2019 AIA Eugene People's Choice Awards & Sunday Streets!

Find your way downtown tomorrow, Sunday, September 22 for the City of Eugene’s end of summer Sunday Streets celebration. The first Sunday Streets took place in 2011, and since then it’s become Eugene’s single largest community event. This year’s edition will kick off with the EUG Parade at 11:00 AM. The parade’s route will include a loop around 8th Avenue, Monroe Street, Broadway, and Oak Street. Sunday Streets will also feature activity centers at the Park Blocks, Monroe Park, and Kesey Square with free bike repairs, live music, yoga, dance, food carts and more throughout the afternoon. View the 2019 event map and activities schedule here. 

While you’re enjoying everything Sunday Streets has to offer, be sure to check out the 2019 edition of the perennially popular AIA Eugene People’s Choice Awards display, which will debut during the event at the Broadway Commerce Center (44 W. Broadway). Everyone is welcome to vote for their favorite designs in several categories. The project boards will remain at the Broadway Commerce Center until October 1, so if you can’t make it to Sunday Streets you’ll have plenty of time to view the project boards and cast your votes. Online voting will also be available through the AIA Eugene web page. AIA Eugene will announce the winning projects at a forthcoming section meeting (my guess is at either the October or November meeting). 

AIA Eugene thanks this year’s sponsors for their support of the 2019 People’s Choice Awards program: 

• Advanced Cabinet Designs Inc.
• Arbor South Architecture 
• Central Print & Reprographic Services
• Rowell Brokaw Architects 
• Rubenstein’s

The City of Eugene’s goals for Sunday Streets include giving community members an opportunity to explore the city’s neighborhoods by foot or by bike, and to rethink streets as public spaces. By temporarily closing them to vehicular traffic, people can more easily imagine how our streets—more than merely serving as a means to drive from here to there—can play a broader role as truly vital public arenas for commerce, socialization, community celebration, and recreation. Our streets can be great destinations, especially if we imagine them first and foremost as places for people rather than cars. Ultimately, the benefits of people-oriented streets will include improved health, reduced dependence on motor vehicles, increased awareness of sustainable transportation options, increased neighborhood livability, and new opportunities for local businesses. 

In due course, citizens will become the leading advocates for projects to improve our streets so they are more holistic, pedestrian-friendly, and focused upon the critical public space role many should play within our urban fabric. ROW changes including safe pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure, pedestrian-scaled lighting, attractive and durable street furniture, landscaping, public art, and other features will in turn encourage private investment in aesthetically diverse and interesting exteriors and building entrances, patios, ample street-level windows, and public seating. To quote Fred Kent of Project for Public Spaces, “If you plan for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.” 

I hope to see you tomorrow enjoying Sunday Streets and voting at the People’s Choice display. Put on your walking shoes (and if the weather forecast holds, bring your umbrellas!).