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How
should Eugene
return to the river?
by
Alan Pittman
The man with a white beard stands in the gray drizzle looking
nervously for a break in the six-lane torrent of cars pouring on,
off and under the Ferry Street Bridge viaduct. Suddenly, he leaps
from the curb. Just behind a speeding SUV, he runs through three lanes
and jumps onto a narrow strip of grass median. He's halfway to safety.
Cars bear down around the curb. He chances it. Leaps again, and runs
to the finish of his crossing of Mill Street.
Eugene wants to return to the river, but it will have to cross a churning
ocean of traffic to get there. "To walk from downtown to the river
now, you're on your own running across three lanes of traffic twice,"
says city traffic planner Tom Larsen.
"You just absolutely take your life in your hands"
crossing the busy Franklin/Mill corridor, says city planner Nan Laurence.
But Larsen, Laurence and other city traffic and planning
staff are pushing an odd solution to the problem of crossing the wide
road -- add another big highway to cross.
A city planning process began this summer to design
"a new neighborhood" around the planned new federal courthouse near
the river. But so far, the planning effort for the former Agripac
cannery site has focused more on designing a highway than a neighborhood.
City staff dusted off their failed plans to put a
four-lane highway along the railroad tracks. Voters defeated the "Franklin
Option" in 1994 when, by a wide margin, they nixed plans for a $73
million Ferry Street Bridge corridor widening project. The resurrected
highway is now the central element of the city's return to the river
design.
Laurence calls the highway, the "backbone of the decision"
on how the area will be developed. About half the acreage the city
has to redevelop on the cannery site outside the courthouse will be
devoted to the highway and its feeder roads. The highway is included
in all of the thick stack of drawings the city has prepared as planning
options.
While the city is moving ahead with a highway south
of the railroad tracks, a potential scenic riverside park north of
the tracks will be largely paved over with development, according
to city plans.
How the city decides to return to the river --
a highway and riverside development or a neighborhood and riverside
park, or something in between -- will affect the beauty and vitality
of Eugene's downtown for decades to come. Ruth Duemler, a local environmental
activist, says saving the riverfront from the highway and for parkland
is "the most important thing we could do now to beautify our city."
Highway
Laurence and Larsen argue that the new highway
along the tracks is needed to relieve through traffic along the difficult
to cross Franklin/Mill corridor.
Public comments recorded by the city on the plans
indicate almost no support for the highway plan, which appears to
have come entirely from city staff.
"Unraveling and unbraiding that traffic is the most
cost effective solution," Larsen says.
"The most logical, beneficial place to put that traffic
is along the tracks," Laurence says.
Larsen claims simply adding a traffic light(s) and
pedestrian crossing(s) to Mill/Franklin is out of the question. He
says at peak times, cars "would have to wait multiple lights to go
through and it would back traffic all the way across the river."
Larsen acknowledges Eugene's "rush-hour" peak only
lasts about 25 minutes.
Highway opponents say the road won't solve the street-crossing
problem and will just make it worse by adding another barrier to the
river. Plans show the road up to six lanes wide with turn lanes. The
highway and the railroad tracks combined cut a 200-foot wide swath
through the area.
"It's absolutely horrible," says Councilor Betty Taylor
of the highway plan. Taylor says the new road will be an unpleasant
barrier that will hurt the area's livability and attractiveness for
pedestrians and redevelopment. "It's just another highway through
the center of town and too close to the river," she says.
Scott Wylie, a local designer, compares Franklin to
a "Mississippi River of traffic." If split, it will "become like two
Columbia Rivers of traffic" and an even greater barrier.
"This neighborhood is just going to be dominated by
these streets," planning commissioner Art Farley says. "We're creating
more than one barrier."
Local planning consultant Rick Satre agrees the highway
shouldn't be built. "Planning a new arterial parallel to the railroad
would divide the neighborhood," he commented.
As an alternative, Taylor says the city should keep
the existing Franklin/Mill as it is and build a pedestrian overpass.
"That's an option," Larsen says. "We could just provide
a pedestrian crossing at 8th."
But Larsen says the overpass still "leaves the underlying
traffic problem -- the visual, the noise, that creates the perception
that this [neighborhood] is separate from that [downtown]."
Another option would be to only have a two lane road
along the tracks, perhaps with an added center turn lane.
Larsen says a smaller road would accommodate existing
traffic. But he says he thinks state transportation officials would
want a larger highway built to accommodate their long-range plans
for traffic growth. "ODOT wants us to look at [car] numbers way out
in the future," he says.
Park
City plans for the riverfront EWEB land across the
tracks now favor development of pavement and buildings near the water.
But many in the community would like to see a park, according to comment
records.
"There's a tremendous opportunity for making that
a public amenity," says Doug Beauchamp, director of the Lane Arts
Council. Beauchamp sits on a city advisory committee for the riverside
planning effort. A park he says, "would be a gift to the future."
Taylor also supports dedicating all of the area north
of the tracks to a downtown park, as do many other citizens, according
to written comments.
"Park space is precious!" one citizen commented. "Once
it's gone, it never returns."
Eugene's emerald string of riverside parks and bike
paths has long topped the list of the city's greatest attractions.
Just upstream, citizens, students and professors have fought the UO's
effort to develop its Riverfront Research Park for more than a decade.
So far, development at RRP has been south of the railroad tracks,
well away from the river.
With Willamette salmon now on the Endangered Species
List, protecting a natural riverfront has gained importance, city
officials acknowledge.
Preventing riverfront development "is an incredibly
important issue for a majority of Eugeneans," says Planning Commissioner
Marlene Colbath.
Laurence agrees that "The community is very mixed
on this" plan for riverfront development. But she says the riverfront
can be developed with cafés, apartments, offices and other mixed-use
projects in an ecologically sensitive manner.
"We would like other communities to look at us and
say, oh look, it is possible to have development in a way that brings
people to the river," Laurence says. "We have to protect this waterfront,
but we have to have some kind of development there."
Some of the city's drawings of options include tall
buildings, roads and parking to the top of the bank, leaving only
a narrow bike path and the existing steep slope to the water. Others
include small areas of open space and wider riparian buffers.
Laurence says some of the plans will have to be redrawn
because they overestimated the amount of green space available between
existing buildings and the river.
Taylor and Beauchamp worry that developing the riverfront
will hurt efforts to redevelop the Broadway and Willamette downtown
by drawing away limited public and private resources. "In the next
few years there may not be enough economic oomph," to do both redevelopment
projects, Beauchamp says.
If the site is cleared and then left a scarred vacant
lot, the riverfront will be an eyesore rather than a landscaped park.
The UO has struggled unsuccessfully for years to attract tenants to
the RRP, despite heavy public subsidies.
Laurence says the city may leave the riverfront development
issue for a later planning process with more public involvement. "It's
one of the most major discussions this community has to have."
Without a public outcry, though, there's powerful
momentum against a riverside park. City councilors and planning commissioners
have so far expressed little interest in preserving a natural area
north of the tracks.
Planning Commissioner Adelle McMillan is adamant.
"It's an urban waterfront concept, it's not a park."
Millrace
Public opinion does appear to have swayed
the city to reconsider opening the historic millrace through the site.
"When we looked at the millrace cost and other implications,
we really put it on hold," says Laurence. But public comments have
re-opened the issue, she says. "Citizens apparently want a millrace."
Citizen Nan Phifer wrote an impassioned plea to the
city for the waterway. "I cannot imagine any feature that would do
more to help revitalize that area. It could bring sidewalk cafes,
strollers, venders, a basin where children could sail boats --
concessionaires could offer gondola rides. It could be designed to
be a destination point that would bring people downtown."
Laurence says a millrace would be "enormously expensive"
-- about $4.5 million just for a new rail bridge to cross it.
A cheaper option may be a partial millrace cascading down into the
river.
Money for a millrace and or park could be raised through
urban renewal funding and/or a bond measure.
Planning commissioners haven't shied away from the
millrace price tag. "When you really don't shoot high and try to achieve
all that you can do, you'll never go back and do it," says commissioner
John Lawless.
EWEB
EWEB officials are concerned that the city
may be getting ahead of itself in drawing up plans for their property.
EWEB hasn't yet decided whether it will move its operations
yard and other facilities to make room for redevelopment, according
to EWEB planner Deb Brewer.
Excluding the headquarters building, EWEB has 25 acres
of riverfront property in its maintenance yards, Brewer says. Moving
the operations facilities to another industrial site near downtown
would cost about $25 million. Moving a power substation on the site
would cost about $5 million more.
"In order to afford to move, we'd have to get some
money from some place," Brewer says. That money could come from the
city or other developers who buy the land.
If EWEB stopped producing steam at the site, the utility's
100 steam customers would have to come up with about $8 million to
convert their buildings to natural gas heat, Brewer says. Re-using
the old steam plant building as plans envision, would cost an estimated
$500,000 in asbestos abatement, she says.
Other issues on the EWEB property include possible
abatement costs for extensive contamination from an old natural gas
plant and having people live or work near the power substation if
it isn't moved. "Apparently that's very difficult if you don't want
your hair to straighten or curl," Laurence says.
If EWEB stays, the utility plans to devote large,
unused sections of its site to the public and nature. An EWEB plan
for the site includes doubling the width of the landscaped river setback,
opening the steam plant for a public use, a public plaza, river overlooks,
a bioswale and vegetation with an opened millrace and an educational
playground about how EWEB operates and uses the river for power and
water. The EWEB plan could include almost as much public and natural
areas as the city's plans for the area.
Courthouse
Another big unresolved issue for the neighborhood is
the federal courthouse design. Laurence says a final design is expected
within the next few weeks.
Some fear that in the wake of Sept. 11, the federal
government may design an ugly "fortress" for security.
"They were right at a critical point of design when
that happened," Beauchamp says.
Another fear is that the courthouse may be an ultramodern,
abstract building, that clashes with the character of the neighborhood
and city.
Architect Carolyn Kranzler said at a recent City Club
talk that, based on the previous "ego architecture" of the architect,
Thom Mayne, many local designers expect the courthouse to be a "visually
challenging building."
Critics of an early design option for the building
described the jagged, nine-story structure as resembling a huge machine
that fell from the sky and broke.
That might not go along with the historic vision of
the Agripac area Scott Wylie and others want to see. Wylie says the
city should honor the city's history by preserving the old Cider Mill,
Agripac front office, wooden warehouse, and bungalows in the neighborhood.
Taylor says she would like to see a museum housed
in EWEB's now vacant but historic steam plant.
Even some of the old cannery machinery and stonework
could be saved to add character to the redevelopment, Wylie says.
"Maybe some of the less-glamorous things disguise an interesting story
-- just don't go 'tearing into everything' so fast."
"We have a number of issues unresolved, in a big
way," Laurence says. The return to the river plans will go to the
planning commission and council for hearings and approval starting
in January. "This is a complicated project and we're not ready for
decisions," Laurence says. "We are ready for input."
For comment/information on the courthouse/river redevelopment
plans call Nan Laurence at 682-5340. Or write to her at City of Eugene,
Planning and Development, 99 West 10th Ave., Eugene, 97401 (nan.laurence@ci.eugene.or.us).
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