Action Alert! Important Neighborhood Meetings for Bend's Transportation Future
The City of Bend is hosting five Neighborhood Workshops where you will be able to influence the future of Bend's transportation system. These workshops are a part of updating the Transportation System Plan (TSP), which will be the guiding document for transportation in Bend over the next 20 years.
Put your neighborhood's workshop on your calendar now! If you aren't sure which area you're in, click here for the map.
AREA 1 (Awbrey Butte, Summit West, River West)
Tuesday, January 29th 5:30pm - 8:00pm
@Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Oregon, 61980 Skyline Ranch Rd
AREA 2 (Boyd Acres, Mountain View, Orchard District north of Butler Market Rd.)
Thursday, January 24th 6:00pm - 8:30pm
@ Bend Municpal Court, 555 NE 15th St
AREA 3 (Larkspur, Old Farm District, Southeast)
Wednesday, January 30th 6:30pm - 9:00pm
@ Bend Senior Center, South Event Room, 1600 SE Reed Market Rd
AREA 4 (Old Bend, Century West, Southern Crossing, Southwest)
Wednesday, January 23rd 5:30pm - 8:00pm
@ OSU-Cascades Campus, Tykeson Hall, Room 111, 1500 SW Chandler Ave
CORE AREA (Bend Central District, Orchard District, Old Mill area, Downtown, and more)
Thursday, January 31st 5:30pm - 8:00pm
@ Trinity Episcopal Church, Brooks Hall, 469 NW Wall St
Good News!
At the December 11th CTAC (Citywide Transportation Advisory Committee) meeting, the committee decided to include fully connected bicycle and pedestrian networks in the "foundational projects" moving forward in the process.
Since is already possible to get anywhere in Bend if you have a car, this recommendation will help connect routes for people who cannot drive. This is important for improving equity and closing the opportunity gap in our community.
Learn how we can save lives through better street design.
FREEDOM TO CHOOSE
Nobody likes being forced into a particular decision. But when the only alternative to driving a car is unsafe or unreliable, most residents will choose to drive for the majority of their trips.
If we design our city so that more and more people are forced to drive every time they need to leave the house, traffic congestion will become unbearable, and more of our land will be used for cars instead of people. Widening roads cannot solve the problem. Most neighborhood roads don’t have room to expand. New lanes are an expensive liability that taxpayers have to pay to build and maintain. Wider streets decrease neighborhood livability, they are unsafe, and they directly cause more congestion.
The most efficient way to plan our transportation future is to avoid forcing more and more cars onto the road by making it easy, convenient, and safe for people to choose other travel modes for some of their trips.
Weigh in on future public transportation services at a Community Open House!
Cascades East Transit (CET) is developing a Regional Transit Master Plan to identify future transit service priorities over the next 25 years and we need your input. Drop by one of our Community Open Houses in January between 4:30 and 6:30 pm to discuss the future vision, goals, and near-term priorities for public transportation in Central Oregon. Light refreshments and activities for children will be provided.
Community Open House Events
La Pine: Tuesday, January 15 at the La Pine Public Library (16425 1st St.)
Madras: Thursday, January 17 at the Rodriguez Jefferson Library Annex (134 SE E St.)
Redmond: Tuesday, January 22 at the Redmond City Hall, Room 208 (411 SW 9th St.)
Warm Springs: Wednesday, January 23 at the Warm Springs Community Center (2200 Hollywood Blvd.)
Prineville: Thursday, January 24 at the Crook County Library, Broughton Room (175 NW Meadow Lakes Dr.)
Bend: Tuesday, January 29 at the Trinity Episcopal Church, Brooks Hall (469 NW Wall St.)
Public comments can also be submitted through February 3, 2019 via an online open house at CETTransitPlan.com.
To request information in an alternative format or different language, please call Rachel Zakem at 541-504-3310 or send an email to rzakem@coic.org five days prior to the meeting.
DANGEROUS BY DESIGN WEBINAR
If 6,000 people died in plane crashes every year in America, air travel would grind to a halt and the industry would be thrown into chaos. Flying might be a technological marvel, a feat of human ingenuity and engineering, but it wouldn’t be worth thousands of lives. We would find a solution.
Unfortunately, nearly 6,000 people were killed in 2017 doing something much more commonplace than flying: walking. In fact, even as traffic fatalities overall have been decreasing, pedestrian fatalities have been on the rise over the last decade. However, the danger of being hit and killed is not the same in every place, and that danger is increasing more in some communities than others.
The National Complete Streets Coalition will release Dangerous by Design 2018 on Wednesday, January 23, 2019, ranking each state and the 100 most populous metro areas based on how deadly they are for people walking. Learn more on Thursday, January 24 with a free a webinar from experts about the results of the report, and importantly, what can be done to save lives.