Top
Lies about the West Eugene Parkway
“The voters of Eugene voted for it.”
The WEP is a federal project that will be approved or rejected by
the Federal Highway Administration, not local governments. The 1986
and 2001 advisory votes merely told the City of Eugene to lobby federal
and state decision makers, the voters did not approve the project.
Neither the City of Eugene nor Lane County have offered to contribute
a single dime toward the construction costs. The real level of support
is between the 51 to 49 vote for the WEP in 2001 and the 8 to 1 vote
in 2000 against raising the state gas tax to pay for more roads. Public
opinion on the WEP is evenly split if money is not an issue, but is
overwhelmingly against raising taxes for more roads.
“The money is there.”
Only $17 million has been appropriated for the $200 million WEP.
Fully funding the WEP would require cancellation of most of the area’s
other large road projects. Oregon’s interstate highway bridges
have $5 billion in emergency repairs and replacements, yet only one-third
of this cost is appropriated over the next decade. Since the 2001
vote, ODOT has entered into an agreement with the City of Eugene to
get the City to pay for maintenance for half of the highway - a new
condition not disclosed during the Measure 20-54 campaign.
“If we don’t build it, the State’s money
for the WEP will go to other communities.”
Parkway proponents claim we must build it or the Oregon Department
of Transportation (ODOT) will give the initial $17 million appropriation
to another community. However, if Oregon Transportation Commissioner
Randy Pape (brother of City Councilor Gary Pape) agreed, it would
be easy to use that money to finish Beltline, a project approved in
1995.
In June 2001, ODOT realized the WEP has huge legal problems, environmental
impacts, cost increases and was not needed to fix traffic problems,
and promised to pick “No
Build,” finish Beltline and develop other alternative projects.
WEP supporters state that this $17 million cannot be used to restore
education cuts or improve other social services (WEP opponents are
aware of this), yet never mention how new roads are a huge subsidy
for land speculators seeking to expand the Urban Growth Boundary to
build new suburbs and shopping malls on farmland.
The WETLANDS alternative is largely based on ODOT’s June 2001
“No Build” promise.
“The WEP would cost $88 million.”
In September 2003, ODOT planners admitted they have been “unable
to obtain documentation on how the ... cost estimates were prepared”
- they cannot remember how they determined it would cost $88 million.
In 2003, ODOT’s official estimate rose to $128 million and the
November 2004 estimate is $169 million. This price tag does not include
the related widening of West 11th from Terry Street to Green Hill
($5.5 million), widening intersections on 6th and 7th Avenue intersection
between WEP and I-105 ($1.5 million), and the eventual WEP extension
to Veneta. In spring 2002, Lane County estimated that extending the
WEP to Veneta (by widening 126 to four lanes from the WEP across the
lake) would cost $13,319,000, although it would probably cost a lot
more than that.
These estimates also omit the future intersection upgrade or grade
separation at WEP / Seneca (to cope with driver frustration at the
lack of access). The WEP’s current design would not have left
turn lanes from the WEP onto Seneca (at the current 5th / Seneca intersection),
since ODOT was not able to craft a design that would not create a
massive traffic snarl. ODOT plans to make part of the WEP a local
road because it would be too congested to meet State highway design
requirements.
“The cost increase is the opponents’ fault.”
ODOT has consistently downplayed the cost of the full scope of the
project (ie. the interchange ramps between Beltline and the WEP).
Environmental opponents are not responsible for the new, more realistic
WEP cost estimate. This “segmentation” of the full project
cost is like a cost estimate for a fancy new car that omitted the
cost of the engine and the wheels in an effort to make the car seem
more affordable.
“It can be built in an environmentally sensitive way.”
The WEP would decimate the Bureau of Land Management’s West
Eugene Wetlands restoration efforts. It would slice through some of
the last remaining native wet prairie habitat -- only 1/1,000th of
this ecosystem remains in the Willamette Valley. The WEP would destroy
habitat for endangered plants and animals, pollute Amazon Creek, increase
air pollution, and clearcut forest in Bertelsen
Nature Park. It would require enormous amounts of sand and gravel,
enough to fill a line of gravel trucks from Eugene to Seattle and
back. Wetlands “mitigation” would not replace native habitats,
and there is not enough acreage in the West Eugene Wetlands to replace
the wetlands the “parkway” would destroy.
“We need WEP to support growth and jobs.”
The WEP would go through the west Eugene industrial area, yet it
is not needed for better access for these businesses (the WETLANDS
alternative would include a new connector from First Avenue and Seneca
to 99 and then to Second and Garfield, plus intersection work around
the industrial area for better traffic flow). Instead, the WEP would
encourage conversion of industrially zoned lands for commercial strip
malls and big boxes. West Eugene has lots of abandoned industrial
buildings and vacant lots that need clean up for smart reuse. Some
of these “brownfields” that should be used instead of
expanding the Urban Growth Boundary include the Union Pacific railyards
(if cleaned up) and the Second and Garfield area (a central location
to consider for Eugene’s new
hospital).
“It would relieve congestion and improve safety on West
11th Avenue.”
West 11th intersections with roads that connect to the WEP (Seneca,
Bailey Hill, Bertelsen, Beltline, Green Hill) would have substantial
congestion increases from north-south traffic going between WEP and
West 11th.
The WEP route would go through the least populated part of Eugene.
Bethel area traffic would have to pass by the lightly used Roosevelt
Blvd to reach the redundant WEP. Southwest Eugene drivers would not
benefit if the WEP is built, and River Road motorists would suffer
from WEP traffic clogging the 6th / 7th / Chambers intersection.
It would cost about $2 million to fix West 11th, half of the cost
spent to study the WEP.
“The Federal government changed the laws when we were
ready to start construction.”
The 1970 National Environmental Policy Act, prohibits “segmentation”
of large projects into several smaller ones to avoid full disclosure
of adverse impacts. The 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Act
requires metropolitan areas to have road projects fully funded within
the constraints of a 20 year transportation budget - the funds need
not be appropriated to start construction, but the TransPlan must
identify future funding sources. In 2000, the FHWA reminded the City
of these legal requirements, since the City was proposing a blatantly
illegal WEP version that would quickly lose in federal court. In 1996,
when sued by citizens, the FHWA did not defend the WEP in federal
court, since they knew they would lose, and they conceded defeat without
going to a trial.
“Voters have rejected the alternative.”
Measure 20-53, which was decisively rejected in November 2001, was
not the WEP alternative. It included building two-thirds of the WEP,
which would be more illegal than building the whole thing (federal
law prohibits this segmentation). 20-53 was crafted by City bureaucrats
who want the WEP, and it was poorly crafted. WEP opponents who campaigned
against Measure 20-54 (the pro-highway vote) did not endorse this
inadequate idea.
“We need inter-governmental mediation to determine what
to do instead of WEP”
The West Eugene Charette, an inter-governmental meeting of the Federal,
State, County and City governments, convened on June 18 and 19, 2001.
It agreed that the WEP should be canceled with a "No Build"
decision and that Beltline should be completed instead. This decision
was ignored by pro-WEP forces (Mayor Torrey, Pape brothers) who put
the WEP on the November 2001 ballot, hoping that public ratification
of an election questionnaire would force State and Federal officials
to build the highway (or at least give the developers a tool to attack
the anti-WEP political forces).
“An alternative remains unknown.”
The WETLANDS alternative
is essentially an expansion of the June 2001 "No Build"
decision of the West Eugene Charette, plus some additional descriptions
of what could be done based on extensive review of planning documents,
feedback from transportation officials, politicians and citizen activists.
It is unlikely to be precisely what would be built instead of WEP,
but it describes a range of solutions that are practical and feasible
for less cost and greater community cohesion.
“The environmentalists agree a new east-west expressway
is needed.”
In 2002, Crandall-Arambula, a Portland
architecture firm, was asked by some WEP opponents to look at the
potential for alternatives to the WEP similar to the Portland region’s
decision to cancel its Western Bypass in favor of land use shifts
to concentrate growth near new transit stations. Unfortunately, C&A
developed a new WEP route that would have been twice as bad as ODOT’s
version -- it would cost more, have more wetland destruction, go through
the Royal Blue Organics blueberry farm and be even more illegal. C&A
was also working for Peace Health on their sprawl project along the
McKenzie River when they developed this ridiculous proposal.
The WETLANDS alternative would fix west Eugene traffic issues without
building a new expressway.
“It’s a parkway.”
Genuine “parkways” exclude truck traffic and are usually
operated by park agencies as a scenic drive. The WEP is designed for
triple trailer trucks traveling 55 mph, and would decimate parklands.
“The WEP is needed to get to the coast.”
The western terminus of the WEP, near the current 126 bridge over
the railroad tracks (just west of town) is 52 miles from Florence.
Even Veneta (the ultimate terminus) is still 46 miles from Florence.
Some of the WEP money should be used to fix safety problems on 126
in the Coast Range.
An extra lie rarely expressed publicly
-- the hidden assumption behind the WEP:
“Gasoline will stay at a constant price and availability
forever.”
The WEP proposal pretends that gasoline will stay cheap and abundant
forever. This is as unrealistic as the timber industry's assumptions
that they would never run out of giant trees to cut down. Increasing
global demand and diminishing supplies means that gas prices will
go up, which reduces the “need” for the WEP. After the
peak of petroleum production, the region will need sustainable industries
such as solar and wind power production, thriving local businesses,
better public transit and protected farmland feeding the cities.
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