Eugene Oregon Private vs Public Transit

 Car Oriented Neighborhoods

        Here in Eugene, Oregon, people refer to all trips in terms of time. One waitress said, "You can get anywhere in Eugene in less then 15 minutes." A sales clerk said, "Gas is cheap and you can park anywhere." What they fail to tell you is that the only way to get anywhere in a reasonable time is to drive a car there.
        Here in Eugene, Oregon, the average public transit trip can range from 15 minutes to over 1 hour. This in a town were it is possible to drive anywhere in less than 15 minutes.
        Even worse, several bus lines run only once per hour.
        Millions of dollars (if not billions in today's money) have been spent of roads in Eugene: Widening them, adding double left turn signals, reducing cross walks, and building a limited access belt line (two lanes each direction).
        The only real money now being spent on public transit is construction of the EMX bus rapid transit system. Here the numbers are better. These buses run once each 8 minutes mid day each weekday, and a trip downtown from the end of the line is only 16 minutes in-bound, but 55 minutes out-bound.
        To compete successfully with cars, the Lane Transit District should run all bus lines with a 10 minute or better frequency, and no trip, including transfers should take longer than 15 minutes from pickup to drop off. Anything less than these times and LTD will fail to compete with cars and fail to draw drivers from cars and onto buses.
        The only way to achieve such times would be to use limited access light rail with no grade crossings. Could such a system ever be built?  I doubt it, because Oregonians will never spend as mush money on public transit as they do on roads.