Notes on Little Central and the Colored School around 1870

It's Black History Month and Macy's is closing.

It's a good time to revisit the "Colored School" in Little Central located on the corner of Marion and High Streets, the north side of the Macy's block.

Little Central, home for "Colored School" on Marion at High
(Streetview in 2012, State Library inset)

There's nothing really new here, but maybe we can refine a few details.

In her recent book, The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920, Manesha Sinha focuses on Black self-determination as she stresses bottom-up action in "grassroots Reconstruction" and "Black Reconstruction." On education she writes

In 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau ran 740 schools with 90,589 students and 1,314 teachers....This was a "drop in the bucket," though, as the Bureau received hundreds of applications for new schools from freedpeople....As a result of congressional appropriations during Reconstruction, the Bureau schools were put on a firmer footing. But the biggest driver of the educational success of the Bureau remained freedpeople themselves. By 1867, "colored pupils" were paying school tuition and freed people contributed considerably to the upkeep of freedmen's schools....Freedpeople's desire for education transcended age; many adults started "self-teaching." Freedpeople established their own schools in "cellars, sheds, or the corner of a negro meeting house"....

Our establishment histories haven't said much about the Colored School here, in part because little was known. As I read it, pretty much everything depends on and is a refinement of Sue Bell's 2002 piece in Historic Marion and later adapted for her Oregon Encyclopedia piece, "Salem's Colored School and Little Central."

The Salem Online History, now hosted at the Mill, discussed it in the context of Black History more generally.

In 1867, the African American community in Salem raised $427.50, which allowed them to operate a school for six months. They placed an announcement in the newspaper, saying that “Notice is hereby given that the colored people of Salem expect to pay all the expenses of the Evening School now being held by them, without aid from other citizens – no person is authorized to collect funds in our name.” The following year, the city of Salem continued what they had begun, and opened Little Central School. This segregated school was located near Central School on High Street between Center and Marion. Its fifteen minority students were taught by Marie Smith and Mrs. R. Mallory. Tuition at Little Central was $4 a term, the same that white children paid to attend “big” Central School.

And reference in the Mill's piece on Emancipation celebrations:

the African American community of Salem was renting a room in order to have a school that their children could attend, the city’s schools having barred their children entry (even though they were paying the taxes that supported the city’s school system).  Fed up, parents raised enough money to hire a teacher and rent a room to provide their children with an education.

Sinha's notes on history and self-determination suggest a broader reading of the Colored School as an expression of Reconstruction here in Salem. It was not just a local story but took place in that national context, and also would offer more evidence that Reconstruction was story for a much wider area than the South.

There is some evidence that locals understood it this broader way.

Even Unruly, Protest on Foot not equal to Dangerous Motorized Street Takeover

Salem Police today sent out a weird release. Seemingly by design, it conflates a protest on foot, sometimes unruly, but not anything inherently dangerous with lethal force, and an inherently dangerous street takeover by cars and drivers drifting with lethal force.

From Salem PD:

Street takeover closes northeast Salem intersection Saturday night, five arrested

Salem, Ore. -- The intersection of Lancaster DR and Market ST NE was closed at about 8:45 p.m. on Saturday, February 1 after the area was taken over illegally by a crowd of people and vehicles.

At approximately 12:00 p.m., a crowd of people gathered in the parking lots of several businesses on the four corners of the intersection of Lancaster DR and Market ST NE. The group was demonstrating against national immigration enforcement efforts.

By 2:00 p.m., the group was estimated to have 300 participants. The gathered remained relatively peaceful, although traffic in the area was congested. As the event progressed, callers reported participants throwing objects and hitting passing cars.

Eventually, more police resources were called in to address the event.

Other reports were received at about 7:00 p.m. of participants standing in the crosswalk not allowing traffic to continue, fireworks being ignited, and vehicles driving recklessly. At this point further police resources were necessary, including calling in officers from home and requesting outside agency assistance.

At about 8:30 p.m., the intersection was overtaken by drivers performing burnouts and dangerously drifting and spinning in the roadway, and nearly 50 people occupying the street.

The intersection was closed shortly afterward with north and southbound Lancaster DR closed between D ST and Sunnyview RD, east and westbound Market ST was closed between Fisher RD and Tierra DR. Cherriots buses were rerouted. Oregon State Police temporarily closed the Market ST offramp.

As specialized crowd management officers from the Mobile Response Team (MRT) arrived, the group surrounded a vehicle on Lancaster DR blocking all northbound traffic. The officers cleared the area allowing the vehicle to proceed. The protestors threw water bottles and cans of beer at Salem Police vehicles.

MRT and patrol officers contacted individuals observed engaging in criminal activity and seized one handgun....

five individuals were arrested on various charges including reckless driving and disorderly conduct....

The remaining crowd gathered on the sidewalks dispersed slowly, and traffic diminished, allowing the street closures to be lifted at approximately 11:00 p.m.

There were no reported injuries; however, officers will be conducting follow up investigations on several complaints of criminal mischief.

Salem Police Chief Trevor Womack remarked, "Saturday's unruly protest, along with other emergency calls including an armed kidnapping, strained our limited patrol staffing resources. Multiple Salem officers were called in from home and partner agencies also responded to ensure safety was maintained and criminal offenders were appropriately held accountable.

"I am very proud of the work our officers accomplished under challenging and dangerous circumstances, yesterday's events just being the most recent examples. I want to thank them and our regional partners for their service, dedication, and professionalism."

For this incident, the Salem Police Department received assistance with traffic control from the Oregon State Police, and the Keizer Police Department assisted by handling calls in the city while patrol officers, MRT, and Strategic Investigations Unit detectives addressed the street take over and disorder.

It is very likely the daytime protest on foot was overpoliced and it should have been treated as a separate event from the nighttime street takeover with burnouts, drifting, and spinning. One was primarily an instance of political speech; the other was not at all an instance of political speech.

This looks like the Police trying to paint protest on foot as more dangerous and unlawful than it is, and guilty by association with the street takeover. 

There may not be anything more to say, but it's something to monitor as protests become likely here in the immediate future.

Addendum, February 3rd

The paper online has a totally misleading image-text combo, casting aspersions on the sidewalk protest.

This does not show a "street takeover"!

Previously:

• "Politics of Public Space: Autoism and Delegitimizing Users" (2020)
• "Herding the Urban Deer: Autoism and Right of Way in Differential Policing at Protests" (2020)
  

Kinder, Küche, Kirche comes to Transportation Funding

While there are more exigent matters in Washington, DC at the moment, a development this week has been an attempt to impose an ideology of Kinder, Küche, Kirche on transportation funding.

If you had any doubts, it's happening.

September 9th, 1936 (with an edit)
See also the editorial, Sept. 13th

When an unelected oligarch with private security and technical forces is taking over central government computer systems, the Department of Justice and FBI are undergoing purges, appointments and orders and actions constitute a blitzing vandalism on state capacity, databases and document libraries with years and decades of research are being scrubbed, and the flurry of those executive orders attempts (perhaps successfully!) to circumvent the legislative process, we have names for all that.

Conspicuously, the press is avoiding naming what is obvious. The front pages talk around the nub of the matter, framing things as minor deflections from norms, hardball gamesmanship, division rather than bipartisanship, and not the shattering of norms in any kind of coup.

It's all too much, but maybe we can understand a little in our focus area of transportation.

This past week the US Department of Transportation published documents that attempt to impose eugenics, segregation, and patriarchy on funding.

Eugenics in an order

Memo for climate denial, jim crow, and patriarchy

Eugenics, climate denial, jim crow, the patriarchy — the reactionary, fascist package is all right there. "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" might seem like an exaggeration, but that's really the revanchist game plan.

First Mixed-Use Building with Apartments Proposed for Close-in West Salem with new Zoning

The City has published notice for what might be the very first mixed-use block to use the new zoning in the "West Salem Central Business District" on Moyer Lane, a block off Wallace Road at the intersection with Bartell Drive.

Ground floor retail on right side
32 apartment homes above and a few in back

The draft for the new zoning went public in 2017 and Council adopted it in 2018. The new zoning was for close-in West Salem along Edgewater; and the area between Roth's, Wallace Marine Park, and the bridges.

Zoning proposal for close-in West Salem (2017)

(A detail that hadn't seemed important to register during Our Salem is that the "Second Street Craft Industrial Corridor" zone disappeared into MU-III zoning. But Edgewater Mixed-use Corridor remains even though it's swallowed up so far by a monoculture of medical clinics.)

Current zoning (City of Salem)

From SRC 525.001

The purpose of the West Salem Central Business District (WSCB) zone is to implement the Central Business District comprehensive plan map designation through the identification of allowed uses and establishment of development standards that promote a mix of residential, commercial, and civic uses developed in a manner that creates a walkable, thriving, and attractive central business district in West Salem.

This purpose also consistent with any Climate-Friendly/Walkable Mixed-Use Area the City might designate.

The parcel in question had a small house on it, which was demolished in the summer of 2012. It's been a vacant lot since.

At the Legislature in 1925: Proposed Drunk Driving Law, Motor Vehicle Associations

As the Legislative session for 1925 cranked up, one of the more interesting bills concerned drunk driving.

January 28th, 1925

It was a little surprising to see that this was not primarily framed as a way to improve traffic safety.

Instead it was mainly about prohibition, a way to penalize drinking more heavily and to enforce temperance.

January 28th, 1925

It may not be the first "drunk driving" legislation in Oregon, however. Wikipedia says New Jersey's law was first in 1906 and New York followed in 1910. A random Oregon DUI lawyer's page says Oregon's first was in 1913, which would coincide with the start of the Highway Commission and is a plausible date, but it was not easy to confirm this, and we'll have to come back to that another time.

Tentatively, then, this was the first headline level mention, and marks a shift in tone and emphasis.

The headlines for the session also mark greater organization for the motor vehicle lobby and autoist interests. They seem to have overstepped, however.

On Mildred Lane and Elsewhere our Minor Arterial Standard is often too Big

Over at our Strong Towns group, Planning Commissioner Slater takes issue with a priority on more narrow lanes for safety.

Mildred Lane at the park is wide and zoomy

He cites Mildred Lane as an example, but does not show Mildred Lane and instead shows a typical Salem cross-section in our standards.

But the discussion, as informed as it is, does not attend enough to the particularities of our standards as they are actually built. As I read the note, it builds to a support of that current cross-section and of our current approach.

via FB

Instead, from here it has seemed clear this cross-section, even with 11-foot travel lanes, is often still too wide and still induces speeding in many places around town.

More particularly, how is it possible to argue that the cross section on Mildred Lane at the park (top image) is safe and does not induce speeding? If you start with a 35mph limit and add the wide and open street, it's clear why speeding is common there.

Between the park and the walled off subdivision, there are no turns possible! Only straight line travel is possible.

There is no reason to have a continuous turn pocket.

There is so much slop in that cross section that even striping for 11 foot travel lanes is clearly excessive. With a better cross section, maybe an 11 foot width is defensible. But not in this one.

On the specific question of lane width, Strong Towns said recently

[M]ost often, our policies treat an 11- or 12-foot lane as the default, and allow the engineer to make a case for a narrower lane width.

This is backwards. A 10-foot lane, at the widest, should be the “default setting” for any sort of urban street: a place lined with homes and businesses, where traffic should flow slower than 35 mph. This should be understood as the risk-averse approach. If the engineer wants to make the lanes wider, they should have to justify the choice.

This is still a controversial change. It shouldn’t be: all the evidence points to the safety benefits of narrow lanes and traffic calming. But conventional U.S. engineering “wisdom” has said the exact opposite, for decades.

That fact ought to be a huge scandal.

Jeff Speck agrees, centering a ten foot standard in Walkable City Rules.

New Project Scoring possibly Revised: At the MPO

The Policy Committee for our Metropolitan Planning Organization meets tomorrow, Tuesday the 28th.

NY Times earlier this month on LA fires

It was a little disappointing to see the technical committee earlier this month with a move to invite the Policy Committee to adopt a scoring rubric "scaled back" from a staff recommendation for stronger weighting on safety, transit, filling in gaps, and greenhouse gas reduction.

The proposal earlier this month

Public comment was overwhelmingly in favor of stronger consideration for these factors, and the technical committee seemingly suggests watering them down.

What are Utility Wraps for? Notes on Art and History

Recent walks in downtown have turned up a few new art wraps on utility vaults, and with the history wraps they pose questions about what are they really for.

One of our downtown alleys is named after the "Mayor of Chinatown," George Lai Sun. It runs north and south connecting State and Ferry Streets, parallel to High and Liberty Streets.

George Lai Sun Alley sign on Ferry Street

A few years ago when the City installed a round of history interpretive panels, they installed a wrap on a utility vault on the corner of State and High featuring George Lai Sun.

George Lai Sun quoted at the Patton party
Interpretive sign on State and High

Here's a detail.

George Lai Sun quote featured

It reads:

I like Salem because all people treat me nicely. Then my children all grow up. They can vote but I have been here so long, for fifty-four years next June, I ought to be a citizen. I ought to be voting too. I see some country-man come over to this country; he stay not very long, three or four years; he can vote. Why I be here fifty-four years altogether, why I cannot vote? I ought to be citizen too. They must make mistake, something wrong.

Right at this moment in our history, with the 14th Amendment and the nature of citizenship under attack, this quote, which in our public history we have deemed important and worth featuring, urgently deserves more attention in our public history.

City Council, January 27th - Reviving the Casino?

Council meets on Monday, and the most interesting thing might be a Memorandum of Understanding with the Siletz Tribe for land on which they had hoped, and still may hope, to build a large casino. (Recent developments in southern Oregon with the Coquille tribe and a proposed casino there may be relevant.)

The Staff Report says

The Siletz Tribe is a federally recognized, sovereign Indian tribe. Federal law allows the Siletz Tribe to apply to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to have property within the city of Salem to be held in trust by the United States for the benefit of the Tribe. Once property is converted to Trust land, the property is no longer subject to the regulatory authority of the City and is exempt from property tax.

When these properties are developed by the Tribe, the Tribe is not obligated to receive City land use or building code approval as part of project development. However, the properties do require City services, such as utilities and connections to City infrastructure, and police and fire service.

The purpose and intent of the MOU is to ensure that the Tribe has the same rights and obligations as other residents and property owners within the city, with the understanding that the Tribe is a sovereign nation and exempt from many local, state and federal laws.

The language is all very general and does not point to what is the current intent for the land. The item is also on the consent calendar, and is not positioned to invite discussion.

A casino positioned on I-5 with all the driving it will induce has seemed like it would be a tragic mistake. But up north in Vancouver, BC, there is a project for housing that seems like it could offer a better model, not for towers in particular, but for the housing.

• Here from 2022, "Losing our Way on Climate: Casino and Kuebler Village Move Forward"
• At the City of Vancouver, "Sen̓áḵw development"
• The project website, "Sen̓áḵw"
• And at Architectural Digest, "A Multi-Billion Dollar Real Estate Project Is Rising on Native Reserve Land in Vancouver" (2021)

And even with the criticism of a casino here, it is necessary to interpret and analyze the matter in conjunction with readings like those offered in David Lewis' recent book, Tribal Histories of the Willamette Valley.

He writes about the Kalapuya in particular, but the general case is true for the Siletz also. (As with the case for the Coquille tribe, there are also sometimes conflicts between tribes, and there may be conflict here also considering Spirit Mountain and its regional draw, but that does not alter the longer point, and in fact may reinforce it as divide-and-conquer is a real strategy.)

When American pioneers arrived in Oregon, tribal ownership of the lands was ignored. Settlers discredited all tribal claims and the tribes' basic humanity by suggesting and acting as if tribal peoples did not have religion, civilization, laws, governance, or ability to manage their own affairs, much less own land....Our people have lived in Oregon for more than ten thousand years and lived well off the land. Yet in a short period of time in the 1850s, we lost all our rights and future wealth for generations to come....Our status as a disenfranchised people came about because of the actions of settlers in taking everything from us, then establishing an Indian administrative system which continued to enforce our poverty for the past one hundred and seventy years. When our people got a little land in 1891, and held onto it for twenty years, the federal government established new programs to take away that lane. When we began to recover and again gain some land in the 1940s, we were terminated, and again lost the land and any wealth we had saved.

It will be interesting to see what are the plans for the land and how it all shakes out.

More particularly on transportation, the new Mayor has her first slate of Council appointments, and they are not as disruptive as they might have been. In fact, they mostly offer continuity and are not anything to object to.

Councilor Varney, who had been the backup to former Councilor Phillips on SKATS and MWACT, will now be the principal representative, and Councilor Tigan the alternate. (Still, just when an Elected gets fully up to speed, they leave and it will take months and years for the new Elected to attain that same level of knowledge. The churn costs institutional and personal knowledge, and advantages the administrative staff.)

Part of the slate of appointments

The Bond Implementation Committee and Climate Action Plan Committees will have a little more change, in particular with Mayor J. Hoy (we'll be using C. Hoy/J. Hoy for clarity, at least for a while here) now on the Bond Committee. But the overall balance does not seem terribly different.

It had seemed possible she would take her cues from the reactionary administrative dismantling and realignment in DC currently underway, and it is good to see, for the moment anyway, a real small c-conservative approach to maintain rather than the revolutionary approach prevailing in DC.

Other items:

• On the airport boondoggle, the City looks to raise landing and overnight parking fees on aircraft since revenues are not meeting projections. "[T]he airport’s five-year forecast shows an unsustainable financial trend beyond the next two years."
• On the accreditation for Public Works, they have nice things to say about the new building. (Of course they should since it was not a cheap building!)
  
• And because a sidewalks and bike lanes project in east Salem on State Street at 49th requires a set of small corners for curb ramps on County land, there is an Intergovernmental Agreement to move that along.
  

Collision with Cherriots Bus Kills Person on Foot

Earlier today, at the corner of Union and High, a person operating a Cherriots bus collided with a person on foot. The person on foot died at the scene.

The outbound No. 19 makes a right hand turn
from Union to Broadway

A No. 19 bus going north on High is pictured in media accounts on the side of the road at the Chemeketa Center for Business and Industry on the corner. It makes a right-hand turn around the corner right there with a bus stop on Union Street just before the turn. There are also restaurants and the parking garage right there, and it is not far from ARCHES.

The intersection has traffic lights and marked crosswalks.

Salem Police have not published a statement beyond a couple of announcements on the former twitter, and it is not at all clear what happened and who might have made errors.

Update 1

Salem Police released a statement.

Just after 1:00 p.m. today, Salem Police and other emergency personnel responded to the intersection of Union and High STS NE on the report of a pedestrian struck by a Cherriots bus.

The preliminary investigation by the Salem Police Traffic Team indicates the driver of the transit bus was traveling westbound on Union ST and initiated a right-hand turn onto northbound High ST, striking a pedestrian in the crosswalk on the northeast corner of the intersection.

The bus driver brought the bus to a stop a short distance away from the intersection. The driver and occupants of the bus attempted to render aid to the pedestrian; however, he was pronounced deceased at the scene.

The pedestrian is identified as Joseph Eugene Chandler, age 68, of Salem.

The Cherriots bus driver, John Paul Valdez, age 63, of Albany, remained on scene and cooperated with the investigation.

The Traffic Team investigation continues, and as such, no citations have been issued or arrest made.

Through traffic in the area was closed for approximately two hours for the investigation.

If there's not a leading pedestrian interval, it is a place where one should be considered. The release does not, however, say what directions of travel had the green light. Still, bus drivers should be looking for people on foot anywhere.

Salem's First Baseball Season in 1867 Culminated at the Fair - Updated

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 22nd, the Hearings Officer will analyze dual appeals on the improvements to the baseball field in Bush Park. The Staff Reports are brief in finding the objections in the appeal without merit. Willamette and the baseball club have lawyered up with a big Portland firm, and over the weekend the ping of metal bats in batting practice could be heard. The appeals, as they are designed to do, are delaying things and schedules are getting very compressed for both the Willamette season and any Marion Berries season. (Update: The Hearing is cancelled. See addendum below.)

Substantively, there's nothing new to say there, and it will be very surprising if the Hearings Officer gives any ground other than affirming the City decisions.

Instead, let's talk baseball history!

In some unrelated research a stray baseball item turned up.

Oregon City Enterprise, Sept. 14th, 1867

It discussed baseball games at the State Fair in 1867 and mentioned that the "Second Nine [of Oregon City] challenge[d] the Willamettes, of Salem, to play a match game during the State Fair."

It was older than anything I had previously remembered seeing, so I filed it away to research later. 

But it was not necessary to go very far.

The Mill had an exhibit on the history of sports a decade ago. I missed it, and fortunately a summary is on the Mill's current website, "Boys of Summer: Baseball in the Mid-Willamette Valley."

They locate the origins of local baseball to 1867, the same year as the clipping.

Zooming out to a more regional perspective, a Seattle-area writer interested in the history of baseball just blogged about it also, "The Pioneer Base Ball Club and the Beginning of Northwest Baseball in the 1860s." The Portland origin was in 1866, and Salem followed the next year.

The State Fair game was wild. Imagine a baseball score of 92-25!

The Pioneers faced two teams at the State Fair. The opened against the Willamette Base Ball Club of Salem. The game got off to a shocking start when Edward Quackenbush of the Pioneers hit a rocket straight back to the Willamette pitcher, William Wythe, breaking his collar bone. It was only a momentary disruption, though. Wythe’s father was present and presumably a doctor because the Corvallis newspaper reported that his father set the bone, and William was back to cheer on this club less than an hour later. Unfortunately, his club was no match for the Pioneers and lost, 92 to 25.

Here's a contemporary note on it. "Wonder if there is not some easier game at which the Willamettes could play — say, pins, or marbles?" they said.

Oregon City Enterprise, Oct. 12th, 1867

There might be more to say later. Wythe appears to be a prominent doctor in early Salem and seems to have been involved in settling some questions about Willamette's ownership of land.

Autoist Propaganda and shift to Recklessness appeared Directly here 100 Years ago

Greg Shill's recent piece at The Atlantic arguing for more traffic enforcement is making the rounds, and one more reason to be cautious about it is that it is an echo, even partial revival, of a pernicious reframing that happened 100 years ago.

Focus on recklessness - via Bluesky

Some had argued in seeking to critique what Shill took as excessive focus on road design, it misunderstood central parts of Vision Zero.

• See from a couple days ago, "On Design Fundamentalism and Speed: Debate on Vision Zero Principles"

The focus on reckless driving and on individual malfeasance distinct from system problems with speed and road design has an historical origin. We can locate it! It was autoist propaganda sponsored by car interests and the car industry. And a key moment for it was Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover's conference in December of 1924 on traffic safety.

Last month historian Peter Norton highlighted the ways Hoover responded to autoist interests and revised his speech to the conference to focus on recklessness instead of speed.

Hoover's shift from speed to recklessness
via Bluesky

A month later, exactly 100 years ago today, in the Auto section the morning paper here published one of Walter Chrysler's columns, "Recklessness not speed the real menace." We can directly see how Hoover's speech was used and how the propaganda was pushed out to local influencers. It was coordinated!

January 18th, 1925

Chrysler wrote,

The tendency in American as abroad is to do away with laws limiting the speed of motor vehicles and substituting laws which punish severely for reckless driving.

After Deadly Hit-and-Run on Lancaster Drive, Driver Charged with Manslaughter, Reckless Driving, and DUI

A driver struck and killed Brian Devin Coulson walking on Lancaster Drive last night. It was on the stretch of Lancaster just north of Sunnyview, and near McKay High School, where drivers have killed other people in the last couple of years.

From Salem PD today:

At approximately 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 16, officers responded to the report of an injured man in the roadway in the 2000 block of Lancaster DR NE. Paramedics performed lifesaving measures, but the pedestrian was ultimately pronounced deceased at the scene.

The preliminary report by the Salem Police Traffic Team indicates the driver was traveling southbound on Lancaster DR, south of Beverly AV NE when the victim was struck. The driver continued southbound with the victim separating from the vehicle after several blocks. The driver did not stop and left the area.

The victim of the hit-and-run collision is identified as 55-year-old Brian Devin Coulson of Salem.

Officers searched the area and at approximately 12:20 a.m. located the involved vehicle and driver in the vicinity of Cordon and Silverton RDS NE. The suspect is identified as 35-year-old Sergio Aguilar of Gervais.

Aguilar was taken into custody and lodged at the Marion County Jail on the following charges:

    Manslaughter, second degree
    Reckless driving
    Reckless endangering
    Failure to perform the duties of a driver
    Driving under the influence of an intoxicant

This post will be updated.

On Design Fundamentalism and Speed: Debate on Vision Zero Principles

Over at our Strong Towns group there's a link to an interesting note at Strong Towns HQ.

Strong Towns on weakness of signs alone

Just a few days ago, legal scholar and safety advocate Greg Shill suggested, by contrast, that design fundamentalism was an error. A link to that piece was also posted to our Strong Towns group.

Greg Shill against "design fundamentalism" (bluesky)

And in response to Shill, safety and transportation journalist David Zipper suggests Shill might be strawmanning the argument a bit, saying "I think he misrepresents and undersells Vision Zero."

David Zipper: Shell misses on Vision Zero (bluesky)

And finally, here in Oregon there's a body of advocacy that appeals to the City of Portland's data on reductions in "top end" speeding after they simply changed a bunch of signs.

But the Portland data might not be as strong as it seems.

Decongestion Pricing Works! The Legislature should Attend to its Success

As ODOT continues to push for big expansion on I-5 in a Columbia River Crossing expansion and in the I-5 Rose Quarter project, the wild success of decongestion pricing in New York City should give the Legislature renewed interest in the Portland area congestion relief pricing scheme that has been put on hiatus.

Oregonian today, NY Times yesterday

The data, via Streetsblog

via Bluesky

On a smaller scale, this is the type of solution we should consider for our own Marion and Center Street Bridges.

Just tolling solves all our congestion problems!

You may remember the chart made from the SRC's own projections, which showed very modest pricing yielded tremendous relief of congestion.

This may be the No. 1 story at the Legislature here this session: How much attention do they give to the real-world, real-time experiment in New York City? The data is there, how many are paying attention?

Fairview Hills, Final Subdivision there, at Planning Commission Tuesday the 14th

At Council tonight the City looks to approve a settlement in a suit brought by the family of a child killed by a driver going 60mph on an overbuilt three lane street in deep south Salem.

In the Fairview Hills proposal at the Planning Commission on Tuesday the 14th, the City's standards call for a similarly overbuilt cross section on Battle Creek Road.

Why are we making the road so wide?

This cross section from the proposed Refinement Plan showed one car only, labeled "original," but there's room for five more! Striped for three auto travel lanes this will induce speeding, the same speeding that killed a child a few years ago on Mildred Lane.

Safety for whom?

The center turn lane might "improve safety for vehicle entering and existing the site from these streets [sic, sickety, sic]" but it will induce higher speeds along Battle Creek Road and degrade overall safety for all users.

Former Councilor Stapleton on speed

We profess to have a Vision Zero goal, but our current design standards are often incompatible with this.

There are other things about the project to question, but as the Fairview project in whole has developed, we missed the opportunity to make it really good.

• Previously see "Fairview Hills Revives as Single Detached Housing Subdivision" (there are in fact some attached row houses in the proposal, and this is better understood now as "mostly single detached housing" - see below).
  
• and all notes tagged Simpson Hills 
  

Here are some other notes. They are more about the City and Staff Report's accommodation and loose interpretation, and do not seem like clear instances of non-compliance with the approval criteria. They are about the spirit, not the letter.

Additionally, we have a housing crisis, and any and all housing is helpful. The threshold to say "no" should be higher at this moment in our history.

The Middle Intensity is not very Middle

After the excessive width and implied design speed for Battle Creek Road, the other most significant criticism is on its intensity. While the proposal meets the letter of the requirements on "mixed intensity," it does not meet the spirit of them for a kind of middle state between the village center and low intensity areas. The proposal is for barely more intensity than the max level permitted in the "low intensity" areas. The low intensity area permits 6 homes/acre, and Fairview Hills proposes 6.8 homes/acre. It's like "low intensity plus." It should be closer to 10 homes/acre!

City Council, January 13th - Mildred Lane

The first Council meeting of the year brings a light agenda. Swearing-in will be the main feature.

August 2020

The most relevant item here is a proposed settlement over a fatal crash (not any accident as the Staff Report says).

A lawsuit is currently pending regarding a car accident at Mildred Lane SE and Liberty Rd S. Through settlement negotiations, the City has agreed to resolve all claims associated with the lawsuit in consideration of a payment of $133,600.00....Under the terms of the settlement, the City does not admit fault, however, to avoid the cost of litigation, the proposed settlement, which constitutes a full and final settlement of all claims related to this incident, will resolve this claim.

For a City that professes now to hold a Vision Zero goal, on the City's side this seems like a paltry settlement. The legal-liability-insurance context is disconnected from the self-critique and policy iterations necessary to attain Vision Zero. Like many streets, Mildred Lane is overbuilt and induces speeding, but the City can't admit that and has to stonewall. That is messed up.

via the former Twitter

On Mildred Lane and its crashes see:

• "Catastrophe on Mildred Lane Shows Problem with Road Design" (2021)
  
• "City Response on Mildred Lane focuses on Signal, not enough on Speed" (2022)
  
• "Remedy on Mildred Lane Misses Real Cause of Problem" (2023)
  

And two other items:

• For the duration of the seismic retrofit and remodel of City Hall, the City proposes to lease space from SAIF at 440 Church Street SE.
• Councilor Varney proposes a new committee: "I move that the City of Salem form a City Budget Efficiencies Committee with a membership structure as requested by the Salem Chamber of Commerce in their December 11 letter to Council, and that the Salem Chamber of Commerce be invoiced for all costs associated with maintaining and supporting this committee." [italics added] But to slash City government, the Chamber might be prepared to pay. This could be an interesting conversation, and might even backfire.
  

Housing Production Strategy

Not on Council agenda at all, but very much a large issue that will come to Council this year, is the Housing Production Strategy.

Whole neighborhoods destroyed, LA Times today

In addition to local demand for housing from those who already live here, climate disasters are going to prompt increasing numbers of climate refugees and migrants from other areas of the United States, and they will add to the demand for housing and to upward pressure on the cost of housing.

Table of potential actions, page 1 of 6 (Nov. 2024)

The City has a new web presentation scheduled for January 22nd on the Housing Production Strategy in process, and has published some new documents:

• Notes on "City Councilor and Planning Commissioner Meetings" (Nov. 2024)
• "Focus Group Summary" (Nov. 2024)
• "Redevelopment Analysis" for five areas of close-in Salem (Dec. 2024)

As the meeting approaches there might be more to say, but the documents are worth reading.

EV Charging and Revised Scoring Rubric at the MPO next Week

The LA conflagrations, whipped by a Santa Ana and intensified by our changing climate, dominate the front pages today. Even the east coast papers lead with it.

Front pages: NY Times (top)
Washington Post (bottom)

Our local paper leads with news that we are sending firefighters to assist.

Front page here

The catastrophe is a climate story in addition to a land use story and everything else.

The MPO has two meetings next week in a somewhat irregular schedule and there are incrementally good things to see on climate action.

Even with Evidence for Intent, Reporting on Dallas Crash Erases Driver; Note on Macy's

Even when there is clear evidence for malignant intent, our messed up autoism leads writers to employ the exonerative voice.

Erasing the driver in the exonerative voice

Mere days after the cars attacks in New Orleans and in Las Vegas, in the paper today is news of a driver facing charges of reckless endangering and reckless driving, robbery and criminal mischief, DUI, when he deliberately crashed into a Dallas convenience store. There is reason to think investigators will find evidence that it was a hate crime also.

But the headline is "truck crashes," and the caption is "a truck that drove."

Most crashes aren't accidents. This case is particularly unambiguous. Even under the most optimistic of assumptions, there is no possible way to view this as an "accident." It was intentional, an attack with the car as weapon. The first sentence of the story itself does say "he crashed a truck," but the true grammatical subject and moral agent here, the driver, should also be in headlines and captions, especially since people will only read the headline as the story circulates on social media. The exonerative voice is especially misleading and wrong here, but entirely symptomatic of our autoism. 

See previously on erasing driver.

Front page today

On the front page is news that Macy's is going to close.

The owners are talking about more "activities, events, and entertainment for people living and visiting downtown."

This could be a very great missed opportunity for more housing!

Since it has an attached parking garage, and sits in between the Center/Marion couplet, it is ideal for fully car-oriented downtown housing, perhaps the only site downtown where that is true. The City and owners should lean into this!

See "What about the Macys Block?" (2016) for more on this. As the closure details are formalized and as plans for redevelopment mature, there will certainly be more to say.

Road Carnage Summary Still Looks Away from our Full Autoism

The front page summary and partial analysis of our road carnage in 2024 might be a directional improvement on the usual coverage.

Front page, with ad for deadly machine also

Comments from Police emphasize speed and the responsibility of drivers more perhaps than usual. But they also fall back into the exonerative voice, erasing the driver, one time mentioning "personal driving behavior," another time erasing the driver in "single vehicles driving poorly." They never mention road design.

Upkes said some of the summer crashes involved speeding and erratic driving, which he attributed to "summertime feelings," while a milder winter has meant fewer crashes caused by inclement weather.

Wide roads induce "summertime feelings"! Streets could be designed to make erratic driving more difficult and less likely.

Police on speed, but also with the exonerative voice

It is former Councilor Virginia Stapleton who has the strongest, most accurate statement. "The No. 1 thing we know is that speed kills." Her statement isn't just about speeding, but also includes lawful speeds, even though the piece doesn't draw that out. Her statement includes the tension between our current paradigm for "congestion relief" and a new paradigm for traffic safety.

Former Councilor Stapleton on speed

At lawful, posted speeds of 40 or 50 miles per hour, crashes are still fatal. We should always remember a person at lawful speed of 40 miles per hour killed Selma Pierce on an evening walk near her home in West Salem. No citations were issued.

Salem Poised to win two Safe Routes to Schools Construction Grants

ODOT announced today that two Salem projects are being recommended for Safe Routes to Schools funding in the latest round of construction grants.

Both projects look to be approved

They said,

The Safe Routes to School Advisory Committee is recommending 28 projects for funding, totaling $31.4 million, for ODOT’s Safe Routes to School Competitive Construction Grant Program. This grant provides state funds to build safety projects—such as sidewalks and crossings—within a two-mile radius of schools to address barriers to students walking and rolling to school. These funds will focus on under-resourced communities and safety.

In August 2024, ODOT received 51 applications from across the state for the Safe Routes to School Competitive Construction Grant Program totaling $67.8 million in needed safety improvements. The committee and staff put in more than 100 hours reviewing and evaluating potential projects using the scoring criteria and priorities determined by the committee in early 2024. All applications addressed barriers to students walking and biking with needed safety improvements.

The Safe Routes to School Advisory Committee met on Nov. 21 and Dec.16, 2024 to approve a recommended project list for the Safe Routes to School Construction Competitive Grant Program for the Oregon Transportation Commission’s consideration. The commission will vote on the project list at their Jan. 16 meeting.

Back in July Council had reviewed these two applications and it is terrific Salem looks to win awards on both.

But both cross-sections on Market Street and Pringle Road are untouched, still optimized for capacity and speed.

In an article not yet in print, which we'll discuss more in a day or two, former Councilor Stapleton said

“We really need to lean into that conversation [about safety] as a community and see what we value more,” Stapleton said. “Do we value being able to drive fast and not have any kind of delay, or do we value the lives of all residents?....The No. 1 thing we know is that speed kills,” she said. “The faster a vehicle is going, if they hit a cyclist or somebody walking, the lesser their chance of survival is, and also the same is true for somebody driving a car.”

This, exactly this. This is the discussion we need to have, and this is the tone advocates like Salem Bike Vision and Safe Routes should lean into. It's the cars, their drivers, and speed.

As the ODOT release says, the OTC will meet mid-month to ratify the approvals.