McKenzie Highway and the Eugene Municipal Water Supply:
The greatest threat to the Eugene Municipal Water Supply and public safety in Lane County isn't an impending earthquake. It isn't the aerial spraying of commercial herbicides used in the management of private forest land. No, the greatest threat to the Eugene Municipal Water Supply and to the public's safety is the very real danger of a tanker truck loaded with toxic chemicals, hazardous waste, or radioactive materials driving off the McKenzie Highway and winding up in the McKenzie River. If that ever happens the Eugene Municipal Water Supply will never be the same again, and neither will the McKenzie River. Its stellar reputation as one of Oregon's best places to fish and raft will be gone forever. The fact that there are no basic safety features along the road which are found on most other highways assures us that it isn't a question of if it will happen, but only when it will happen.
The McKenzie Highway is not built to today's modern safety standards and it isn't designed to handle the ever increasing volume of large commercial trucks that it does today. The absence of common safety features found along other highways such as fog line reflectors, rumble strips, and guard rails where they are desperately needed are a big part of the problem, but the narrow undivided roadway which is barely wide enough to accommodate today's modern trucks not to mention those hauling double and triple trailers poses another problems, and the paucity of police around to enforce the posted speed limits doesn't do anything to help matters. Furthermore the highway's designation as a federally designated trucking route and part of the National Network of Highways(NN) increases the risk to everyone who lives along the highway and to anyone else who uses it as well as to everyone living in Eugene whose water source is the McKenzie River.
For as long as my opponent has been in the Oregon Legislature which is over twenty years now, he has done absolutely nothing to push for stricter safety standards on the McKenzie Highway. By any reasonable definition the highway fails to meet even minimum safety standards. Completely un-illuminated at night it remains one of the State's most dangerous highways even when it is not foggy or raining or there is snow on the ground. There are no reflectors along the center line or the fog lines to mark the edges of the lanes or the edge of the roadway. There are no rumble strips to wake people up before they cross over the center line or plunge their vehicle over the edge of the road and into the river. There are no guard rails where they are desperately needed and in some places there is only a foot or so of pavement on the other side of the fog line followed by a very steep drop down to the river.
Every year the traffic on the McKenzie highway gets worse and worse as more and more people move to Oregon and more and more freight is moved around here. The result is that more and more people are injured or die every year while driving on this highway. To some the McKenzie Highway is known as the Gateway to the Cascades, but it would be far more appropriate to call it the Gateway to Heaven or the Highway of Death. There have been at least 103 deaths on the McKenzie Highway since 1995 when Floyd Prozanski entered the Oregon Legislature. Over five thousand people have been injured and there have been 7,241 accidents between Springfield and Redmond over the same time. Floyd Prozanski has done absolutely nothing about it. Twenty three years is a long time to do nothing.
improvemIt will be my top priority if I am elected to provide the people of my district who drive or live along the McKenzie Highway with the vital safety improvements that they deserve... the safety that this vital Oregon highway needs. There is no reason why the Oregon Department of Transportation has to wait until someone else dies before they install reflectors and rumble strips along the highway. The road needs to be properly illuminated at night right now, and it is not enough to put reflectors and rumble strips just along the center line like they just did on Highway 58. These safety features need to be on the fog lines too. It is a relatively cheap and simple remedy that should not have to take a back seat to other projects or wait until the highway is repaved. It should be done immediately.
The McKenzie highway is long overdue for safety improvements. People's lives are at least as important as making sure that all of Oregon's retired public employees receive every dime that they were promised. The cost of funding PERS is one of the reasons that these necessary improvements have not been made. That is why there have been so many accidents and why there has been an alarming increase in the number of accidents involving commercial trucks between Interstate 5 and Bend which imperils the water supply for 120,000 people living in Eugene. My opponent is on the Public Safety Committee in the Oregon Legislature, but he is more concerned about whether people get fired for smoking dope on the job than whether they get killed driving back and forth to work on this highway. In twenty three years in the Oregon Legislature he has done nothing to raise public awareness of this very important issue. I will.
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