City Council, September 25th - Brown Road and Proclamations

Council meets on Monday and while the proposal for a Sit-Lie Ordinance rightly gets headlines, there are some other transportation matters on the agenda.

The City has assembled a trio of project applications for Federal funding:

SKATS is soliciting for transportation projects that will be ready for contract in fiscal years 2019, 2020, and 2021. The total federal funds available for this solicitation is $5 million....

[the three projects are] for Brown Road NE Complete Streets, McGilchrist Street SE Complete Streets, and Orchard Heights Road NW Pedestrian and Pavement Improvement.

I think this is a result of extra funding from the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program. From back in July at SKATS:

The addition of CMAQ funds for SKATS in FY 2019 to FY 2021 provides an opportunity to review projects in the FY 2018-2021 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and add projects using federal STBGP-U funds that were not programmed in the TIP. Approximately $5 million will be available for projects for obligation in FY 2019 through 2021. Staff and TAC members need to discuss the project identification and application process that should start this summer.

One of the projects was already funded and needs completion funding. It is identified as the highest priority.

The project will construct sidewalks and bike lanes on Brown Road NE between San Francisco Drive NE and Sunnyview Road NE and add a turn lane at the intersection with Sunnyview Road NE. Brown Road NE is a collector street that provides access to Scott Elementary School, is located on a bus route, and is adjacent to a future park site.

Additional costs were identified during project design. In particular, right-of-way costs are approximately three times greater than originally estimated and hazardous material has been identified that will require special disposal. Because this project already has federal funds, staff recommends that this be the City’s highest priority for additional federal funds. [italics added]

The other two are new:

• [A project on Orchard Heights] will fill in two missing segments of sidewalk....The first segment is approximately 340 feet long and is adjacent to the Glen Creek Village Housing Authority Apartment Complex. The second segment is approximately 500 feet long and is along the frontage of a City water reservoir. The project will also construct a median at the entrance to the park opposite Parkway Drive to facilitate pedestrian access to the park.
• In 2016, the City was awarded federal funds for right-of-way acquisition for the additional width needed along McGilchrist Street SE and at intersections, with the exception of the intersection at 22nd Street SE. The intersection of 22nd Street SE and McGilchrist Street SE is an off-set intersection that will be realigned as part of the project. The right-of-way for this intersection was not included in the previous application because of higher costs associated with the realignment. Staff recommends that the City apply for the additional right-of-way needed to realign 22nd Street SE at McGilchrist Street SE.

These are small, incremental projects, and two are explicitly small parts of larger projects. (The whole McGilchrist project at the moment is conceived as a much larger TIGER recipient, and the future of that Federal grant program remains in doubt.)

From the TSP with inset detail from Staff Report,
and added comment on tier 3 prioirty

Interestingly, the segment on Orchard Heights was identified in the "Bike and Walk Salem" update to the Transportation System Plan as only a "tier 3" priority. Maybe there are reasons it should have a higher priority. Adjacency to the public housing is certainly a worthy reason, and part of any argument. But the Staff Report should discuss this and develop the argument in more detail. On the surface it looks like a project that's sliding in above other more urgent needs. If we are serious about our Strategic Planning effort, it should be easy to see how we prioritize projects. Here it looks more like an ad hoc selection process; it is not in fact easy to see how we rank and prioritize these and how they fit into a larger vision of mobility for the city.

Mostly Sunny for Open Streets Salem on Saturday!

The weather pivoted yesterday and it looks like the weekend will have lovely early fall weather.

Open Streets Salem - Sunday Streets v2.0 - lands on Saturday, from 11am to 3pm. It'll run from the Saturday Market at Union and Winter up to Highland School.

It's a car-free event for walking, biking, and other rolling.

Map and schedule via Facebook

There are a couple of notable rides on the schedule. It'll open with Ride with the Mayor:

This traveling event will roll out at 11:15 am from the corner of Union and Winter near the Salem Saturday Market Activity Hub and will travel to Grant Community School. Mayor Bennett, Councilor Cara Kaser, and several others will join the fun. This is a great way to show the Mayor your interest in safe and comfortable cycling for Salem!

A ride from the Market to Grant seems a little short, however, and hopefully they'll extend it out to the full length of the route. (There might be an opportunity, too, to point out to the Mayor that the Salem River Crossing cancels many bike boulevard benefits and threatens to suck up discretionary funding that might instead be allocated to bike boulevard projects. It's a bull in the china shop for sure. We need more bike boulevards and less giant bridge and highway. The Mayor's advocacy for both is incoherent and counter-productive. To put it baldly: It's more important to kill the SRC than to fund and construct a single bike boulevard.)

A second ride offers more commentary and explanation along the full length:

Meet at 2:15pm at the SE corner of the main playground at Highland School Activity Hub and travel to Salem Saturday Market. Your tour leader will be City of Salem Transportation Planner Anthony Gamallo. Come, enjoy the ride, and learn about the proposed design changes that will bring comfortable walking and biking to the neighborhood

See Open Streets Salem and Salem Bike Boulevard Advocates for the latest. (There will be food carts, watermelon drops, and other fun! Here's the latest.)

History Notes: A Wine Bar for Downtown, Letters to Asahel Bush

The Historic Landmarks Commission meets tonight, Thursday the 21st, and their agenda brings news about a new wine bar proposed for downtown.

They have another interesting item. The Mill's "History in the News" as well as a major project on the letters of Asahel Bush are also worth noting. (All of them grapple in one way or another with the question of how best to retrieve and make lively the past.)

Starkey McCully Block

Proposal for a new wine bar and apartments

At the HLC is a proposal with a varied package of changes for the northmost third of the Starkey-McCully Block, one of the very oldest intact commercial buildings downtown.

Starkey-McCully Block and First National Bank
(The tower and Gerlinger Block on the corner are long gone,
but you can still read Lamport in the sidewalk!)
Image circa 1887, Salem Library Historic Photos

You may remember that the Salem-Keizer Education Foundation bought part of it, the southmost two-thirds, a couple years ago and there was a debate about whether Urban Renewal subsidy should be going to a non-profit that would not be paying property taxes for the "tax increment." (Here, here, and here.)

The ownership of that northern third was separate and was not in the sale to the SKEF, and now either through a different sale or merely that the current owners wish to upgrade, the HLC is looking at a

Major Historic Design Review of a proposal to add new signage, replace the front storefront, and construct a new addition on the rear of the Starkey/McCully Building (1867), a historic contributing resource within the Salem Downtown National Register Historic District...

On the whole, Staff Recommendation is for approval.

Hops are More Important than you Might Think!

Have you seen today's long front-page article on hops?

It's hop harvest time

It's glorious to see more mainstream attention to hops in culture, in history, and in our agricultural economy.

The article's focus is more on the development and late 20th century influence of the Cascade hop, developed at OSU and featured in what some have said is the most influential modern beer: Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale first released in the late 70s, a few years before Oregon's pioneering brewers were starting in the mid-80s.

The pre-history before the Cascade doesn't get much ink, though:

Early Oregon farmers rarely grew hops for beer.

In the 1800s, before Goschies began growing hops, fresh cones were stuffed into pillowcases to lull children to sleep, used as an antibacterial agent in soap, and served as a homegrown antidepressant.

But as beer popularized, so did hops, and harvests became larger and larger. The Goschie family started growing hops commercially in 1904. By then, brewers were the customers.

That understates the local significance of hops and the scope of hop ranching and hop harvests!

It was featured on the now-demolished First National Bank as for a reason.

Hop Harvest on the now-demolished Belluschi Bank,
relief by Frederic Littman

Debate on I-5 Rose Quarter Project

You might have noticed that there's a new debate over freeway widening in Portland.

Probably the best summary of it is at the Portland Mercury: "Oregon's $450 Million Plan to Widen I-5 Has Portlanders Preparing for War: But Can Activists Kill Another Highway Megaproject?"

Portland Mercury

BikePortland gets into the weeds with the most comprehensive coverage:

• August 29th: "Planned widening of I-5 at the Rose Quarter is Portland’s next big freeway fight"
• August 30th: "With letter to City Council, new coalition launches fight against I-5 Rose Quarter project"
• August 31st: "Backers say I-5 Rose Quarter widening could be model for future freeway projects"
• September 1st: "The Street Trust says “compromises with legislators” are why they won’t sign I-5 widening opposition letter"
• September 1st: "Saltzman wants congestion pricing of I-5 before widening project starts"
• September 7th: "Press release: Coalition prepares to testify against freeway expansion at City Council"
• September 8th: "No love for I-5 Rose Quarter project at city council hearing"
• Sept 15th: "Portland Mayor rebuts opposition to I-5 Rose Quarter project in radio interview"

The coalition opposing it has a project site, No More Freeway Expansions.

The Street Trust, formerly Bicycle Transportation Alliance, has distanced themselves and seems to be trying to have it both ways: "The Future of the Rose Quarter."

Via the AP, the local presentation at the SJ

Almost certainly the single most important takeaway is the concept of trying out decongestion pricing first. See how that does or does not tame the traffic. And then consider other measures if it fails. But try pricing first.

This story we probably won't follow closely here, but may update this post for reference and to keep a running tally on it as it develops.

Bike commuting Flat in 2016

There are some new census numbers on commuting coming out, and in our era of cheap gas, they are not good.

At 1.3%, Salem's at the top of p.2

Several cities actually show declines. As far as I can tell, Salem's rate remains unchanged, fluttering historically around that 1% to 1.5% level, within the error bars for any assessment.

For bigger cities there is more hand-wringing:

• At People for bikes: "Bike commute growth has leveled off - but some cities still show the way"
• At BikePortland: "Bike commuting growth slips and Portland adds 11,000 more commutes by car"

Here the lesson surely is that if we want to see fewer drive-alone trips, we are going to have to dig in more and make more of an effort. Mostly we're adding doilies and trinkets and bikey bric-a-brac on the margins, not making determined structural and systemic efforts to make walking, biking, and busing more convenient and more attractive and less costly than drive-alone trips, especially for short trips.

Our Metropolitan Planning Organization has said

The SKATS MPO -- along with our local jurisdictions and ODOT -- invests in a balance of travel modes: auto, transit, bicycle and pedestrian projects.

And 1.3% is the resulting "balance."

That's not balance. That's tokenism.

Jazz first comes to Salem in 1917

August 8th, 1917

One of the interesting things to come out of reading about Riverside Dip was the fact that once the summer bathing season was over, it also had a "dancing pavilion." And even more interesting than the mere existence of the pavilion was the sudden appearance of "jazz" in Salem.*

Have you heard of the Jazz band and the jazz music and the new jazz dance? While very few of the up-to-date dancers are dancing the jazz dance, never the less the jazz band and jazz music is with us and will make its first appearance next Saturday evening at the dancing pavilion of of Riverside Dip. Lyle Bartholomew, who has charge of the Dip during the afternoons will probably also superintend the dancing pavilion. A jazz band to be a real jazz band must include a piano, xylophone, drums and either banjo or saxophone. All the musical instruments must be of the loud kind in order to make more noise than the walking feet of the dancers. The jazz dance is coming.

The word doesn't seem to have appeared in the paper before 1916. In 1916 it first appears.** The context is baseball, though, not music.