Ecologue

The City of Corvallis is inviting Corvallis residents to join in on the Healthy Streets Planning Initiative.  “Healthy streets” are specially designed to be more environmentally friendly as well as safer for everyone.  High visibility crosswalks help reduce vehicle/pedestrian crashes.  Shared-use paths and a bike corridor make biking easier and safer.  Curb extensions with rain gardens allow storm water to be channeled away from streets and filtered naturally before entering the groundwater. These are just some of the amazing features the City is planning to add to some of the streets around Corvallis.

Why is constructing healthy streets important?  First off, storm water is a very important thing to manage.  If the facilities to mitigate water runoff are inadequate or poorly designed all kinds of problems can arise.  There can be flooding, sewer system damage, pollution in local streams, all costing thousands of dollars in repair to both the City and homeowners.  Safety is another concern.  A lot of traffic collisions are due to drivers, cyclists and pedestrians simply not seeing each other.  New high viability crosswalks would decrease this problem and allow everyone to be a little safer on their trips around town.

The City can’t find every problem by itself, and that’s why they need you!  Corvallis residents are encouraged to come share their insight on what problems there are around Corvallis.  Corvallis is your city, you should get a say in how they improve it.  You can read the minutes from the Technical Advisory Group here.  They are in charge setting the goals of the project and developing an evaluation technique for tracking the progress towards those goals.

The city will be holding four open house events at the following times and locations to answer questions and talk about the progress so far:

• Friday, March 29th, Noon to 9pm at Imagine Coffee (5460 SW Philomath Blvd.)
• Saturday, March 30th, 9am to 1pm at South Corvallis Co-op (1007 SE 3rd St.)
• Saturday, March 30th, 2pm to 7pm at Old World Deli (341 SW 2nd St.)
• Saturday April 6th, 9am to 1pm at Corvallis Senior Center (2601 NW Tyler Ave.)

Voice your opinion and join the planning initiative!. More information can be found at www.corvallisoregon.gov/healthystreets.