Lane County sets Marcola, Clear Lake roads as safety corridors
Marcola Road and Clear Lake Road will become Lane County’s next double-fine corridors, with speed tickets jumping as high as $875. The zones start May 25.
Drivers on Marcola Road and Clear Lake Road will soon enter Lane County’s newest safety corridors, where speeding fines will double between Hayden Bridge and Parsons Creek Road, and between Territorial Highway and Green Hill Road. The county said the zones take effect May 25, 2026, and will remain in place through May 25, 2028.
The change is aimed at roads where Lane County says multiple people have been killed or seriously injured in recent years, with excessive speed and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol showing up again and again in the crash pattern. In the corridor, a Class A speeding violation of 30 mph or more over the limit will rise to $875 from $440. Class B violations of 21 to 30 mph over will climb to $525 from $265, Class C violations of 11 to 20 mph over will rise to $325 from $165, and Class D violations of 1 to 10 mph over will rise to $225 from $115.
New signs will mark both routes as “Safety Corridor / Fines Double” zones, a warning meant to slow down drivers before another serious crash on two rural roads that serve daily traffic in eastern and north-central Lane County. The county also says the broader purpose is to reduce deaths and injuries tied to speeding and impaired driving, not simply to raise revenue from citations.
Lane County commissioners approved a permanent county safety corridor program on Feb. 10, 2026, after Oregon House Bill 2154 made the county model permanent effective Jan. 1, 2026. Under the law, counties may designate no more than two safety corridors at a time, and only on roads they control. Before a corridor can be designated, counties must set objective criteria and requirements for community engagement, heightened enforcement, engineering improvements, infrastructure investments and public outreach.
The county’s earlier London Road pilot, which ran from 2021 to 2023, significantly reduced fatal and serious-injury crashes and helped push the statewide change. Lane County’s own crash data show why the move is focused on rural roads: from 2018 to 2022, 220 people were killed or seriously injured on rural county roads, and the county says those crashes happen at a rate 3.5 times higher than in the Eugene-Springfield urban area. Alcohol impairment was the top contributing factor in serious crashes, while roadway departure was the most common crash type.
Lane County’s broader traffic safety work dates to the Transportation Safety Action Plan first adopted in July 2017 and updated as a 2025 plan using a Safe System Approach. With Marcola Road and Clear Lake Road now added to the map, the county is betting that visible warnings, higher penalties and more targeted enforcement can change behavior on the roads residents use every day before the next wreck becomes another fatal statistic.
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