With not a lot to write about, and with evenings warm, sometimes like last night a little hot, but not scorching yet so far this summer, it seemed like it might be a little interesting to follow the progress of demolition on the Marion Car Park.
But it has offered no revelations or anything particularly interesting. (Have you noticed any details in the rubble?)
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| The Willamette last night |
The revelation instead came last night walking under the Center Street Bridge after crossing the Union St RR Bridge and finally seeing - and hearing! - the Peregrine Falcons. To have Eagles, Osprey, and now Falcons all here seems like a good sign of river health.
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| Tuesday the 16th |
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| Saturday the 20th |
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| Thursday the 25th |
See here for previous notes on the Marion Car Park - attempts to demolish it, and the historical significance of the previous Holman Building and the Car Park.
Over at SBBA they posted a nice note about improved signage for the crosswalk on Market Street at Winter, right at Grant Elementary School.
With the speed humps, some adjusted stop signs, route signage, and improved crosswalks, the incremental improvements are all very nice.
It remains disappointing, though, that the City has no definite plan yet to continue the improvements into downtown on the segment south of D Street, and there is not even a conceptual plan for a second Greenway/Bike Boulevard in Salem.
Our commitments remain on the fringes of things, and if we are ever going to get serious about a Climate Plan, we will need to stop with fiddling on the margins and work on more fundamental changes to our transportation mix. We will need more than nice new signs.
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| But scorching elsewhere: front page of the Register-Guard today |
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| Final pie chart from Our Salem: It's all about the cars |
Addendum, Friday evening
Wait! Here's some real transportation news. One of the new Cherriots Board members is a little younger and on twitter. He was elected Board Chair, and here he announces "free Saturdays in September" as part of celebrating the service expansion.
The other day on transportation twitter there was
an interesting thread circulating about the limits of free service. I have looked at Corvallis and thought we should do the same, but a larger set of data suggests that greater frequency and speed, with things like transit-priority or even bus only lanes, offered a better return on the public investment. Assistance could be targeted to make transit free or very low cost for people who need it, but for the aggregate city transportation, frequency and speed attracted more riders.
Also
in the meeting packet for the Board meeting last night was discouraging evidence of climate denialism on the Board. Fortunately it was only one vote, and outgoing Director Lincoln made a strong statement for the climate.
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| One No vote |
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| Why the No vote: Not jumping on the bandwagon |
Addendum, September 4th
From the August 1st, Grant Neighborhood Association minutes. One of the signs in the crosswalk on Market at Winter has "already been hit, and spun out of alignment."
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| Jaydriving |
2 comments:
(updated with Cherriots news)
Whoops! The minutes for the August 1st Grant NA meeting say that the signage on the crosswalk for Market at Winter was already hit, just days after installation. Those dang jaydrivers!
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