Elsewhere there were other things to note also.
It looks like the Dome Building is getting a paint job to match the Kirkbride Building.
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| A new paint scheme for the Dome Building? Would match the Kirkbride! |
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| Dome Building in winter 2013, South facade |
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| The main Kirkbride Building in 2012 |
A New Sidewalk by the Police Station?
In the renderings accompanying yesterday's article about static on the proposed UGM Shelter, one elevation showed a new sidewalk on the north side of Division Street at Commercial.
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| A crosswalk on the north side of Division at Commercial? |
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| Currently the crosswalk is closed of Commercial at Division. |
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| But no crosswalk in the Police Station drawings, via Twitter |
Ward 8 Election
When you cross the river going west into West Salem, just to the right of the ramp to Edgewater and Wallace, the real estate office has a large banner resolving the City Council race to a referendum on the Salem River Crossing. Even the sign colors are coordinated with the preferred candidate. It will be interesting to see if the race truly becomes a contest over that one single issue. (And if you think the election does hinge on this one issue and you favor pushing the SRC for the near-term, that's a clever sign placement, it must be said.)
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| Making the Ward 8 Election a referendum on the SRC? Note matching color scheme on the two smaller signs |
5 comments:
I think it would be good to push for that crosswalk on Commercial by the new police station for a couple of reasons. One it might encourage Mass Transit to put a bus stop in that area, and two it would allow better connectivity for both the police and citizens better access to resources. Who ever put it there is making a good case but we need to press for its implementation and not just leave it to chance or a staff whim.
This is your second recent comment about putting a bus stop "closer" to the police station. Why would that happen? The bus already stops on High Street, merely one block away.
The southbound bus stop is at Division, which is close as you could want, and is a straight shot from Broadway to the transit center- going a block or two out of the way makes absolutely no sense.
The nearest northbound stops are at Union & High, and at Willow, so an extra block in either direction. You could probably make a case for the northbound bus to go an extra block to Liberty before heading north, but takes extra time to get back to Broadway, for questionable benefit.
Buses should run in straight lines as much as possible, and we should focus on quality pedestrian networks to get people to bus stops.
Re: "This is your second recent comment about putting a bus stop 'closer' to the police station." That is a strange and unwelcome scolding tone, especially as you are commenting anonymously. Please debate in a more friendly way!
On substance, a new bus stop is a reasonable thing to propose and discuss, even if a person's counter-opinion is that stops are sufficiently near as they currently are.
It is striking that our current route network has no service on Commercial/Liberty between the Parkway and the downtown Bus mall. Routes 9 and 19 as you say run on Broadway/High.
Putting the UGM shelter and Police both at the corner of Division and Commercial would represent a significant cluster of destinations right there. It still might be regarded as an inefficient and unnecessary deflection from the straight-lines on Broadway, but geeze, it's not a crazy or dumb idea to be scorned.
Anyway, thanks for thinking about a more friendly tone in debate!
If there is a crosswalk on Commercial to make getting to High Street easier, then a bus stop could be accessible. However, if you can't get across Commercial without walking several blocks north then it is going to discourage people from using the bus. The UGM and ARCHES on Commercial might be enough to create incentive when you add it to the Police Station as a destination. I am assuming that some of the clients at those two facilities might need to go out to the Social Security offices, or to a doctor or the hospital via bus.
I know that the Transit routes are determined both by efficiency as well as trying to go where the riders are. Time will tell if it happens.
My main thought was that a crosswalk is a good idea.
As to the bus route issue, I don't use the bus right now, so have little knowledge of routes. But it was raised as an issue by one of the architects at the Open House for the Police Stations as something they are discussing to encourage staff and citizens to use the bus instead of driving because of the limited amount of parking in the area..
"Please debate in a more friendly way!" Apologies. I think we're all saying the same thing.
"It is striking that our current route network has no service on Commercial/Liberty between the Parkway and the downtown Bus mall." If you look at High/Broadway through that stretch, it isn't any further than 5 blocks or 1/3 of a mile to the river. The 19 runs every 15 minutes, the 9 every 30 minutes as far as Pine. So south of Pine there are 6 buses an hour, a very high level of service for Salem.
Since there are no destinations on/beyond the river, additional service in the narrow slice between the river and a high frequency service doesn't seem necessary. What is necessary is high-quality pedestrian networks in the area, including better/more crosswalks and traffic calming (e.g. the lanes are way too wide) on Commercial and Liberty, to get folks to and from transit on Broadway.
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