Useful Phone Numbers
- City of Eugene Leaf Hotline
For use when the bike lane contains leaves.
- (541) 682-5383
- City Maintenance Hotlines
For use when debris hinder the bike lane (broken glass, potholes, etc.)
- (541) 682-4800 - Eug
(541) 726-3761 - SpF
- Eugene Parking Services
For use when a car is parked in the bike lane during business hours.
- (541) 682-5729
- Police Non-Emergency Number
For use if the above numbers don't work.
- (541) 682-5111 - Eug
(541) 726-3714 - SpF
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By Mike Seager (Editor), on July 22nd, 2010  EugeneSRTS.org Those of us living and riding in the Eugene/Springfield area have a wonderful problem on our hands. There are so many advocacy organizations in our area working to improve our lives that it’s almost impossible to keep track of them all. It can be difficult to see how these organizations fit and work together, and which is responsible for what. Well, luckily for you gentlefolk, WeBikeEugene has come to the rescue! Last spring we circulated a questionnaire to as many of the local advocacy groups we could, and most of them answered back. From this we have created the Eugene Area Advocacy Primer.
The primer is a multi-part series which will run more-or-less weekly whenever we can throughout the rest of summer, and cover organizations such as GEARs, The BikeLane Coalition, The UO Bike Program, Safe Routes to School, The BTA, and point2point Solutions! If you’d like us to cover an organization that is not listed here, let us know!
Part II of this series covers The Eugene Safe Routes to School Program. The Eugene program is managed by the very busy Shane MacRhodes, who also sits on the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC), is a GEARs board member, WBE contributor, and driving force behind Kidical Mass – for starters.
Take the jump so see all that Safe Routes to School does for cyclists in Eugene, children and adult commuters alike.
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By Mike Seager (Editor), on July 20th, 2010  A Deer Tick: Enemy of Cyclists! WeBikeEugene’s slow-down became a complete stop a little over a week ago when Kendra’s three week bike tour around the Great Lakes ended in near tragedy. Two weeks into the trip, her riding partner acquired an infection that made it impossible for them to continue. Disappointed, they cut the ride a week and a half short and headed back to Des Moines, IA. On the way back Kendra got an incredible headache that lasted for days, and was hospitalized in Des Moines July 11th (Sunday) with some version of tick-borne Meningitis. They aren’t sure if it is Lyme’s Disease or something viral, but either way it kicked her butt. I arrived in Iowa a few days later, a week earlier than planned, and stayed with Kendra until she was discharged last Saturday. She is slowly recovering, and should be okay in a few weeks.
WBE experienced a complete stop while this played out, but we are ready to return in a “slowed-down” fashion, and will return to full speed in late August or Early September.
The rest of our wrapup covers proposed Sprinfield bikeways, Kidical Mass, EugeneBicyclist.com, a car-free family, and drunk driving sentencing.
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By Mike Seager (Editor), on July 7th, 2010  The scene of the crime, click to embiggen Like most cyclists, I’ve had my fair share of close calls with car drivers. Most of the close calls are accidental, comprising of left and right hooks, car doors, and similar things. I usually just give a hearty “HEY HEY HEY!” and let those incidents go, thanking my lucky stars that my defensive biking skills saved my life, yet again.
Occasionally a driver tries to hit me or scare me. I’ve been ran into a rock wall by a dump truck in eastern Oregon, ran into a guardrail and almost flipped off a bridge by a truck in Massachusetts, ran into a ditch in Iowa, and honked at and buzzed more times than I can count. Those drivers were all trying to scare and possibly kill me, and no doubt felt perfectly justified in dehumanizing me. However, it wasn’t until today that I had a chance to have a discussion with one of these guys right after he threatened me with his weapon of choice, a minivan.
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By Mike Seager (Editor), on July 6th, 2010  Womens Crit Flier, Click to Embiggen As you may have read in our Twitter update, WeBikeEugene is experiencing a summer slowdown, mainly due to my working more hours during the summer, performing every weekend with The GreyMatter Jugglers and Earth Descendance, practicing several times a week for those shows, and also riding my ass off since the weather it nice. WBE Contributor Shane MacRhodes also has his hands full, having recently had twins. This translates to less WBE stories, but that does not mean that things aren’t happening in Eugene.
One example is the PopLollies Women’s Crit Series (click the picture for a bigger flier) that is happening the last three Wednesdays in July. There will be a free clinic to introduce riders to the sport and then races for all levels. Yay!
July’s InMotion, a handy newsletter put out by Lindsay Selser with the City of Eugene, is also full of summer events, construction updates, and way more! It includes a July 17th Kidical Mass ride to an Em’s game, the Blackberry bRamble and Jamboree, and construction on the South Bank Path, Fern Ridge Path, and all over the city.
Take the jump and give it a read! Then go back outside and ride some more.
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By Mike Seager (Editor), on June 30th, 2010  Construction Zone Flaggers--efficient and friendly. (photo and caption: Katura Reynolds) The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) have created a couple public safety videos to help advise cyclists who are navigating the 1-5 bridge construction on the river path. If I were to summarize the videos, I would say something like: “Hey, this bridge is neat and we are improving the bike paths, so please obey our flaggers or you could get run over by something heavy.”
As WBE contributor Katura previously reported, the flaggers are nice and courteous, and not looking to slow anyone down unduly. They are there to keep us safe.
Take the jump to see the two videos.
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By Mike Seager (Editor), on June 24th, 2010 
Those of us living and riding in the Eugene/Springfield area have a wonderful problem on our hands. There are so many advocacy organizations in our area working to improve our lives that it’s almost impossible to keep track of them all. It can be difficult to see how these organizations fit and work together, and which is responsible for what. Well, lucky for you gentlefolks WeBikeEugene has come to the rescue! Last spring we circulated a questionnaire to as many of the local advocacy groups we could, and most of them answered back. From this we have created the Eugene Area Advocacy Primer.
The primer is a multi-part series which will run more-or-less weekly throughout the rest of summer, and cover organizations such as GEARs, The BikeLane Coalition, The UO Bike Program, Safe Routes to School, The BTA, and point2point Solutions! If you’d like an organization covered that is not listed here, let us know!
I’ve chosen point2point Solutions to kick off this series. point2point Solutions is the organization behind the “Drive Less, Save More” campaign last April and the Business Commute Challenge last May. They are also responsible for the incredibly useful KeepUsMoving.info website which updates commuters on construction that may affect them.
Take the jump to learn about point2point Solutions, how they work, what areas they cover, and what else they do. (They do a lot!)
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By Mike Seager (Editor), on June 21st, 2010  The area in question is highlighted in pinkish The June 10th Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) meeting was – and I know I probably over-use this word – silly. I’ve only been attending public planning meetings for a few months now, but it never ceases to amaze me how emotional people get when discussing how to get from point “a” to point “b”. City planners are tasked with the job of making everyone happy, which is hard when even the people in the bicycling community don’t always agree, and at the last BPAC meeting they disagreed quite a bit.
Due to my masterful use of “article-title foreshadowing” you have no-doubt figured out that the issue which caused quarrel was the discussion over the possibility of adding lights to the River Path through East Alton Baker park and the Whilamut Natural Area.
Read on for details and to take WeBikeEugene’s first poll!
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By Mike Seager (Editor), on June 21st, 2010 This following message has been making the rounds, warning Canal Path users of even more congestion on the River Path under 1-5. If that’s part of your commute plan extra time on Wednesday and Thursday.
Expect longer delays than usual June 23 and 24 on the Canoe Canal Path as it passes under Interstate 5. Contractors for the Oregon Department of Transportation will be using cranes to place bridge beams for the new I-5 Canoe Canal Bridge. Flaggers will direct all path traffic to ensure safety. Delays of up to 20 minutes will occur. Please obey all signage and flaggers for your safety. Path users in the Whilamut Natural Area will experience future path delays as needed to maintain safety within the construction zone.
By Mike Seager (Editor), on June 20th, 2010  Kendra's route will mostly follow this Northern Route Kendra, our esteemed copy editor, left this weekend for a month long tour of the Great Lakes, roughly following Adventure Cycling’s North Lakes Route. She and a friend will start in Scandia, Mn on June 21st and then ride self-supported to West Bend, In – arriving on July 13th or 14th. From there they will take an Amtrak back to Des Moines, Ia where I will join them on July 22nd for a 500 mile bike ride across Iowa as part of Team RoadShow on RAGBRAI. Kendra and I plan to return to Eugene in early August.
This will affect the site in a few ways. Most notably our standards for spelling and grammar will likely drop, and the general coherence of my thoughts may also suffer. Also, since we both will be gone for the last week or two of July, WBE posts during that period will likely be even less timely.
You can follow Kendra’s trip on her Flickr page, which she will be updating with her phone.
By Katura Reynolds (Contributor), on June 17th, 2010  This year I finally volunteered for the City of Eugene’s annual Bicycle and Pedestrian Count (I had seen the notice in the GEARs emails for years now, but hadn’t been able to get my act together before). The data gathered during these counts helps the city understand the non-motorized traffic patterns at various strategic intersections on streets and bike paths throughout Eugene. With this information, city engineers can prioritize repairs on roads & paths and otherwise make life that much easier for cyclists and pedestrians.
The lunchtime training session showed the process to be a little more complex than I had expected. Volunteers don’t just sit in a lawn chair and count the number of people who go by. First we categorize by bike/not bike (the latter category includes folks on foot as well as anyone using a wheelchair, stroller, or skateboard). Then we note the direction they are coming from when they approach the intersection, and whether they turn right, turn left, or proceed forward through the juncture. We start a new form every half-hour to keep the data from getting too cluttered. The intersection I signed up for (which is along my commute so I could count on a weekday morning and still make it to work on time) happened to be a complicated one that involves two forms side-by-side per half-hour. The extra challenge had me that much more excited! Now all I needed was a sunny day to get started.
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