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Transportation Options: Strategies for a Growing Eugene
We're a Growing City
By 2035, we expect to have 42,000 more residents in Eugene. If all those new residents drive cars, the road traffic we are already experiencing—and related greenhouse gas emissions and safety concerns—will continue to increase unless we make different choices as a community.
To accommodate the expected growth, reduce traffic, and meet Eugene’s climate commitments – City Council set a goal of tripling the number of trips made by foot, bike, and bus by 2035. Achieving this will require us to drive less and walk, bike or take the bus a lot more often. That's a tall order for some of us, so the City is looking at ways to make sustainable transportation more convenient through new building design, apartment-based programs and design, and commuter incentives. The project is called Transportation Options: Strategies for a Growing Eugene.
What this Project Does
Transportation Options: Strategies for a Growing Eugene is:
- Identifying opportunities in the planning and development process to ensure new development promotes a safe multimodal transportation system.
- Exploring if and how employers could be incentivized or required to develop transportation programs that would reduce the number of employees driving alone to work.
This process will result in an update to the traffic impact analysis (TIA) process for new development as well as an evaluation of the City's transportation demand management (TDM) programs related to new construction and employers.
Project Timeline
Get a sense for the project overall.
Understand where Eugene currently stands with its Traffic Impact Analysis (TIA) process and its Transportation Demand Management (TDM) policies.
City-wide strategies for reducing carbon emissions and traffic are not new—just newer for Eugene. We’re learning from other Cities who have made headway in this area: Aspen, CO, Bellingham, WA, Pasadena, CA, Fort Collins, CO, Santa Monica, CA, and Boulder, CO.
We’re reaching out to the community through presentations and focus groups with stakeholders including employers, developers, nonprofits, community advocates, and agency partners.
Transportation Impact Analysis (TIA) Recommendations
It was decided over the course of this project that changes to the TIA policy to focus on moving people — rather than vehicles — would require adoption of a new methodology. Read the consultant's recommendations for the development of a new methodology and the future of TIAs in Eugene.
We’re reaching out to the community through presentations and focus groups with stakeholders including employers, developers, nonprofits, community advocates, and government agency partners. The first round of focus groups have already taken place, which will inform the recommended policies for adoption. There will be an additional round of focus groups this spring to present the draft policies and gather additional input.
Please review the Stakeholder Involvement Plan for more details.
Electric vehicles aren’t mentioned. Won't they be part of our city’s work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
Electric vehicles are an important part of meeting Eugene’s sustainability and transportation goals. In fact, Eugene is working toward 50% of all cars being electric by 2030 and there is an Electric Vehicle Strategy for meeting that goal. The Transportation Options: Strategies for a Growing Eugene project focuses on maximizing the capacity of our existing road system while reducing emissions and traffic. Electric vehicles and charging stations will be part of reducing emissions, but will not help us move more people as our population increases. As a result, this project more heavily emphasizes active transportation options because they take up less space on our streets.
Don’t transportation system development charges (TSDCs) already cover impact new development may have on the transportation system?
TSDCs charged during the new development process pay a portion of the costs of constructing and expanding our city-wide transportation system, such as bridges and bicycle paths. This project focuses on improvements to our transportation infrastructure that may be required to accommodate a specific development project. Such improvements will often be at the doorstep of or very nearby a project.
More FAQs coming soon!
Contact Us
Rob Inerfeld (he/him)
Transportation Planning Manager
rinerfeld@eugene-or.gov
(541)-682-5343