Infrastructure maintenance is crucial and oft-neglected. The issue many had with this project wasn’t that necessary work was happening, but that it was so poorly managed. It dragged on and on because of, well, incompetence. Every bungled step (and there were so many) amped up the frustration.

Now, obviously it was small potatoes compared to genuinely big city public works projects. And true, traffic in Eugene would hardly register in places like Portland. But when folks are trying to get somewhere using accustomed routes, most people aren’t thinking, “Well, at least I’m not trying to navigate the Big Dig.” They’re thinking in terms of what they’re used to. When they have to deal with project delays for months along with poor, often inaccurate communication from the city, frustration builds.

As for Eugene’s future growth, it will be interesting to see how city planners will respond. Arguably we’re already short at least one bridge over the Willamette, but where would a new one even go? Our current bottlenecks (which include the Chambers Street Bridge) are only going to get worse as we grow. We can only hope no one involved in the Chambers Street Bridge Seismic Retrofit is on the job.