Better Streets
for People and Businesses

Better Streets for People and Businesses is an effort to:

  • Problems: Identify which streets need to be better.
  • Solutions: Advance broadly supported options for moving forward.

Which streets in Eugene and Springfield are safe, practical, and comfortable for everyone today and which need to be better?

BEST wants your voice to lead the way. We invite all segments of the community to share how some major streets are working today. If we hear things are just fine, great! If we hear broad agreement that there are significant problems, that knowledge can form the foundation for developing broadly supported solutions. (Past plans have not always enjoyed such broad support.)

BEST will ensure that community feedback is shared with government agencies to inform the solutions they propose.

Streets

BEST is working on different streets in different stages.

Problems

We want to hear from you, especially about these two that have drawn significant concern from the public and the City of Eugene:

Highway 99
River Road

In November 2025, Smart Growth America joined us for walk audits and town halls around Highway 99 and River Road. Learn more:

Smart Growth America Events

Solutions

After hearing many call out problems, we are wanting to work with the City of Eugene to be part of the solution for:

Franklin Boulevard

Paused

Waiting for an opportunity to move forward with the City of Springfield, we have paused our efforts in around:

Main Street

Future

Interest and resources permitting, we may look at these additional streets:

Coburg Road in Ferry Street Bridge area — STAY TUNED!

Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. past Autzen Stadium — STAY TUNED!

30th Avenue to Lane Community College — STAY TUNED!

Why

Safe, practical, and comfortable streets advance multiple community goals:

  • People: Better streets support a safer, healthier, more equitable, and more livable community for everyone.
  • Prosperity: Better streets provide businesses with access for their customers, suppliers, and workers; and developers with opportunities to build thriving places.
  • Planet: Better streets support ways to get around with lesser impacts on the environment.

How

According to the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, “The most effective transport planning draws on specific insights from the public, civic organizations, existing operators, private sector firms, and other government entities to complement the knowledge of planning staff and consultants. To achieve community ownership of the project, … proponents must engage with people’s needs, fears, and interests. Public input … can be invaluable, as can insights from existing transport operators. Moreover, incorporating public views on design and customer service features will help ensure that the system will be more fully accepted … by the public.”

To learn about problems today, we are using a variety of methods:

  • Polls: Solicit views on streets today.
  • Social media: Provide occasional updates and opportunities via emails, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
  • Print media: Distribute handbills and posters where many people gather.
  • Door-to-door: Visit residences and businesses along streets of interest.
  • Walk / bike / bus tours: Experience a street to learn what is or isn’t working.
  • Town halls & listening sessions: Hold events to learn what people think.

To develop broadly supported solutions for streets that need to be better, BEST is reviewing government plans, learning from stakeholders, and consulting with experts to advance broadly supported options for moving forward.

As we don’t want to reinvent the wheel, we are leveraging the efforts of others:

Best Practices

Who

BEST is working with a growing list of community partners, including:

BEST will share findings with local, regional, and state governments, including:

Support

Reaching out to hear from the public and digging into technical plans takes time. BEST is hiring student interns from the University of Oregon to assist with this effort. To create better streets, will you support our work?

Donate

Further reading

See also

Related information from BEST:

Last updated 1/28/26.