Though they haven't broken ground yet, plans remain conceptual still, and the prospect of tariffs and deportations with anti-immigrant sentiment threaten to make construction more difficult, the biggest development of the year — and it is the obvious one — is literally a development.
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| Former Truitt Bros. site and boxcars, c.1920s (Oregon Historical Society) |
Between the proposed Cannery project at the former Truitt Bros. site and the RAISE Grant to reshape Front Street north of Union Street, the plan for redeveloping the north downtown riverfront has to be the story of the year.
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| Aerial view looking eastish from river (The Cannery) |
Other Development
Other developments were significant stories, too. "Surge" seems too strong a word yet, but it was possible to see growing momentum for housing. The "Rivenwood" apartments at the former Nordstrom site opened as did Mahonia Crossing and Sequoia Crossings, construction started at Bush and Commercial (now called "the Cartwright"), and the City announced developers for the former UGM/Saffron site aka Block 50. Details for the Gussie Belle Brown apartments finally fell into place for construction and the second phase has been announced. Big plans for the former Boys Reform School and Prison Annex site were announced with preliminary approvals. Other projects are not yet formally announced, though they've started files with the City, and they will be stories for next year. Last year's plans for old City Hall site do not seem to have advanced in a public way. (The paper has a good roundup, though they continue to assert that the plans for the old City Hall site include Belluschi crater, but the developer has filed nothing publicly with the City for that corner.)
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| December |
But, headwinds. In the context of tariffs and anti-immigrant actions, a greater proportion of projects may not be able to find the finish line. Impacts on construction will be a large and important story in 2025. It may be the story, as momentum for housing and infill from parking reform and incipient zoning reform strengthens further or withers.
Streets and Roads
Some may see greater progress or significance in the projects, but from here the street improvements were on the edges and did not represent any game-changer or paradigm shift. It was business as usual with tweaks.
The City finished up the first phase of the total redesign, widening, and rebuild on McGilchrist Street between 12th and 25th. Construction will continue in 2025 and 2026.
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| Buffers aren't enough and speeding remains a problem Commercial Street between Hoyt and Rural |
The City also finished the project for middle Commercial Street with buffered bike lanes and a crossbike with bike signal (timed painfully slow, it has seemed) at the wye with Liberty Road. From here, it was a little anti-climactic. Nearly a decade ago when the project was formulated as part of the Commercial-Vista Corridor Study, it was still not quite fully modern, but seemed like progress. Now several years later it seems much more old-fashioned. As cities move towards fully protected bike lanes, mere buffers on a big, busy stroad seem underpowered and insufficient.
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| No right-on-red for drivers, but requires people biking to take the lane northbound |
A bike box on Liberty Street at Trade and a multi-use path on Battle Creek Road at Mahonia Crossing were finished also. These too are small improvements on the edges, and not any fully considered corridor reform. Sidewalkification, as at McGilchrist and Battle Creek, does not slow the cars, and until we center the speed of cars in our safety projects, we're just tinkering on the edges.
Advocacy: Safe Routes to Schools & Salem Bike Vision
Safe Routes to Schools programming mostly showed terrific growth. One big question persists. When Safe Routes to School was placed at the MPO and first started, it seemed like too much copaganda with "Officer Friendly." Even now they center police. It was enough for the principal of BikePortland to assert, "no self-respecting active transportation advocate should ever think it's a good idea for a police escort in that context [of a bike bus and education ride]."
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| Surprised by the police presence - Bluesky |
Hopefully they'll figure that out.
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| SR2S growth: Transit training this spring - FB |
But there were other great things. This past year or two it has grown wonderfully, building on the walking events with bike fleets, bicycle safety education for a variety of ages, transit training, and more.
On the whole it's terrific to see, but the continued focus on centering Police remains odd and concerning. The true measure of safety comes when the cops aren't around, and particularly in our potentially authoritarian moment we have to remember this critique and the way Police function in it: "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
- Very much related, on the death of Marganne Allen as she bicycled home from work, see "Jaydriving Federal Agent secures Move to Federal Court and more Immunity in Trial over Fatal Crash." He's going to get off totally free.
By contrast, Salem Bike Vision was nearly silent as an advocacy group. What is their game? They were a mystery in 2024: After a launch in 2022 and the big grant in 2023, which seemed promising, they faded in 2024. When the MPO published a draft Metropolitan Transportation Safety Action Plan, SBV was utterly silent, and made no call for public comment to strengthen the plan. When the MPO solicited comment for prioritizing TIP funding, SBV made no call for public comment in support of better bike lanes or more general transportation reform. There have been a few public instances of mourning, and periodic asks for donations and membership, but little public advocacy pushing for policy and projects. The accomplishments they tout frequently depend instead on advocacy from a previous cohort of advocates. And now one of them works for ODOT and is unlikely to push against ODOT, the COG/MPO, or the City of Salem. They are a strange outfit. Are they a public advocacy group, or mainly a clubby membership organization? They likely need to think more about the outside game and less about the inside game, especially since they no longer have a sitting City Councilor and do have a something of a conflict-of-interest at ODOT. They disappointed in 2024 and no longer seem like real agents for change. Maybe 2025 will right the ship.
(Update: After this posted, later in the day SBV published their own year-end review, to "highlight a things we have been able to accomplish this year," and it exemplifies the problems! The first thing they cite are the buffered bike lanes on middle Commercial. But these were planned a decade ago and the funding announced in March of 2017 for the 2018-2023 TIP. This project has nothing to do with them and is not any "accomplishment" of theirs. It looks like they are trying to take credit for it. It's kinda weird. Also, maybe they do in fact have a model, and the game they are playing might be "lobbyist." Rather than organizing public advocacy campaigns, maybe they are mainly trying to lobby behind closed doors. Might come back to this another time.)
Planning
There didn't seem to be a lot of substantial public and visible planning action in 2024.
After months of wrangling, Aumsville finally joined the MPO and Salem gained a second seat at the Policy Committee. We'll see how this plays out in 2025. Incoming Mayor Julie Hoy will appoint a replacement for outgoing Councilor Phillips on the MPO's Policy Committee, and she may choose someone more aligned with Marion County Commissioners and their autoism.
The Scenario Planning project was underwhelming in 2024 and there has not been much to say about it.
The Metropolitan Transportation Safety Action Plan did not center speed and speeding enough, and seemed too accepting of self-imposed limits as an advisory document only.
2025 will bring more City action on the Climate Friendly/Walkable Mixed Use Area designations as well as the update to the Transportation System Plan, including Vision Zero planning. But 2024 did not have a lot of public movement on these.
Too much emphasis on the PR campaign against idling and not enough on the campaign to boost heat pump adoption seemed to encapsulate the Climate Action Plan committee in 2024. Will climate action strengthen in 2025 or will it be vitiated by the new Mayor and by our budget problem?
That campaign on idling came from the Sustainable Cities residency, and there has not been much to say about the residency. Most of the final reports are published, but so much of the work is clearly student work and does not seem useful for the City or for the citizenry. That there seemed to be less travel to Salem for site visits compared to the residency a decade ago was significant. Students did pan the Edgewater path, as we've asserted here before, and propose fully protected lanes on Edgewater in a modern "main street" configuration. From here this seemed like the strongest takeaway from the bicycle transport class.
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| SCI: Didn't find the Edgewater path useful |
City Government
As the City faces a substantial budget gap, Council censured Councilors (and Mayor-elect) Hoy and Gwyn for not recusing on a vote that benefited campaign donors. Figuring out the budget will be a major story for 2025.
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| More cancellations in 2024 |
After cancelling the Sonoma flights, the airport cancelled Vegas flights. Service at the airport is paltry, the airport is nearly certain to be overstaffed now, and the City should just pull the plug on this boondoggle. (The "analysis" of economic benefits Council saw was provided by an airport booster, employed the most optimistic assumptions, and was not anything impartial.)
Much Uncertainty for 2025
Who knows what 2025 will bring. Some chaos and governmental enshittification for sure, a soft incipient authoritarianism very possibly, and we may very well regret not making stronger local progress on things in 2024 (and before) when it was possible. Then there's the prospect of bird flu and a pandemic's impact to public space and public association. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Good luck, everybody. We may need it.
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