During my visit to Eugene over the weekend, I tested out a new street treatment and crossing improvement constructed there earlier this year.  The improvement is a combination of "road diet", landscaped median, "z" style crossing, and stutter flashes that alert drivers of pedestrians crossing street.  The "road diet" means the street went from four lanes (two in each direction) to three lanes (one lane in each direction and a center turn lane).  The landscaped median reduced the pavement surfaces and greatly improved the aesthetics of the street.  The "z" style crossing is less direct across the street but forces pedestrians to look in the direction of the oncoming traffic.  The stutter flashes are brighter and more attention-grabbing than standard lights. 
 
Overall, the street feels very inviting toward me as a pedestrian when I used the crossing observed others' behavior.  It felt safer and more calming to me as a driver because my possible movements were clear with the design of the street.  The elimination of a second driving lane in each direction prevented speeding cars from making dangerous swerving and lane changes.  The additional landscaping was created a much more human scale to the street by breaking up the monotony of asphalt.  Sadly, it took the death of a 10 year old struck by a speeding driver on this street to recognize the needed redesign.  All too often, we let traffic engineers dictate the design of our streets based on their flawed priorities of serving automobile traffic above all other considerations.  
 
NE Glisan provide a perfect opportunity to apply a road diet and humanize the scale of the street.  If we expect to accommodate greater density in the neighborhood primarily on mixed-use streets like Glisan, we should acknowledge that such streets need a more neighborhood feel.  Accommodating the desired speed of motorists should not be the way to design a community.  I thought we were over those days.  Our nation suffers from the past 50 years of poor infrastructure design guided by that mentality and now leads to more than 40,000 deaths per year as a result of traffic "accidents". 
Some people grow concerned that "road diets" will create more congestion.  That concern is unfounded.  NE Glisan currently is overdesigned and could accommodate it's current traffic volume with one lane and a center turn lane, particularly if a couple of selective right turn lanes are maintained at key intersections such as at 60th and 82nd Avenues.  Also, the redesign will dislocate some traffic based on a commonly held theory of "triple divergence".  "Triple divergence" refers to travel decisions that self-select the most appropriate route, time, and travel mode based on the capacity of the system and travel needs.  If Glisan is designed to accommodate only one lane of traffic and there are 30 minutes of the day where traffic does get bad (about 2% of the day), drivers who can, will choose an alternative route that is better designed for longer distance travel (ie. I-84 or Sandy).  Many drivers will also choose to travel a little earlier in the day or later to avoid that time, and lastly, some people may choose to substitute that auto trip with a walking trip to a closer destination, transit to a longer destination or bike to go around the traffic.  Most people can't change the route, time, or mode of travel, but only a small number would need to do this in order to make a "road diet" work. 
 
There are mutliple instances of successful road diets on a variety of scales.  Perhaps the most notable is the complete removal of a highway in Seoul, South Korea.  About 50% of the traffic "disappeared" when the freeway was torn down and the other 50% of traffic was captured on alternative routes or traveling at different times of the day.  The "disappeared" traffic was likely the result of people substituting those driving trips with walking, biking, or taking transit.  Even here in Portland, the replacement of Harbor Drive with the more humane Naito Parkway didn't result in the massive gridlock predicted by a handful of traffic engineers. 
 
Perhaps the Portland Plan will provide an opportunity to humanize our neighborhood streets and create more inviting places for EVERYONE to get around.  Looking forward to learning more about it at our next neighborhood meeting on October 20th open to all residents in North Tabor. 

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