A safer, more walkable, bikable, transit-friendly Bend
Your voice is needed!
After more than two years of hard work by Environmental Center staff and other local activists and citizens, the effort to pass a new Transportation System Plan (TSP) for the City of Bend is entering the home stretch this summer. We need you to engage now and likely one more time later this summer to help pass this plan.
Background
The TSP is important because it will guide Bend’s transportation infrastructure investments, programs and policies over the next 20 years, as well as a funding plan. The draft TSP, which won approval from a twenty-five member citizen advisory committee (that our Executive Director Mike Riley co-chaired) last month, calls for meaningful changes to the future of Bend’s transportation system.
Rather than continue being a city reliant on expensive and dangerous infrastructure that primarily serves cars, the draft TSP plans for more safe and convenient bike paths, sidewalks, transit service and roads. It ensures no new five-lane roads will create barriers through our neighborhoods. It calls for large employers to manage the demand their employees put on our roads. Implementation of the TSP’s projects and programs will reduce the amount of driving the average Bend resident has to do on a daily basis. And it plans for right-sized investments that won’t burden taxpayers with unnecessary, expensive megaprojects.
A crucial final task of the citizen committee was to develop transportation performance targets. They approved targets that will ensure the TSP delivers real outcomes beneficial to all of Bend’s residents, and include the following:
- A new transportation equity program
- Double the percentage of trips taken by walking, biking, and riding transit
- Build 12 new key routes for safe walking and biking across town by 2030
- A pedestrian network master plan
- No increase in vehicle miles traveled per capita
- No deaths and a 50% reduction in serious injuries on our roadways
- A new speed monitoring program
- Reduce transportation greenhouse gas emissions by 29%
It takes good planning to create a city that is walkable, bikable and vibrant. It won’t happen overnight. But if we adopt and then implement this draft TSP, traveling around Bend will be a more safe, equitable, and convenient experience by 2040.
What you can do
The TSP has two more steps to be adopted. First, the Bend Planning Commission must review and approve it and forward it on the Bend City Council. Then, the City Council must hold public hearings and vote to adopt it.
The planning Commission hearing takes place next Monday July 27, and possibly July 28 too if more time is needed.
Please send the planning commission an email telling them that you support the TSP and it’s vision for and plan to create a safer, more walkable and more bikable and more transit friendly Bend that meets the needs everyone, not just those who can afford to drive cars.
Send your email to the following addresses:
Karen Swirsky , Senior Planner: kswirsky@bendoregon.gov
City Planning Commission: cityplanningcommissionall@bendoregon.gov
July 23rd, 11:30am: The contact information above was updated from the original post to reflect feedback/clarification from City staff. Please send to both email addresses.
Want to learn more?
Visit the links below to learn more about what’s included in the draft Transportation System Plan (TSP) before the Planning Commission Hearing on July 27th.