Roosevelt
Blvd.is a better connector between Beltline and 99, it
serves northwest Eugene neighborhoods better than WEP could. Some
local traffic would use Roosevelt, regional through traffic would bypass
on Belt Line.
transfer WEP money to finish Beltline,
fix Roosevelt / 99 intersection two options for completing Beltline: (1) if Peak Oil is here,
(2) if Peak Oil is not yet here. The larger option could convert
Beltline to an interstate highway - perhaps I-605?
transfer ODOT / City lands for WEP to BLM's
West Eugene Wetlands Project
new roads:
First - 99 - Second Connector, Barger Road Extended & Trainsong
Connector (to NW Expressway)
fix West
11th intersections (would cost about $2 million, the cost
to complete WEP study), other road repairs
bicycle paths and lanes, pedestrian safety enhanced by road test for
drivers license renewals
land use shifts to coordinate transit and development, mixed use centers,
co-housing neighborhoods
"Saving Oil in a Hurry" - practical steps
toward coping with sudden energy shortages, road safety, speed limits
upgrade Amtrak to enable high speed trains to Seattle
Second and Garfield: ideal location for Eugene's
new hospital (central
& accessible)
Peak Oil and climate change are "new circumstances" that requires reopening
the NEPA process
City of Eugene Adopted Growth Management Policies
violated by WEP
Endangered
Species Act: a "license to kill" - Road Kill: Fender's
Blue Butterfly and Car Fenders
controlled burning for wet prairie restoration incompatible with WEP
environmental
justice: WEP traffic dumped onto 6th and 7th would severely impact
Whiteaker neighborhood
plants of the West Eugene Wetlands - photos by Linda Swisher
Endangered
Species Act: a "license to kill" - Road Kill: Fender's
Blue Butterfly and Car Fenders
controlled burning for wet prairie restoration incompatible with WEP
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglass
- a letter that protected a
park from a parkway
sand
and gravel - impacts of an elevated WEP in the wetlands
Hidden History of the WEP: 1951
to 2008
The history of the half-century effort to build a freeway through
west Eugene has not distorted by the region’s media nor described
accurately in government agency publications. Most official stories ignore
the most important facts:
the earliest incarnation of the WEP was proposed in 1951
citizens stopped the earlier Roosevelt Freeway proposal in
1972
a citizens' lawsuit overturned the 1990 approval of the WEP
in federal court in 1996
the June 2001 consensus from the City of Eugene, Lane County,
ODOT, Federal Highway Administration and the BLM to select "No
Build" Then Mayor Jim Torrey, County Commissioner Bobby Green and Oregon Transportation Commissioner Randy Pape all agreed that the WEP could not be built at this meeting, although they prefer to pretend that this consensus did not happen. Despite this understanding, ODOT continued to spend millions to "study" the WEP after privately admitting that the highway would not prevail in Federal court and that the money was not there.
neither the November 2001 citizen vote in favor of WEP nor
the City Council vote in October 2005 to oppose the WEP have legal standing
over the project, since it is a Federal Highway Administration project
The 2006 decision to finally cancel the WEP Environmental Impact Statement was a FEDERAL decision, it was not made by the City of Eugene
a
short summary of WEP history:
1951 - Roosevelt Freeway first proposed on long term highway plans
1959 - Roosevelt Freeway included on 1959 regional development plan
1961 - Eugene voters pass charter amengment requiring public vote before
freeway planning could be done in Eugnee
1964 - Eugene voters repeal freeway charter amendment
1972 - Eugene voters amend City Charter to require city-wide vote on
future freeways, I-105 completed to 6th and 7th Avenues (after being stalled
at First for years)
1973 - Oregon Bill 100 passed by Legislature, Urban Growth Boundary
and Land Use planning systems created
1978 - T-2000 transportation plan includes early version of WEP, Roosevelt
Freeway not included, four options studied, including a "6th / 7th"
expressway and a "Whiteaker Bypass"
1985 - West Eugene Parkway EIS process starts, purpose and need written,
scoping of alternatives performed, first Draft EIS published
1986 - Supplemental Draft EIS, City Council endorses WEP, citizen’s
advisory vote praises WEP
2000 - State gas tax for roads rejected by 8 to 1, Supplemental Final
EIS stalled due to segmentation concerns
2001 - intergovernmental West Eugene Charette picks No Build, Citizen
vote recommends WEP 51-49
2002 - local governments change regional transportation plans to accommodate
more of WEP, a few confused anti-WEP activists promote worse version of WEP (designed by architecture firm Crandall Arambula)
2003 - EIS bogged down in bureaucracy and goes nowhere, ODOT scopes
several new designs for WEP without public notice or participation by
"cooperating agencies"
2004 - Kitty Piercy elected Mayor on anti-WEP platform, FHWA approves
"re-evaluation" of EIS, outgoing Mayor Torrey changes transportation
plans to include more of the WEP
2005 - new design for WEP unveiled that was rejected in 1985, City Council
removes support for WEP but holds on to highway reservations and keeps
agreement with ODOT to maintain part of the road
2006 - collaboration process started with Osprey Group (highway consultants),
FHWA, ODOT and City continue to move Final EIS toward conclusion, federal
lawsuits being prepared, the money is still not there, ODOT finally agrees to give up WEP
2007 - No Build formally selected by Federal Highway Administration, West Eugene Collaborative created to find a solution while ignoring the WETLANDS alternative
2008 - West Eugene Collaborative publishes a map of ideas for West Eugene that includes building half of the West Eugene Parkway
1951 to
1972: the Roosevelt Freeway
The ancestor of the WEP was the Roosevelt Freeway, an interstate highway
proposed in the 1950s through the Whiteaker and Bethel neighborhoods.
This highway was extremely controversial, especially after Interstate
105 crossed the Willamette river, tearing out part of the Whiteaker neighborhood.
I-105 was originally planned to slice through south Eugene along Amazon
Creek to connect with the 30th Street Expressway. The freeway revolts
of the 1960s succeeded in stopping this boondoggle, and forced the highway
department to terminate I-105 at 6th and 7th Streets.
www.ylekot.com/orehwys/i-105.html
I-105 was created as part of the Interstate System in 1956. The First
segment between Laura & Q Streets in Springfield and Coburg Road
in Eugene was built in 1960, the same time I-5 was built between Albany
and Eugene. I-105 is marked only on the portion of the Eugene-Springfield
Highway #227 west of I-5.
The segment between Coburg Road and Delta Highway in Eugene was built
in 1960, but did not open until 1966 with the completion of Delta Highway
by Lane County. Delta Highway was part of a freeway system constructed
by Lane County in the late 1960 that included the Belt Line Highway
#69. The Belt Line was swapped with the state for jurisdiction over
River Road which was Junction City-Eugene Highway #223.
In 1968, the “Washington-Jefferson Street Bridge” was opened
over the Willamette River with temporary ramps exiting at First Street
while the City of Eugene and the State wrangled over the final design
of the last segment of I-105 between First and Seventh Streets.
Just north of First Street is an overpass for the proposed but cancelled
Roosevelt Freeway which was to be the extension of OR 126 and the Florence-Eugene
Highway #62. In 1972, OR 126 was added to I-105 with the decommissioning
of OR 126. This coincided with the completion of the Springfield portions
of the Eugene-Springfield Highway #227 to the McKenzie Highway #15 in
1971.
In 1973, the final portion of I-105 was completed between First and
Seventh Streets as an Overhead with a park underneath. This includes
a covered basketball court under a portion of the freeway.
http://www.kurumi.com/roads/3di/i105.html
3.49 miles [5.6 kilometers] [1]; runs northwest from the I-5/OR 126
interchange in Eugene. The city of Eugene reports I-105 being completed
in 1961, the same time as I-5 in the area. [7] But the state DOT says
I-105 was completed in 1969. [8] Or 1970. [9]
Sources
7. City of Eugene [Ore.] Historic Preservation Program. "Transportation
and Communication." www.ci.eugene.or.us/PDD/Planning/eugenehistoric/eugenemodernism/02%20transportation.pdf
(31 Aug. 2003)
8. Oregon Department of Transportation. "Road User Fee Task Force
History." http://www.odot.state.or.us/ruftf/history.html (28 Sept.
2003)
9. Oregon Department of Transportation. "A chronological history
of ODOT: 1899 to 1993." http://www.odot.state.or.us/ssbpublic/bss/rmds/history/~chron.htm
(12 March 2004)
“Oregon’s rapid population and economic growth between 1985
and 2000 led to proposals for new freeways to meet traffic demands and
reduce congestion. Proposed projects included the Mount Hood Parkway,
the Sunrise Corridor and the Western Bypass in the Portland area and the
West Eugene Parkway in Eugene. For a variety of reasons including funding
constraints, environmental concerns and citizen opposition, none of the
projects was constructed.”
– Atlas of Oregon, p. 104
see www.cfst.org/articles/STIP_Sunrise_Comments.html and www.cfst.org/articles/TopTenReasonsNotSunriseFreeway.html
Mt. Hood Parkway was a proposed connection between I-84
and US 26. The Sunrise Freeway is a proposed expressway from Clackamas
(I-205) to Boring (US 26) outside the Portland UGB (it is still being
pushed as a core part of the recent UGB expansion around Damascus). The
Western Bypass would have run from I-5 south of I-205 to the Columbia
River, where it would have connected to I-5 north of Vancouver, WA. These
roads would have been parts of a de facto Portland Outer Beltway.
Myth: Oregon's planning laws hinder development of highways and other
large public facilities.
Reality: From 1979 to 1988, Oregon's Highway Division successfully completed
146 major transportation projects. Since Oregon's planning program
began (in 1973), only two large project proposals have failed: the Mt.
Hood Freeway (east of Portland) and the Roosevelt Freeway (in Eugene).
A 1988 study by a multi-agency committee found “the overall
record of siting public facilities in Oregon to be good – probably
much better than that found in other states.” www.uoregon.edu/~pppm/landuse/myths.html
Department of Land Conservation and Development DLCD, 1992
official
history of WEP's early incarnations
West Eugene Parkway
Supplemental Needs Analysis
Lane Council of Governments
for the City of Eugene
and Oregon Department of Transportation
September 1994
A. History
As the Eugene community grew from 35, 900 population in 1950 to 117,000
in 1993, development has continued to expand westward in a carefully
planned (sic) manner. Annexation history shows that Eugene expanded
its boundaries west from Chambers Street to Bailey Hill Road during
the 1940's, from Bailey Hill to Bertelsen Road in the 1950's, from Bertelsen
to Terry Street in the 1960's, and from Terry to Greenhill Road in the
1980s. Accompanying those boundary changes were extension of key urban
level services and westward expansion of industrial zoning. Residential
development continued in the Bethel-Danebo neighborhood and in the Churchill
High School region in southwest Eugene. The current urban growth boundary
(UGB) extends west to Greenhill Road and southwest into the Willow Creek
drainage basin. The west Eugene region represents the City's major area
of existing and future industrial use.
The need for an east-west thoroughfare dates back to at least 1951
when the early concept for a Franklin Boulevard connector to Highway
126 at Greenhill Road was contemplated. All three Eugene comprehensive
land use plans [1959 Development Plan (1959), 1990 Plan (1972), and
the Metropolitan Plan (1987)] have incorporated an east-west limited
access facility through the west Eugene region. All three comprehensive
land use plans have increased the industrial and commercial designations
further westward.
By the early 1970s, planning for the Roosevelt Freeway had been completed
and some right-of-way had been purchased. Due to changing community
awareness and attitudes, the adoption of the T-2000 Plan in 1978 replaced
the Roosevelt Freeway with a new corridor in the alignment of 6th and
7th Avenues. Comprehensive transportation planning, environmental impact
analysis, highway design, right-of-way purchase, and construction can
take 10-15 years for an urban project of the Parkway's magnitude. Since
th eupdate to T-2000 in 1978, it has taken 15 years to get to the wetland
permit phase of the Parkway project. Interim improvements to W. 11th
Avenue and other facilities have to temporarily mitigate traffic growth
problems during the past two decades, but the capacity of existing facilities
is projected to be exceeded during the next two decades. The Parkway
will be needed during that period to avoid level of service F (gridlock)
on W. 11th Avenue.
[Note: the 1990 Final EIS predicted LOS F on West 11th by the year
1996, which was an exaggerated claim.]
Transportation Plans [1960 Highway Study for year 1980-85, Eugene-Springfield
Area Transportation Study Interim Report (E-SATS) in 1967, and the transportation
plans mentioned previously] have all identified a need for a limited
access facility serving west Eugene. The early plans extended I-105
across the Willamette River to connect with the Roosevelt alignment
through west Eugene, but construction of the Valley River Center in
the late 1960s obstructed that route. The E-SATS (1967 study) selected
corridor extended from Interstate 5 along the south bank of the Willamette
River through downtown and through the Whiteaker neighborhood following
the "Roosevelt Freeway" route through west Eugene. Based on
E-SATS, the state bought rights-of-way for this facility. Community
opposition to negative impacts on the Willamette River Greenway and
the Whiteaker and Roosevelt neighborhoods resulted in changes to this
route in the late 1960s and early 1970's. By the time T-2000 was adopted
in 1978, the Roosevelt corridor was replaced by a combination of 6th-7th
Avenue improvements and an extension of the West Eugene Parkway through
the west Eugene industrial area. TransPlan reflects the Parkway route
with justification of its need for improved access, economic development,
level of service needs, operational needs at intersections, truck traffic
and safety reasons.
Note: the 2005 "Couplet" alternative would complicate
access to a large area of the industrial zone, would cause as much economic
displacement as development, make some traffic congestion issues worse,
do nothing to fix deficient geometry at numerous existing intersections,
complicate truck access to numerous industrial zone businesses, and further
clog dangerous areas on Oregon 126 (across the lake), 6th and 7th Avenues,
and west 11th intersections with north-south feeder roads. ....
The alternatives for a route for the east-west facility have changed
from a Roosevelt route to a 6th - 7th/Parkway route over the past 25
years. The T-2000 and TransPlan processes examined "no build"
alternatives and impacts on existing facilities without future highway
improvements ...
D. Eugene Zoning (c. 1948)
The first major comprehensive zoning for the City of Eugene was adopted
in 1948. The City's major industrial zone was located along the W. 6th
an W. 7th Avenues corridor, and industrial zoning extended westward
to City View, approximately where Highway 99 curves northwesterly at
the "Big Y" intersection.
E. State Origin and Destination Study (1951)
The Oregon State Highway Department completed a 1951 origin and destination
study which recommended a four lane facility to connect Franklin Boulevard
with Highway 126 west of Greenhill Road. This facility was to be located
north of downtown Eugene, through the Whiteaker neighborhood, and through
the Bethel-Danebo neighborhood north of the Coos Bay Branch of the Southern
Pacific Railroad to Highway 126 at Oak Hill on the western fringe of
the metropolitan region.
F. West Eugene Rezoning (c. 1954)
In 1954, a major annexation in the west Eugene region occurred and
much of that area was zoned for industrial use. This annexation and
rezoning extended the City's industrial base west along the Coos Bay
Branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad to the west of Bertelsen Road.
Heavy industrial zoning extended west to Bailey Hill Road in the territory
between the railroad and W. 11th Avenue. Light industrial zoning was
extended westward along W. 11th Avenue to Beltline Road. This zoning
concentrated Eugene's industrial zoning along the W. 11th and the 6th-7th/Highway
99 corridors.
G. Development Plan, Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Region
(1959)
This 1959 Plan was prepared by the Central Lane Planning Commission
(predecessor to LCOG) for Lane County, the Cities of Eugene, Springfield,
and Junction City, Eugene Water & Electric Board, Eugene School
District No. 4, Springfield School District No. 19, and Willamalane
Park & Recreation District. It was the first comprehensive land
use plan for the metropolitan region. Prepared when the metropolitan
region's population was estimated to be 87,955, this plan contained
maps of existing uses, future uses, and existing and future major public
facilities, including streets and roads. (Figure No. 3).
On the Central Eugene, Willakenzie, Danebo-Bethel and River Road,
and Fern Ridge Planning Areas "Future Development Plan" maps
... the "Roosevelt Freeway" was proposed as a major east-west
expressway. It was planned to begin at Coburg Road and funnel traffic
from south Eugene, Franklin Boulevard, Coburg Road, and the then planned
I-105 westward between downtown Eugnee and Skinner Butte Park through
the Whiteaker (with an interchange with the planned Northwest Expressway)
and Roosevelt (with an interchange planned at Highway 99) neighborhoods,
along the south side of the Danebo-Bethel neighborhood and north of
the Coos Bay Branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad (with an interchange
with the planned Belt Line Expressway), and to connect with an interchange
with Highway 126 atop Oak Hill on the western edge of the metropolitan
region. ....
H. Highway Study - A Research Study of Traffic Patterns and Highway
Needs for 1960 (1961)
Following the 1959 Development Plan was a more detailed study of metropolitan
traffic needs. Information from preceding traffic studies was combined
with projected 20-25 year future traffic needs to the years 1980-85
using a synthesized computer gravity model. However, this study was
made immediately obsolete by the passage of the 1962 Federal Highway
Act which required that all expenditures for highways in urbanized areas
over 50,000 population be based on a cooperative, comprehensive, and
continuing transportation planning study. The 1961 study did not meet
these so-called "3C" requirements so the Eugene-Springfield
Area Transportation Study (E-SATS) was initiated in 1963. By 1964 there
were 127,500 people living in the metropolitan area.
J. Eugene's Freeway Charter Amendment (1961 and repealed 1964)
In 1961, Eugene voters adopted a City Charter provision which required
a vote of the electors before freeway planning could be undertaken by
the City. The 1961 Charter provision was repealed by the voters in 1964.
K. Eugene-Springfield Area Transportation Study (E-SATS), Interim
Report (1967)
This study was never officially adopted by Lane County or the Cities
of Eugnee and Sprignfield. It was adopted by the LCOG Board, the Governor's
designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), to allow the continuation
of federal highway and transit funds to flow to this region. By the
1960's, citizen protests over freeway projects had spread from major
metropolitan centers to Eugene. Concern over impacts of automobiles
and traffic on neighborhoods, air quality, and noise prompted protest,
picketing and negative testimony before local elected officials.
E-SATS contained a number of freeway projects, including the Skinner's
Butte Freeway and the Roosevelt Freeway. Those projects were described
as follows:
Project #38, Skinner's Butte Freeway, "Acting as the northerly
portion of the inner loop, the Skinner's Butte Freeway will serve traffic
wishing to bypass the Eugene Central Business District.
