City Council, February 24th - SATA and the Spandrels

Monday's Council agenda is light from our perspective, but we can lead with good news! City Parks and the Salem Area Trail Alliance will present an information report on the proposed bike park concept for north of the ballfields at Wallace Marine Park.

Proposed bike park with bridge alignment for comparison

The proposed giant bridge and highway is nearby, but I don't know how directly relevant is the proposed alignment for Marine Drive and the bridge.  There's an established tradition of using skate/bmx parks to fill the "spandrels" underneath bridges with licit recreational activity as a way to diminish homeless encampments, drug-dealing, and other illegal or unwanted forms of vagrancy. In many ways the proposed park fits in this tradition.

BMX/Skate Park under Highways 34, 20, and 99W in Corvallis

Still, Marine Drive would be another barrier between West Salem neighborhoods and the park, and kids will be darting across the road. Even if the bridge is not built, I am doubtful about Marine Drive as a stand-alone expressway.

Apart from these questions, the facility would be a great addition to Wallace Park, and the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board has unanimously endorsed the concept and City Staff find it complies with the Master Plan for Wallace.

(However! There are no funds and park would be privately funded, so SATA is working on that part. Breaking ground is a ways off yet.)

Other Stuff

It is interesting that there's also a proposal for more public art, and so far Salem has used public art in similar ways:  To attempt to activate poorly designed or configured spaces.

This Week's Newsbits

Uh...did we miss anything?

Thanks to the flu for an unscheduled break at the bloggery and the world in general, here are some summary bullets from the past week - did you attend any of these events?

• Carole Glauber talked the photography of Myra Albert Wiggins at Deepwood on Tuesday.  Wiggins was an early bicyclist in Salem, and she met the man whom she later married while out bicycling!
• Also on Tuesday, the NEN-SESNA Neighbornood Plan "Looking Forward" talked about redevelopment along that magnificent urban highway and STROAD:  Mission Street!  
• The Morningside Neighborhood Association met on Wednesday to talk about Kuebler and Commercial widening.
• SCAN met also on Wednesday, and on their agenda was the Blind School property and an update on the Hospital's plan for it, and an update on on the Boise/Pringle Square project. 
• Today at Noon the Downtown Advisory Board is meeting, and there looks to be impetus and funding behind a chunk of the Downtown Mobility Study's recommendations.  Look for more on that soon.  Also a public art project.
• SESNA meets tonight, and they'll be talking about25th Street, the T-intersection at 25th Street and State and the 4-way at 25th and Mission.

And this looks pretty great!

At the corner of D Street and Cottage is this neat 1920s brick church.  You might have seen the gardens in the curb strip - that'd be the Parkings! - out front. Currently the building is the home of the Evergreen Church of Salem, and they're starting up a bike program in the basement!

Hub collects and repairs bikes alongside those who need inexpensive transportation to find work #salemor pic.twitter.com/ulF7CQF0ik
— Stefanie Knowlton (@Stef_Knowlton) February 12, 2014

I expect that's a teaser to a piece in the weekend paper.  That'll be nice to see!

Columbia River Crossing Kicks off 2014 Legislative Session in Style

The Legislature is gearing up for the short 2014 session, and the Columbia River Crossing leads the agenda, it seems.

Standard Oil Monopoly, 1904. Detail:   Library of Congress

Blue Skies on Tolling!

What a colossal waste. The Salem River Crossing has blown $7 or $8 million, and the Columbia River Crossing had burned more than an order of magnitude more, approaching $200 million wasted.

The latest is an "investment grade" analysis of tolling prepared by ODOT.  First off, wouldn't an investment grade analysis come from an independent third party in the financial services sector?   Instead we get something rather self-serving from ODOT!

Interestingly, from internal evidence in the report, the Oregonian concludes tolling will depress traffic on the I-5 bridge and create diversion to the untolled I-205 bridge. This will exacerbate friction from Clackamas County.

Additionally, State Treasurer Wheeler is still signalling uncertainty or even scepticism.

So these things run counter to Governor Kitzhaber's public optimism/insanity (you pick).

Tomorrow the Legislature kicks off with a meeting of The Joint Legislative Committee on Interstate 5 Bridge Replacement.