LUBA 076/077 VOL 2 of 2 - Laserfiche WebLink

• Eugene Planning Commission September 11, 2015 Page 12 However, as highlighted in Mr. Weishar's testimony above, Oakleigh Lane need not be improved to be safe. It is like many streets in the River Road area that lack curbs, gutters and sidewalks and provide for unsegregated parking, and travel by cyclists, vehicles and pedestrians, but which encourage safe driving due to these factors. In fact, while the opponents urge that queuing streets must have sidewalks to conform to City standards, the "Neighborhood . Street Design Guidelines they, submitted reflects that "narrow streets" - "provide a place for human interaction: a place where children play, neighbors meet, and residents go for walks and bicycle rides." These kinds of narrower residential streets are well-known to result in slower traffic and increased safety. The Eugene Local Street Plan states: "Narrow streets increase traffic safety. Narrow street designs will discourage the use if local streets by through traffic and help reduce volumes and speeds. This will help to create quiet, safe residential streets with low traffic volumes and speeds. According to Residential Streets, published in 1990 by -the American Society of. Civil Engineers, the National Association of Homebuilders, and the Urban Land Institute, "Excessive widths... encourage greater vehicle speeds." Lower vehicle speeds will also reduce the severity. of pedestrian automobile accidents. According to the Center for Urban Transportation Research, approximately 55% of accidents are fatal to the pedestrian when vehicle speeds are 30 mph and over, while only 576 are; fatal to the pedestrian when vehicle speeds are 20 mph or lower." Local Street Plan, p. 47. • Moreover, a 2005 evaluation of street design concepts by the Sacramento Transportation & Air Quality Collaborative indicated that both narrower streets and streets with on-street parking were safer: "Research shows that narrower streets result in slower travel speeds. For example, a recent study conducted in the City of Longmont, . Colorado (population 72,000) looked at 20,000 police collision reports to determine the effect of street design in contributing to accidents. The most significant relationship between injury accidents and street design was found. to be with street width and curvatures. As streets widen, accidents per mile increase exponentially. Additional research has found that: • Wider streets experience higher average and 85th percentile speeds than narrow streets. Residents' perception of the impact of traffic on quality of life correlates strongly and negatively with speeds Where speeds are high, residents are more likely to perceive a degraded quality of life. • On-street parking significantly affects speeds.. On-street parking on both sides if the street- visually narrows the street for those traveling along it. High parking densities on narrow streets can dramatically reduce travel speeds. Narrow streets with low parking density have an effective width • similar to wide streets with high parking density. Narrow streets with high 315 435