Newsbits: Trees, Rain, Capitol 75th, MWACT

Maybe not sun, but the cloud cover is breaking some, and the intensity of light finally yielding some soft shadows!   Gads it was a gloomy weekend.

There was a nice guest opinion in the paper yesterday about the value of urban trees and mentions they ways they help reduce speeds on streets and roads.

Ha ha!  Remember when it was spring and summer and sunny?

Our Area Commission on Transportation, MWACT, meets on Thursday, and both the agenda and info packet are on line.

at the Capitol

One interesting bit: Cherriots is cranky at the bike/ped people! And it's the result of the highway and autoist policy of divide and conquer. 

From the minutes to the August meeting:

[Cathy Clark said] "Transit ongoing operational expenses, specifically buses, should be a budgeted item rather than a less certain competitive grant process.” Marcia Kelley added that at the end of the meeting she indicated that transit needed to be better represented in projects, or they would have to take up the issue with the process because flexible funds are their only funding source as they can't use the highway dollars...

Allen Pollock, Salem - Keizer Transit, stated that he understands that resources are limited. However, he commented that there is only one transit project included on the MWACT priority list [for "Enhance" funds]. The rest of the projects are bicycle/pedestrian projects. He encouraged commissioners to consider equity issues. Perhaps some of the other projects could be scaled back to allow funding for another transit project.

The problem here isn't that there's too much money going to bike/ped stuff; on the contrary, there's still too little.  The problem, rather, is that we don't have a good mechanism for funding transit.  We're all just begging for the table scraps. 

The two Salem-area projects on the Enhance list are completion funding for the Minto Bridge and widening Hayesville Drive and adding sidewalks.

At the Thursday meeting there will also be a discussion of the fifth round of ConnectOregon, which this time will make lottery-backed funds available to bike/ped projects.  That'll be the next opportunity for the City of Salem to fund projects. (The Salem bond surplus and ConnectOregon are the two that seem in play at the moment.)

And lots more on the Capitol's 75th birthday. (That's today!)

The winning design might be best!
(75th anniversary site)

One columnist wrote yesterday about the "legend" of the columns from the old Capitol in Mill Creek behind the ODOT offices at Olinger Pool. It's no legend! You can see them. Here's more, including a local link to abolitionist John Brown.

Proposed Candalaria site for new Capitol, 1935/36
As best I can tell, it would be up on the hill behind LifeSource
(This is a third-generation scan, so it's not very good)

A couple more lectures to consider:

Wednesday, October 2, 2013 at noon
at the Capitol building
Images of America: Oregon’s Capitol Building – Tom Fuller, Author

Saturday, October 5, 2013 (11:00 am – 12:00 pm)
Oregon State Library, State Library Building, 250 Winter St
Where to Locate the New Oregon State Capitol? A Brief ‘Documentary’ History.” – Dave Hegeman, Librarian, Oregon State Library