Land Use Proposal, 1400 Cross Street, Eugene, Oregon <br />Written testimony for the Planning Commission by Fred Tepfer <br />I have lived at 1380 Bailey Avenue in Eugene since 1979. In general I have vigorously <br />supported density increases and enhancement of the diversity of uses in this and most <br />other Eugene neighborhoods. We love our corner of Whiteaker for its diversity of people, <br />ages, incomes, and outlooks. More than most other parts of Eugene, we live among the <br />social justice concerns that we embrace. <br />With respect to this application, I neither fully support nor fully oppose it. I have several <br />concerns that I believe need to be addressed, before action is taken, to preserve the <br />livability of the neighborhood. I have also identified concerns with notification and with <br />technical issues in the staff report that the Planning Commission should be aware of <br />before action is taken. <br />Concern #1: Transportation Issues <br />Transportation for our corner in NW Whiteaker is unusual in that several entire streets <br />(North Polk, Cross Place, Bailey Avenue, and Cross) have no access to the street system <br />other than into a single collector, Railroad Blvd. It was already indicated as marginal in <br />terms of capacity in the Transportation System Plan of 2012. <br />Our situation is made worse by the very unusual configuration of our intersections on <br />Railroad Blvd. Rather than 90 degree corners, the extreme 45 degree angles make it <br />difficult to see oncoming traffic without turning perpendicular to Railroad. Left turns off <br />of North Polk, for instance, now require blocking the pedestrian crossing of Polk in order <br />to get an adequate view. The turns from Cross can be even worse. <br />The result is severe congestion for residents of this area at the Polk/Railroad intersection, <br />especially during morning rush hour, often severe enough to make people late for work or <br />for school, and long waits (over a minute). This is not a new problem, but it has become <br />significantly worse in the past fifteen years. It is much worse in the a.m. peak than in the <br />p.m. peak. That's also unusual relative to transportation engineering norms, so it doesn't <br />show up in a traffic engineering report. <br />Despite the quote of a traffic engineering consultant on page 19 of the staff report that the <br />transportation impacts of the proposed change would be insignificant, we know that's not <br />true, and adding major numbers of cars is a huge issue for us. I'm not a traffic engineer, <br />but my clear sense is that the only solutions involve some combination of straightening <br />out the intersections and adding at least one traffic signal. Since both of these are <br />expensive and invasive, I contend that they rise to the level of Goal 12 issues for the <br />