Community Highlights

Eugene is designated as a Gold-level community due to the city’s outstanding planning practices, strong support and engagement from the City’s leadership, and long history for providing a pedestrian-friendly environment.

• Eugene has a real strength in its planning documents, which were developed through extensive community outreach. Objective 1 from the City’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan is to create “20-minute neighborhoods” so that 90 percent of Eugene residents can safely walk or bike to meet basic daily, non-work needs. This plan is focused on infrastructure and was developed to coordinate with the Eugene Pedestrian and Bicycle Strategic Plan, which outlines how to improve education, marketing, and outreach to encourage people to walk and bicycle more.
• Implementation of Eugene’s Vision Zero policy will be supported by a task force—comprised of high-level staff from several city departments and agencies—and a technical advisory committee that will offer expertise from a variety of disciplines.
• The planning documents and code requirements of the city for parking, trails, sidewalks, and urban design features (including lighting and street furniture) are exceptional.
• Eugene boasts 46 miles of shared use paths, five bicycle/pedestrian bridges spanning the Willamette river (more than motor vehicle bridges), and two bicycle/pedestrian bridges spanning major roads or highways. Trails connect a variety of destinations including schools, commercial centers, office parks, neighborhoods, and parks, and form the “backbone” in many neighborhoods and connect to a variety of sidewalks and other accessways in local neighborhoods or retail shopping areas.
• The transit connection is exceptional for a city the size of Eugene and includes a recent expansion of the Bus Rapid Transit system. The city is working with the transit district and residents to prioritize corridors for near-term enhancements.
• Eugene has many great education and encouragement programs. The SmartTrips Program takes a comprehensive approach to promote alternatives to driving alone, the business commute challenge is a week long challenge to replace auto commute trips, and Sunday Streets is an Open Streets event.
• In addition to the inventory of ramps and pedestrian signals and schedules, Eugene’s ADA Transition Plan for the public rights of way also includes a system of barrier removal prioritization, information on how to request barrier removals from right-of-way facilities, and an appeals process.