Meeting recap – Beaver-Hunsaker – please take action

Senior Transportation Planner Becky Taylor (Lane County) and Transportation Planning Engineer Chris Henry (City of Eugene) attended the September 3rd SCCO meeting to seek more information about the Beaver-Hunsaker and Beaver-Wilkes transportation projects.

Both projects are in the 20 year Transportation Plan, but the planners need more information from the stakeholders (Santa Clara residents and businesses) to help develop a fully-accessable Beaver-Hunsaker system and to determine if a Beaver-Wilkes connection is needed.

Comments from local residents were very consistent regarding Beaver-Hunsaker:

• The fact that riding a bike along Beaver-Hunsaker is dangerous was repeated many times.
• There is no true bicycle lane, just a fog line that sometimes has just a few inches of pavement before turning to gravel.
• It was also noted that the apartments on the Beaver-Hunsaker curve are being converted to affordable housing and that there will likely be more affordable housing built at that location.  The residents of the housing units will undoubtedly need safe pedestrian or bicycle passage to LTD bus stops or the transit station.
• Only serious bicyclists venture onto River Road because of the speed of traffic and the number of turns made by cars onto streets and into driveways.  Safe bicycle routes need to be established to encourage bicycling in Santa Clara.

Comments on the potential Beaver-Wilkes connector:

• Residents who live east of River Road pointed out that a Beaver-Wilkes connector is needed to take pressure off of the corner of Hunsaker and River Road.  There is a large 130 house project underway along River Road that will dramatically increase the automobile load on River Road.   Three smaller developments are under way on the east side of River Road that will add even more traffic.  A Beaver-Wilkes connector would keep some of the traffic from the three smaller projects off of River Road.
• Additionally, there are no north-south bicycle routes east of River Road and bicycling on River Road is scary. Many potential bike riders choose not to ride rather than risk riding on River Road.
• A Beaver-Wilkes connector would establish a bike corridor to Beaver that could start as far north as East Beacon.  Bicycles could use Scenic for a long stretch and then make their way to Wilkes.  Then hopelly head to Beaver via a new connector.  From Beaver it would be a quick trip to Division, then to the path under Beltline and onto the river bike path.

One of our residents, Casey McCright, asked the planners how we could help the projects to happen sooner than later.  The reply was that the planners need to hear from people in Santa Clara.

You can direct comments to Becky Taylor at the county via email or ask questions by calling 541-682-6932.

Documents for those who love documents:

Beaver-Hunsaker Corridor Study (Includes Beaver-Wilkes extenstion)
Beaver-Hunsaker Project Scope and Map
Beltline Improvements from River Road to Coburg Road.

PS.  I am encouraging anyone who attended the meeting to use the comment form below to perhaps add to the recap of the meeting.