The safety improvements at Prefontaine Memorial Park, often referred to as "Pre's Rock," have been completed, and the city of Eugene has returned the various memorabilia items that had been left at the site honoring the track star Steve Prefontaine to the expanded space.

The changes include a new railing to better separate visitors from the road, new double yellow lines on the road and yellow paint on the curb, and an expanded sidewalk and viewing area.

"I think it's just a much more welcoming and safe space for people to come visit the site," Eugene Parks and Open Space Landscape Architect Emily Proudfoot said Monday.

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People often go to his memorial site to honor him, leave memorabilia or gain inspiration for their own athleticism. Since the end of November when construction started, Proudfoot said she stored the memorabilia left at the site in her office, which included things such as running shoes, medals and poems, before returning them to the site when work was completed three weeks ago.

"It's sometimes people who ran in this pair of shoes, and it's like they're giving them to the god of running," she said.

With the completion of the new Hayward Field, Proudfoot said there had been a major increase in people visiting the site, and the city wanted to improve safety to the area that previously had no sidewalk. Prefontaine died in 1975 in a car accident where the memorial is located. The athlete was driving down Skyline Boulevard when his convertible jumped the curb, hit the rock wall and flipped.

The memorial park is a 1.3-acre site off a hairpin turn on the boulevard. There is a stone set at the site of the roadside boulder where he died. At the time of his death, he was regarded as the most popular track and field athlete in the world.

Proudfoot said part of the goal of the expanded site will make it so there isn't danger of people standing in the road when they visit, since before there was no sidewalk and was just a curb next to the rock. The entire project cost an estimated $65,000, and the city had been working on the design for several years, Proudfoot said.

Louis Krauss covers breaking news for The Register-Guard. Contact him at lkrauss@registerguard.com, and follow him on Twitter @LouisKraussNews.