City Council, February 27th - Delay at Boise, Library Seismic Deferred

As an expression of our current Zeitgeist, the splitting of a Civic Center bond into multiple pieces looks apt. This Monday Council meets and looks to ratify the decision for a "divide and conquer" approach. They'll put at least two bonds on the ballot separately.

1) Adopt Resolution No. 2017-18 calling for a measure election to be held on May 16, 2017, in the amount of $61.8 million, to finance the development of a new public safety facility

2) Adopt Resolution No. 2017-19 calling for a measure election to be held on November 7, 2017, in the amount of $15.3 million to finance seismic and building safety improvements to the Library

Neglecting
the Library is
an effective symbol

The charitable reading of maximum sincerity is that Council really believes the city will rally behind the Library in November, even in a likely face-off with (or against) a Public Schools bond.

At least from here, the more likely reading is that peeling off the Library work greatly reduces its prospects, and allows the City to bump up the scope and cost of the Police Facility.

At the level of symbol, it is a "Know-Nothing" statement for more Law and Order at the expense of Knowledge. Like it or not, it says something about our priorities.

Bundling and mutually leveraging the needs seemed like the best chance for a right-sized Police Station and for desperately needed seismic work on the Library and City Hall. It also acknowledged trade-offs.

Now we'll likely see a "Yes, but" campaign like Cherriots faced in the fall of 2015: "Oh, we support the Library, but this is the wrong time/cost/tax..."

You might disagree, but it's hard to be hopeful about chances now on seismic work for City Hall and the Library. We will have funded and built years 20-40 of a future Police Station, which will be vacant for the first 20 years, at the expense of a seismic retrofit for the Library and City hall, useful right now. Building extra empty space for future growth to deny other urgent needs is utterly baffling. [Revised for clarity]

Other Things

Past the Library and Police Station, there are several of smaller things of interest.

Delay at Boise

Delayed!

Developers on the Marquis Nursing Home are filing a formal delay on the project.

Our Habits in Modeling and Overbuilding

Much of the critique and skepticism about planning for a new Police Station is based on what the resulting bond measure will yield in increased taxes. It comes at things from the perspective of the budget of the individual citizen.

Plenty has been said - and will be said - on that, so instead let's consider our habits of modeling and whether there might be other reasons to be skeptical of the planning process for a new Police Station.

Let's take a tour through a couple of local historical examples of planning that seemed "wise and prudent" at the time, but which history has shown in fact to be far from wise and prudent. Consistently, it seems we overbuild things based on aggressive modeling.

(If you know of local civic/public disciplines in which modeling is surprisingly accurate, it would be good to know. Leave a comment about that, if you would. Success is probably relatively invisible compared to the screeching and grinding and protest in the face of failure or inaccuracy.)

Even if you do not agree that the situation with a new Police Station demands skepticism, it should not be a stretch to agree that skepticism is totally plausible and reasonable. It's not crazy at all. And since skepticism is reasonable, it is also reasonable to ask for more proof and argument from proponents.

Modeling Parking Demand

Back in the 1970s, it seemed wise and prudent to build big, public parking garages downtown.

An older facade on the Chemeketa Parkade  

Unfortunately we have found that we don't need them all or we don't need them as big.

Marion, Chemeketa, Pringle all operate ≤ 50% full

There's a huge surplus of parking in City garages.  At peak the Liberty Parkade is about 60% full, and the rest operate under 50% full at peak. And the Urban Renewal Agency struggles with a substantial budget deficit in the parking district.

The garages themselves are also holes of under-productive land and building in the urban fabric of downtown.

Our parking garages are a clear example of overbuilt infrastructure.

City Council, March 23rd - Transportation in the CIP and ARTS

A couple of wonky transportation things leads for us on Council's Monday agenda.

The Salem Bicycle Boulevard Advocates hope to be out in force as the City starts adoption of the five-year Capital Improvement Program. Public Works is also applying for a grant from the All Roads Transportation Safety program.

Transportation

When the "future report" for the CIP came out, it was pleasant to note an expansion of the Union Street bikeway project.

There are no other new bikeway projects, and perhaps the Boulevard Advocates will ask the City to consider more of them. But the rejoinder will be, of course, how do we fund them?

Overall funding sources for transportation

You'll see that the bond funds from property taxes are all obligated and no longer visible in the tables - it's a quirk of accounting that even though the work's not even started, the money is still "spent."

Several of the funding sources are constrained. ODOT grant funds can't be shuffled around, and Urban Renewal funds have separate processes for allocating them.

But some of the funding sources may be deployed by some amount of staff discretion with no public application or public comment. Here are some two of them it looks like:

System Development Charges ($5.2 million total over five years):

• $220,000 out of $2,777,000 for 12th Street widening between Hoyt and Fairview widening
• $1.6 million out of $3.1 million for Fisher Road NE Extension to Market St. NE 
• $50,000 for flashing yellow light signal upgrades at various sites, $25,000 for signal interconnects, and $500,000 for fiber optic interconnects
• $200,000 for developer reimbursement on Battle Creek Road improvements.
• $750,000 for 22nd Street extension at Madrona
• $1.1 million for Marine Drive "design, analysis, and Right of Way acquisition"
• $750,000 for Lone Oak Bridge across Jory Creek

It's interesting that two little stub road connections at Fisher Road and 22nd will be funded out of SDCs.

Maybe most interesting is that in addition to some bond proceeds for Marine Drive, now some SDCs are contemplated. That $1.1 million could instead be used for better bike lanes in West Salem instead of car lanes along Wallace Park. That's a pretty clear policy choice for autoism over human capacity.

New Traffic Cameras Show Commercial Street at City Hall and Boise

Have you noticed them, the seeing eyes mounted on a goose-neck over the traffic lights?  You were maybe a little alarmed, thinking them signs of the surveillance state, too?

Camera at Trade and Commercial
(updating image at Tripcheck)

But while their video could certainly be used for surveillance, that's not their primary purpose.

At Council on Monday, during the update on the Road Bond, City Staff discussed the cameras and revealed that they are actually part of the $1.4 million "Regional Traffic Control Center, Motorist Information Systems, and Traffic Signal Communications Projects," 21 cameras scattered around the city.

Camera at 12th and State
(updating image at Tripcheck)

From the project description:

In the Neighborhood Associations: NEN-SESNA on McGilchrist, Morningside on Police Station

On Tuesday the 10th at 6:30 p.m., the NEN-SESNA neighborhood plan, Looking Forward, will meet in Court Street Christian Church (1699 Court St NE) to discuss the McGilchrist area.

Come learn about the McGilchrist Urban Renewal Area, proposed improvements to McGilchrist Street SE, and the 22nd and Electric Street Overlay.

With new offices like the Social Security and Veterans Administration offices, and restaurants like Santiam Brewing, this is an area in transition, maybe even gentrifying, and the frankly crappy conditions apparently acceptable in an area dominated by old-school industry are no longer ok.

McGilchrist and the SSA Office Fiasco

At last month's SESNA meeting, according to the draft minutes City staff discussed the area:

Two proposed transportation changes within our boundaries. Reclassify 22nd Street as collector, propose to make it connect to Madrona St. This would help reduce use of 25th Street and bring people to the industrial area. There is a desire to realign 22nd Street on either side of McGilchrist, but there is no funding or current plan. McGilchrist needs updates, but these would cost $20M so it’s best to do that at the same time (along with left turn lanes between 22nd and 25th). 25th and Madrona intersection will be fixed to make it safer, improve pedestrian access. The second change is to create an East-West connection between 25th and Airport Rd. A small street is needed to promote redevelopment without adding driveways on Mission. There may be a traffic increase on 25th, or it may help; depends on what goes into the development. Multiple options help disperse traffic.

Planning for some change here is important, especially if the area is a magnet for elderly and disabled people, as well as an incubator for food and beverage.

City Council, December 9th - Food Carts and Bond Surplus

At Council on Monday the most interesting items are the list of projects for round two of the expected bond surplus and a request by Councilor Dickey for an update to Salem's foot cart ordinances.

With the rise in breweries that lack kitchens as well as Portland's demonstrated success with food cart pods, bringing Salem's code for food carts up-to-date seems like a no-brainer. Still, it's interesting to see how biased against them the current code is:

Under current requirements, mobile food units are subject to regulations including (but not limited to) a maximum time period of six months in a twelve month period at any one location, a spacing requirement of a minimum of 500 feet from other mobile food units on the same side of the street, and 250 feet from other units on the opposite side of the street, and screening intended to make the unit appear permanent in nature.

The mobile food vending industry has undergone substantial changes in recent years; with modern mobile food units located singly or in clustered settings serving diverse artisanal foods, providing opportunities for entrepreneurship and contributing to a vibrant streetscape and local business community. Current zoning regulations significantly limit the location and duration of mobile food units throughout the city, and preclude the establishment of contemporary mobile food unit clusters. Furthermore, current requirements severely limit vendors' ability to establish and maintain customers when they are required to relocate and renegotiate leases every six months.[italics added]

Yeah, what she said!

Not on Council agenda, but very nice to see, is substantial progress on the Pringle Creek path!

Progress on the new paths along the creek at the Civic Center.
Unfortunately the water works was never really exposed,
and now the brick foundation work is totally covered up again.

The Commercial Street Bridge replacement funded by the bond included these paths on each side of Pringle Creek.  When the Boise parcel is developed, connecting paths through the private property to Riverfront Park will be included!

Round two of the bond surplus is at Council for approval, and you can read more about it here.  The only change from the time of that note is the addition here of one bike/ped project (and a reduction in the estimated cost of a couple of projects):  The project for sidewalks at Salem Heights Elementary is bumped up from a secondary recommendation into the primary list.  The main complaint about the list?  Too much of the money is sucked up by widening on Kuebler Boulevard.  We shouldn't be building auto capacity expansions until we do a whole lot more repair, preserve, maintain of existing auto capacity and build out our network for people who walk and bike.  Take care of the basics before adding more auto capacity we can't afford to maintain.

In the Neighborhood Associations and Newsbits this Week

If over the weekend you went into "The Bureau," the new taproom for Santiam Brewing in the Reed Opera House, you might have seen an enlargement of this photo!

Commercial Street looking north from about Bellevue, March 1941
(Salem Library Historic Photos - you can enlarge it over there!)

The "Salem Beer" Plant and sign, naturally enough, is the draw, but there's also the predecessor to Boise Cascade on the left, the old Water Plant on the right (just behind the X of the RR crossing sign), and on the near side of the bridge over Pringle Creek are two businesses, Acme Wrecking and GE Appliance.

Yup, the big sort

They're located exactly where the City proposes to build a new Police Station!

This stretch of Commercial street could definitely do with more business and activity near the sidewalk!

And did you see the maps of high-, medium-, and low-income neighborhoods in Salem over the weekend? Nothing probably very shocking, but they were still interesting.  (Maybe the paper will overlay each of them with a "third bridge Salem Alternative" alignment?)

Last week was quiet, but this week brings several meetings of neighborhood associations.

Monday, West Salem

December 2, 2013
7:00 P.M.
Roth’s West, Mezzanine
1130 Wallace Rd NW

Tonight the West Salem Neighborhood Association will discuss the bike park concept for Wallace Park!

City Shops Proposed TSP Amendments at Neighborhood Associations

As a housekeeping matter Public Works is shopping a list of proposed amendments to the Transportation System Plan.

Bikes can offer mobility after disaster
Typhoon Haiyan - via the Oregonian
(AP/Aaron Favila)

The process envisions going to the Planning Commission with a Public Hearing sometime this winter and then for Council to adopt them.

Not all of the proposals have enough specificity for informed comment here, but some of them have already been seen before.  In the letter to neighborhood associations, city staff note that "these amendments have been pending for some time or have arisen from recently completed studies."

Proposed TSP Amendments
From an Oct 8th letter to Neighborhood Associations
(click to enlarge)

The Kroc Center pathway has already been discussed here several times, as have the recommendations in the Downtown Mobility Study.

The 22nd street project was briefly mentioned for the bond surplus long-list.

Others are new here:

• The Trade/Front street ROW on the west side looks like it is for the Boise Redevelopment.
• The Strong Road and Hilfiker look like housekeeping matters in Morningside.
• A new local street between 25th and Airport Way, south of Shelton Ditch and north of Mission - apparently right by the post office site.  (This could be related to redevelopment of the old Capitol Auto Group lots.)

And two policy matters:

• Adjusting the policy on vacating right-of-way
• And maybe the most interesting - adopting new policies on "Transportation System Critical Routes," specially focused on natural hazards.  This will bear watching because as we have seen elsewhere, sometimes freight interests or those who forget that bikes are especially useful after a disaster want to use "critical" needs to push road designs inimical to non-auto users.  "Critical routes" too often become urban highways. (Or, you know:  Third Bridge.  The flip side here is an opportunity to stress seismic retrofit of our existing bridges, including one that is structurally deficient.)

From the SJ last summer

The process and hearings in general, and the critical routes in particular, could offer another opportunity to tell the City: More bike lanes, please!

Kuebler Widening Looks to Hoover up Bond Surplus

The final recommendations for the bond surplus are out and will be decided at Wednesday 's Council Streets and Bridges Bond Subcommittee meeting.

Recommendations seem follow tactics of ad hoc dispersal rather than a strategy of concentration.

Brown Road:  No sidewalks or bike lanes
Shouldn't we be investing more in basic mobility?
Too often this is our baseline.

I have listed the total cost in order to show the larger sense of priorities, so the total is substantially larger than the expected bond surplus.  In many cases the bond surplus is being used to back-fill with completion funding or used as a local match for other funding sources.

Of course these things are political as well as strategic, so some amount of "local pork" and "retail" neighborhood projects will be sprinkled in.  But as I read the list, it is striking how little from Bike and Walk Salem is recommended for funding.  It's almost as if that project never happened.  The selection critierion is independent of Bike and Walk Salem - "provides access to schools, parks, transit." So it doesn't look like the plan is meaningfully directing future investment or strategy.  Instead, the project list looks like an ad hoc response to local politics.  On the surface, there's not much strategy here. (Maybe you see something I don't?  It's hard to see a politically realistic balance that yet advances substantially our investments in basic mobility and non-auto travel.)

Selection Criteria (click to enlarge)

In an alternate universe, it is plausible that the bond surplus would fund a large number of high-priority projects from the new biking and walking plan - maybe even a complete corridor or family-friendly bikeway. In this world we would take greenhouse gas reduction goals seriously, and show a serious commitment to mobility choice and transportation options.

Instead, one capacity expansion project gets the largest share:  Kuebler widening is assigned $3.2M out of just over $8.1M.

And, remember, Kuebler already got a big chunk of the first round of surplus!  With those savings,

Council adopt[ed] Resolution No. 2013-46 authorizing use of Streets and Bridges Bond proceeds to fund improvements at the Commercial Street SE/Kuebler Boulevard SE intersection ($2, 187,000), Fairgrounds Road NE/Hood Street NE intersection ($325,000), and 25th Street SE/Madrona Avenue SE Intersection ($5,000,000).

So that's $2.2M out of $7.5M.  Why, just why?

There might be more bikes parked at the Union Gospel Mission
than anywhere else in Salem on a daily basis.
Many of those who ride and use the Mission's services are Veterans.
Don't we owe them better support for bicycling and
a better set of transportation options?

In a world in which we don't have a complete sidewalk and bikeway system, in a world in which maintaining our bridges and fixing "structurally deficient" ones remains a fantasy, in a world in which we clearly cannot maintain the roads and bridges and sidewalks we already have, why are we expanding any road capacity for cars?

So, I guess those are leading questions.  Still, what do you think about the list?

Primary Recommendations:

Category	Location	Total Cost	Priority
Arterial Safety	Brown Road upgrade (extends existing project)	$2,750,000	first
Pavement Rehab	Eola Drive pavement rehab (extends existing project)	$700,000
Neighborhood bike/ped	RR quiet zone crossing improvements at Woodrow and Silverton Road NE	$1,750,000	not listed!
Neighborhood bike/ped	Court Street wood bridge over Mill Creek	$250,000	not listed!
New Capacity	Kuebler at Commercial dual turn lanes	$4,700,000	this makes things worse!
Bridges	Scour Mitigation for 13th st bridge over Shelton Ditch	$100,000
Neighborhood bike/ped	New and repair sidewalks - inner Salem neighborhoods	$1,500,000	unknown
New Capacity	Widen Kueber, I-5 to Commercial	$5,000,000	this makes things worse!
Arterial Safety	Brush College (north side sidewalks)	$1,435,000	second
Safety	Fixed-Pole Radar signs	$50,000

City Council, November 4th - Brown Rd, Union St, Brush College Rd Projects

On Council agenda for Monday the lead item for us is a proposed package of five transportation projects, three of which are unambiguous good news for people who walk and bike.

From the Staff Report:

Shall Council authorize the City Manager to apply for federal funds from the Fiscal Year 2015-2020 Salem-Keizer Area Transportation Study Surface Transportation Program and Transportation Alternatives Program for the following projects, in the priority order listed?

1. Brown Road NE Sidewalk and Bike Lanes Project
2. Union Street NE/Commercial Street NE Intersection Improvement Project
3. Liberty Street NE Traffic Signal Communication Project
4. Hawthorne Avenue NE/Sunnyview Avenue NE Intersection Widening Project
5. Brush College Road NW Sidewalk and Bike Lanes Project

The project about which I have the most reservation is the Hawthorne and Sunnyview widening. Sunnyview is the only two-lane east-west connection with bike lanes across I-5 and to Lancaster. It is far from an ideal route, but speeds are not high, and it is much lower stress than State and Center, and generally lower stress than D.

Note the red and yellow on east-west connections

I worry that an intersection widening project here - adding a right turn lane from the south side of Hawthorne onto Sunnyview - will make Sunnyview more difficult for east-west travel where barriers are already multiplied. The turn lane will also need to accommodate the existing north-south bike lane on Hawthorne.

The Liberty Signal Connection will just speed traffic north through the Grant and Highland neighborhoods to the Parkway.  It'll probably make east-west crossing a little more difficult, but if it is a mitigation measure that takes pressure off the mania for a Third Bridge, that's probably a worthwhile trade-off.

About the Union and Commercial project, see full discussion here.  This is good news.

No sidewalks or bike lanes on Brush College

The Brush College project in West Salem is one that has struggled to get funding in several previous attempts, and it's something of an orphan.  The street unquestionably should have sidewalks and bike lanes, as it is adjacent to a school.  But the land uses are low-density and dispersed, the streets are rural-ish and higher speed, and realistically the population of children who could walk or bike to school here may not be very large.  The return on this investment will almost certainly be on the low end.

All in all, especially considering the realities of Salem politics, this is a pretty good package.  It's possible to quibble with it, but it's very hard to say there are outright bad choices in it.  (And of course it's also possible to want more!) The quibbles are squarely in the realm of what reasonable people might disagree on, and therefore I think the package is a win.

(If I understand it right, it also could scratch a couple of candidate projects off the top of the bond surplus list and could allow other ones to slide in.  See after the jump for the table.)

NEN meets Tonight to Discuss North State Hospital and Road Bond Surplus

Northeast Neighbors meets tonight, October 15th, at 6:30 p.m. in Salem First Church of the Nazarene, 1550 Market Street NE.

Belluschi Clinic Demolished at 13th and Center
Looking north towards Safeway

On the agenda is an update on the North Campus of the State Hospital.

Leland Report

McKenzie Hall (pictured), Yaquina, Santiam, and Eola
are low-priority for preservation, likely to be demolished.
What about the Belluschi Breitenbush Hall?

There will also be discussion of candidate projects for the road bond surplus.

Already, warning signs have gone in next to Safeway on 13th between Center and Marion!

Walking Man Alert on 13th near Marion

Newsbits: Trees, Rain, Capitol 75th, MWACT

Maybe not sun, but the cloud cover is breaking some, and the intensity of light finally yielding some soft shadows!   Gads it was a gloomy weekend.

There was a nice guest opinion in the paper yesterday about the value of urban trees and mentions they ways they help reduce speeds on streets and roads.

Ha ha!  Remember when it was spring and summer and sunny?

Our Area Commission on Transportation, MWACT, meets on Thursday, and both the agenda and info packet are on line.

at the Capitol

One interesting bit: Cherriots is cranky at the bike/ped people! And it's the result of the highway and autoist policy of divide and conquer. 

From the minutes to the August meeting:

[Cathy Clark said] "Transit ongoing operational expenses, specifically buses, should be a budgeted item rather than a less certain competitive grant process.” Marcia Kelley added that at the end of the meeting she indicated that transit needed to be better represented in projects, or they would have to take up the issue with the process because flexible funds are their only funding source as they can't use the highway dollars...

Allen Pollock, Salem - Keizer Transit, stated that he understands that resources are limited. However, he commented that there is only one transit project included on the MWACT priority list [for "Enhance" funds]. The rest of the projects are bicycle/pedestrian projects. He encouraged commissioners to consider equity issues. Perhaps some of the other projects could be scaled back to allow funding for another transit project.

The problem here isn't that there's too much money going to bike/ped stuff; on the contrary, there's still too little.  The problem, rather, is that we don't have a good mechanism for funding transit.  We're all just begging for the table scraps. 

Area MPO to Discuss Next Rounds of Federal Funding Today

The Salem-area Metropolitan Planning Organization meets today at noon. On the agenda is discussion of the next Federal transportation legislation and the start of planning for allocating the local share of Federal funds for the 2015-2020 cycle.

MAP-21 roadmap
Image from LAB
and discussion at Advocacy Advance

From the agenda:

A position paper developed by ODOT, the Association of Counties (AOC), and the League of Oregon Cities (LOC) regarding reauthorization of the federal surface act (MAP-21), which expires at the end of federal fiscal year 2014, is attached. It includes recommendations for both policies and funding levels. Travis Brouwer (ODOT) will review the document.

(Note: It is explained on page 5 that without additional resources for the Highway Trust Fund, surface transportation funding could be cut by about 30 percent.)

This document was presented to the Oregon Metropolitan Planning Organizations Consortium (OMPOC) members (including Cathy Clark and Bob Krebs) at their meeting in August. Each MPO in Oregon has been asked to review the document and give instructions to their OMPOC representatives, who will be meeting in Portland on October 25, 2013, to provide a formal recommendation of the paper (with changes, as needed). [bold italics added]

Will try to get a copy of the letter to see how much the groups are advocating for improved funding for completer streets and non-auto travel.

(For more on MAP-21 here in Oregon, see BikePortland here and here, and ODOT here.)

Council Streets and Bridges Bond Committee to Select $8M in Projects from $36M List

I don't really know where this falls in the priority list, but dang it was nice to see and feel this brand new pavement late yesterday afternoon!

One day old pavement overlay on 14th Street
smoothes over rough spots where rails
had been removed on the Geer Line wye.
That driveway looking part?
That's where rails were!

The former asphalt patches where the rails from the Geer Line had been ripped up made for awful bumpy biking on 14th Street between Oak and Mission Street. Since 14th here is a great alternative to 12th Street for north-south travel, the bumps were a frequent annoyance.   For cars too.  So for whatever combination of reasons, the City rolled a new overlay on a little less than a block of really crappy pavement. 

I don't remember seeing this on a project list, so I wonder if it was a "fill-in" project with left-over asphalt from a bigger project.

Whatever the case, the new smoothness was sweet! Hooray!  Thanks, City of Salem!

A City employee happened to drive past and I yelled "When did you do this?" and he said Monday.  So yeah, brand new.

This isn't a project that increases connectivity in any way.  But it's a meaningful increment in bicycling pleasure!

Council Streets and Bridges Bond Committee

And that's a meandering, even dilatory, way to introduce today's Council Streets and Bridges Bond Committee meeting at noon in the Public Works office at City Hall.  Councilors Clausen, Clem, and Nanke are the members and deciders.

The grand topic is identifying a list of candidate projects that might be funded with another chunk of bond surplus.  Because of the Great Recession, the road bond projects have been coming in consistently under budget, and it's very nice to be able to expand the number of projects it funds.

In the previous round of expected surplus from savings, Council adopted

Resolution No. 2013-46 authorizing use of Streets and Bridges Bond proceeds to fund improvements at the Commercial Street SE/Kuebler Boulevard SE intersection ($2, 187,000), Fairgrounds Road NE/Hood Street NE intersection ($325,000), and 25th Street SE/Madrona Avenue SE Intersection ($5,000,000).

And there's more savings!

So staff have identified a whole bunch - about $36 million worth - of new projects.  These will need to be whittled down to a list of about $8 million, with expected completion in fiscal years 2016-18.

Downtown Mobility Study Punts Much Down the Road, Seems Slack

The Downtown Mobility Study has posted the boards and recommendations from the final open house last week, and maybe the most telling item is that improvements to Union Street and full, family-friendly connections to the Union St. RR Bridge can't be envisioned in a 10 or 15 year horizon, but have to be pushed out to a 25 year horizon.

What should be a game-changer looks like it might just be another study.

Union St Bikeway out on 25 year horizon

Sure, there are incremental improvements in the shorter time-frames, including sharrows and a critical traffic light on Union Street - but even this can't be imagined any sooner than in a 10 year horizon. At one time discussed as a "demonstration project," the Union Street Family Friendly Bikeway, maybe THE project, a showcase, is punted down the road.  So are the two-way conversions.

Playing Card from Salem's All-American Street Game
Story and Photos at Salemis

That's something of a failure in imagination, nerve, and leadership.

But it shouldn't be surprising, alas.  This is also an expression of popular priorities. If vast numbers of people were asking urgently for better bike lanes, we'd get plans for them.

Instead, a cry of "No more parking tickets!" fires the imagination right now.   Even the bike shops downtown are on that bandwagon. Untrammeled Carspace is still more important than creating robust options for people who might wish to feel safe and comfortable biking downtown.

City Council, June 10th - Bond Surplus and TGM Grants

At Council for Monday, projects proposed for the bond measure surplus are a mixed bag.  Bike and Walk Salem doesn't seem to be motivating any of them, with economic development, neighborhood safety, and the  giant sucking sound of Keubler instead driving things.

The failure of Bike and Walk Salem to have a major influence on the selection outcomes adds to the evidence that it may be destined to look nice on a shelf, gathering dust, rather than become a dynamic force for change in the city.  There's another two studies proposed, but the City seems comfortable with a certain amount of study churn, the cycle of soliciting grants, finishing the studies, and moving on to the next.  It would be so nice if the City, you know, funded and enacted some study findings before moving on to the next shiny thing.

Bond Surplus

Project Scope on 25th and Madrona

Because of the crappy economy, City staff estimate that there will be "$11 to $13 million in Bond savings" from the $100 million "Keep Salem Moving" road bond of 2008.  With these savings,

Staff recommends Council adopt Resolution No. 2013-46 authorizing use of Streets and Bridges Bond proceeds to fund improvements at the Commercial Street SE/Kuebler Boulevard SE intersection ($2, 187,000), Fairgrounds Road NE/Hood Street NE intersection ($325,000), and 25th Street SE/Madrona Avenue SE Intersection ($5,000,000).

To hell with Commercial and Kuebler!  Why are we making these giant intersections even bigger?  We could have funded some of the Bike and Walk Salem recommendations.  Changes on Broadway and Hood will be helpful, but that's the smallest project. I have a much easier time with the 25th and Madrona bit, as previously noted (and here), but it's too bad more can't be done for people on foot and on bike on 25th.

Proposed Median from Norway to Broadway in Yellow

TGM Grant Applications

The City looks to apply for two Transportation and Growth Management grants, one for a study and refinement plan on south Commercial Street between Madrona and Ohmart for a complete street with facilities both along and across for people on foot and on bike.  (The corridor was also designated a critical ADA corridor in Bike and Walk Salem.)

This commercial district developed at a time when little thought was given to non-auto travel. Much of the area consists of commercial properties with a mix of parcel sizes, numerous driveways, and few connections between the public realm and shop entrances. This lack of an inviting, attractive circulation system can be a limiting factor for reinvestment. Although this area is experiencing a moderate resurgence of development activity, several parcels such as the old Safeway store remain vacant or underutilized.

The other is for a citywide study of arterials and collectors.  Reading the description I think of the old "Garden Road," now known as Market Street, and Silverton Road:

Many of Salem's arterial and collector streets were originally developed as farm-to-market roads. The city grew up around these roadways that are now the backbone of the city's transportation network. Many of these roads are not constructed to the City's Street Cross-Section Standards.

The applications look like fine ideas, but without movement on other fronts you have to wonder just how committed to implementation the City actually is.

Downtown and Bikes

There's an update on the downtown Economic Improvement District assessments and well as a more general update on the City's activities as a successor to the Downtown Partnership after the City terminated the EID agreement.  The First Wednesday theme for August will be "bikes" and it will be so very interesting to see how the City embraces bicycling downtown in meaningful or superficial ways.

There's also an update on the North Downtown Housing Investment Strategy, which includes as one goal to "Focus infrastructure investments on those that enhance pedestrian and bicycle flow, comfort and enjoyment, and support adaptive reuse of existing buildings (Liberty/Broadway)."  I like very much the use of "comfort and enjoyment"!  (But moving past shiny rhetoric is always the thing.)

City of Salem Proposed Modifications to Alternative 4D: It's Still a Giant Bridge and Highway!

A couple of teaser items for Monday's Council Agenda...

An abbreviated staff report is out with proposed modifications to alternative 4D on the Third Bridge.

Proposed Alterations to 4D

Guess what? It's still a giant bridge and highway! The deletions don't fundamentally alter the structure of the thing, and the clouds indicating areas for further study are just playing with food on the plate, shoveling it in circles.

This represents a political response to some of the neighborhood associations' criticism of the project, but doesn't in any fundamental way represent rethinking of the basic structure of the beast. 

There will be more to say over the weekend.

This recommendation is being presented to Council and then on Monday, April 22nd, the plan is for Council to take comment on it in a Public Hearing and then to adopt a formal preferred alternative for the project team.

25th and Madrona

More interestingly, Council proposes to jump 25th and Madrona to the head of the list of candidate projects eligible for completion with the surplus bond bonds after the original project list is finished.