're traveling at in that area at that time. Okay, that'd be helpful. They need phasers, too. Yeah, that's the upgrade. We haven't got that. Right.

Thank you, Councelor Groves, and thank you. Um, we have 15 minutes left. I have six uh people in the Q4 round two. If we can just um keep it as minimal as possible. Um, I have councelor Keating.

Thank you, Council President. Captain, you may want to you may want to come up the hot seat again or deputy chief, whoever wants to take this one. Um, piggybacking on Council Grove's uh, Guardian Trailers inquiry, I've had constituents reach out asking for these Guardian trailers in their community, and it's my understanding in communication with Chief Skinner that there's an antiquated policy that uh, references neighborhood association chairs or co-chairs as being the go-to responsible party to make such a request. that that request doesn't necessarily fall on individual counselors. Yet, that policy may be evolving hopefully to allow for more transparency or greater accessibility to whoever can make that request. Either I I don't know what a fix would look like, but could you comment on the existing policy and perhaps the re the potential for reshaping said policy, please? Yeah, councelor. Thank you. Um, just for a point of clarification, are you referring to the guardian trailers or the radar the reader boards?

The radar reader. So, I might I might be mistaken in my Yeah. Yeah. Whatever one tracks the speed

tracking the speed. Okay. Uh, it's my understanding we don't have an actual policy in place regarding the reader uh the radar reader boards. Uh, we have processes in place and this is probably what you're referencing. Um we're certainly open to uh creating space where the community can reach out to the police department and we can make priorities. I think the the biggest thing is one resources. I mean we we are uh getting two more uh so that would give us a total of four. So we we have to prioritize based on critical needs and safety areas. And so that gives us the ability to do that based on uh who's reaching out and the requests that are being made. So, as a part of this of the initiative for 2026, we're going to be doing uh monthly meetings with our stakeholders, assessing priorities for critical need areas. And so, that could be a good opportunity to assess those requests that come in uh regularly. So, right now, I think it's they reach out to community engagement team and we can uh process those as needed.

That's encouraging to hear. So, thank you for for uh framing the the evolution of of of of how we might be able to make such requests in the future. Um, I do have a comment and slashquest about the high priority hightraic areas and I applaud it. I applaud the work. I thank you all for the work. But I also want to recognize as someone who who who walks his dog to the tune of 15,000 steps or so a day, I see um I see hot spots and potential predictable dangerous areas throughout the community I live in in South Eugene. Um from where I'm at uh on 30th and Agot all the way down to Tugman Park, all the way down to the VT um Y South Eugene area uh South Eugene High area, Roosevelt Middle School area. Um, I see great potent or potentially dangerous spots and spots that have been informed by local residents expressing their concern to me, but they aren't exactly hightra areas. 32nd and Onyx, for example, comes to a tea. There's no visible yield sign, and community members are clamoring for a stop sign. Yet it doesn't I don't know what metric it needs to reach in order to secure a stop sign in the future at a at an intersection like a 30 East 32nd and Onyx. What's the process that a community member can go through to ask for a study or indicate more qualitatively the danger though it might not meet a quantitative metric. So, um, neighbors regularly write in requesting stop signs. They call and we refer those requests to the traffic operations group in public works maintenance. They do what they what's called a stop sign warrants analysis to evaluate um, whether a two-way stop or a

four-way stop is appropriate for the location. Um, do you want to speak a bit to the methodology that's involved in a a stop? Yeah. council. My name is Christina Sherbat, traffic engineer for public works engineering. Um, so I have not fielded many of these at the city of Eugene. Um, the whole thing. Yeah, thank you.

Um, usually there are minimum volumes that need to be met, but you know, often times when we get these requests, we can look at them from a different as well. If those minimum volumes aren't being met, we can look at other issues that might so there's a way that they can they can call us, they can submit uh requests online. They have a variety Okay, thank you. And then if I could just close with um a question about the future of traffic safety in our community. Is your department doing anything to get ahead of AI Whimo automated drivers on our streets and the dangers that might be coming with AI? Uh to be honest with you, we haven't had many conversations about autonomous vehicles. Um we haven't had Whimo approach us as they have some communities and so it hasn't really come knocking at our door yet. Um to the maximum extent we have talked about it, the city's electric vehicle strategy has a little bit of content in it about AI and or excuse me, not AI, autonomous vehicles. Um, and it's it just vaguely references kind of doing more policy work in the future. Like I said, it hasn't really come knocking at our door yet, so we haven't had a lot of robust conversation about it thus far to be honest with you.

It's in the trans plan. Thank you. Thank you, council person. Thank you, councelor Kading. Um, we are starting to run out of time and I we are not going to get through our queue today. I see I know that I have a lot more questions. I see a lot of people my colleagues have a lot more questions. Um do we have a plan to come back to this topic um in another work session? Not sure who the best person to answer that is. I'm happy to come if I'm if I'm asked to come.

Matt can join us, but we're at the council's direction. We're happy to look at our tenative agenda and schedule something if that's the council's desire. We'll just have to prioritize. I think um if I can get some nods, I would love to make a motion um right now to um have another work session on this topic just for more information so that we can get our all of our uh questions answered. Um so second

thank you councelor Zelinka for that second. Um does there any discussion on that? All right, I will take a vote like we are 80 to come back um to talk more about this uh topic. Thank you so very much. Um it's very very interesting. It's a very timely topic. Um and so much amazing work that's being done and that's why we want to learn more. So, um, thank you for your presentation and if I may, new city manager, if you have any reflecting uh comments at this last two minutes,

um, other than other than very happy to be here, I want to be sensitive of everyone's time and that we have meetings. Uh, but thank you. This was actually a very great experiment uh to see where you all are in terms of priorities and also uh great job to the staff that gave a lot of context uh for me coming in on my first day. So, thank you. Thank you so much. Um and with that um I conclude our agenda for today and I now close the April 15th.

Yep. Um, I now close the April 15th, 2026 city council work session. We are joined. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat.