City Council, October 11th - Our Salem, MUHTIP, Marine Drive

Council convenes on Monday and one of the items is cueing up the formal Work Session next week on Our Salem and the proposed new Comprehensive Plan.

Transportation in the 1973 Comp Plan

There will be more to say next week, but without diving in too deeply, the language in the current draft proposal may be too loose and subjective, too oriented to hopes and wishes, without measurable standards to assess progress, and it may reproduce the some of the same problems in previous editions of the Plan that didn't really get us to where we said we wanted to go.

Two generations ago, in 1973 we seemed clear on "differences in the social costs and environmental impacts" in transportation, but how much progress have we made on remedying and correcting for them?

The current draft

Current draft, continued

A document on additional ideas

When we "pursue strategies," "increase access," "accommodate," "employ strategies," and "decrease reliance," these are all things that can be understood as satisfied without any actual change in driving and VMT by Salemites. It is too often signalling of good intentions without substantive change.

There will be more to say next week.

Walking the Perimeter Sidewalks for the North Campus and Jory Apartments

Construction at the Jory Apartments on the former North Campus of the State Hospital is farther along than I had realized, and it was interesting to walk the perimeter recently.

A: Looking NW from Park Ave

There seemed to be some minor deviation from the concept plans at the Planning Commission in January 2020. Here's the site plan with a key to the photos in red letters.

Site plan map (Jan. 2020) with key to photos

Though I wasn't looking for it, and may have missed it, I did not notice any curb cut at A for the private drive or road.

But at B, the sidewalk was a little weird. North of the mini cul-de-sac the sidewalk was very wide, like for a multi-use path. There was also a wide ramp and curb cut to the side street at Knox. The site concept plan snowed sidewalks of uniform width, as I had read it.

Problems with Induced Speeding and Design Speed from 1921

Here's a great piece from exactly 100 years ago, October 8th, 1921, that shows how much we knew about crashes and how much we have ignored it.

October 8th, 1921

Though they use "accident" rather than crash, they are also clear on the role of speed and speeding as well as the role of road design and road conditions inducing speed.

From the piece (with a few typos cleaned up, and italics added):

Most Motor Accidents Caused By Speeding

Three months study of motor accidents on roads has brought to light the interesting disclosure that a vast majority of the disasters that overtake motorists are brought upon themselves by their own recklessness, and that 90 per cent of them are due to speeding says a writer in the September issue of Public Roads, published by the Bureau of Public Roads, United States Department of Agriculture.

"One of the Interesting developments (of the investigation)," the journal goes on to say "is that the largest number of accidents have occurred at the places that have always been considered safe, while the sections which have been commonly regarded as being dangerous are proving to be relatively free from accidents." Where the state highway crosses the Blue Ridge mountains in the western part of the state, and grades are steep and curves sharp, there were but eight accidents during three months. On the National Pike, between Baltimore and Frederick, where there are 48 miles of the straightest road in the state, the record for the same time showed 16 accidents, 3 of which were fatal. "And yet," says the publication, "few stretches of highway in the whole road system are so free on any feature which might be considered as dangerous."

On the Baltimore-Washington road, with all apparent danger spots removed, the record shows that during the same period there was one accident for every four miles of road.

"There seems to be only one answer to account for these hitherto unsuspected conditions," the article says. That answer is:

"Even the less careful motorists drive cautiously in the presence of recognized dangers, such as steep grades, sharp curves, grade crossings, etc., while the absence of such dangerous features gives the driver a sense of security which prompts him to take a chance and yield [to] the well-nigh universal passion for speed."

Few accidents were due, it was found, to the condition of the roads themselves; and most of those were due to slippery surfaces caused by rains.

And some modern repetition of the same basic themes.

City Video on Sidewalks and Bike Lanes Seems Agreeable, but Swerves from Heart of Matter

Earlier this week the City published a 12 minute video on transportation planning for sidewalks and bike lanes.

A chat at City Hall - via FB

It's a chat between the Mayor and our Transportation Planner, Julie Warncke. Since it appears to be conducted with Covid-distancing still, it is not as fluid and graceful as it might have been under normal times, so it's important not to focus on that. Overall, it strikes a blandly agreeable tone, and there does not seem to be anything much factual to quibble with.

If walking and biking were "easy" more would do it
The recent Satisfaction survey

But in emphasis and shape, it seems too agreeable and even complacent, addressed mainly to those who think the City is already doing a good job. It seems to be aimed at that 62% of Salemites who think that it is "easy" to "walk or bike in Salem," and only minor, incremental improvements are really called for.

The City should instead give more public thought to ways we are not meeting our targets for walking and biking. The picture the Indicators developed in the Our Salem project gives a very different sense of things. If people really thought it was "easy" to walk and bike, we would have more trips by walking and biking.

We are failing badly on walking and biking
(June Our Salem 2019 indicators - here and here)

More than anything, in the chat, the City missed an opportunity to center climate and to cue up the Climate Action Plan. 53% of our emissions are from driving, and when we talk about walking and biking more, we should pair that messaging with talking about driving less.

Scenario 1 isn't enough, but is doable right now
(last week at Council)

A climate context and the need for strong action now should be at the center of talking about transportation planning for walking and biking. In the video and chat, climate was a really striking omission, particularly since a draft of the Climate Plan is going to be coming out here this fall.

Planning Commission to Consider Code Amendments on Middle Housing and Trees

The Planning Commission meets tonight, Tuesday the 5th, and they've got over 400 pages of proposed code amendments to consider.

More attention to wall clearance (yellow)

With interesting history at the Meyer Farm (and in another, forthcoming note, on a different instance of history), I missed this a little, and so this will be a short note that skates along the surface only. Whoops.

The Staff Report cues it up:

In 2014, the UDC was completed and adopted as Title X of the Salem Revised Code (SRC). The UDC was a complete reorganization and update of Salem’s development codes. The UDC was adopted with the expectation that periodic updates and amendments would be made over time to ensure that any unanticipated concerns with the provisions of the UDC were regularly reviewed and addressed.

The code amendments included with this proposal provide a comprehensive update to the UDC and address a variety of issues that have arisen since the last major update to the UDC in 2019. Included in the proposal are policy-related changes that respond to concerns from the community and recent changes in State law; changes identified by staff to improve the application and administration of the UDC; and minor housekeeping amendments.

Examples of changes include increasing the types and number of poultry that may be kept in the City; expanding the types of residential uses allowed within the City’s residential zones to include middle housing (e.g. townhouses, duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, and cottage clusters) as required with the passage of State House Bill HB2001; eliminating the General/Retail Office and Front Street overlay zones and incorporating their design review standards into an updated CB (Central Business District) zone with improved design and development standards; allowing managed temporary camping for the homeless and emergency shelters as temporary uses; allowing self-service storage within existing CB zoned buildings in the downtown, subject to limitations on location and design; updating the City’s tree preservation ordinance to increase tree protection and preservation requirements and add to the list of trees species and sizes that meet the definition of a significant tree; and updating the City’s land division ordinance to create a new land division process specifically for land developed for middle housing as required with the passage of State Senate Bill SB458.

Though it may seem "efficient" to bundle and shoot out a firehose of code amendments, the volume makes it difficult for non-specialists to read and understand the changes. It would be easier to digest as several smaller chunks rather than one omnibus package.

On regulatory sludge as a tax - via Twitter

So here are some highlights of the summary, a summary of the summary. 

Are we Sure there is a Waldo DLC under the Meyer Farm?

The update in the paper on the Meyer Farm proposal and community debate is fascinating, especially for the history in the second half of the 20th century.

Link to Joseph Waldo?

But it is also asserted that the land is on a Donation Land Claim associated with Joseph Waldo. This has seemed like a simple thing to verify and learn about. But there is no proof, and it may be urban legend rather than good history.

On Marion County's current survey map, DLCs are outlined in blue and corners marked with big dots.

No Waldo DLC on current county map

We already saw that the 1919 survey map doesn't show any Waldo DLC here. Its DLC outlines correspond closely with the blue ones in the current County map. So either it is accurate, or both maps reproduce an error and omission.

The survey maps show no Waldo DLC

The 1929 Metsker map, which shows historical DLCs under more contemporary lot divisions, also indicates no DLC here. 

So the assertion that the Meyer Farm parcel is a remnant of a historically significant DLC is murky at best.

More on Sidewalks and Safety in Story of Walking Every Street

The piece last month about a Pandemic Project to walk every street in Salem was pretty great.

Safety and sidewalks in walking

With space limits in print, there are only so many themes that can be developed in a profile of course. But walking also takes place in a politics and a culture, and there is much more to say.

In the note on Alderbrook, we discussed a little about the role of wealth in making neighborhoods attractive and comfortable.

Another important element to the story, one that is easy to let pass as invisible and to take for granted as the baseline or norm, is that the person walking here does so with a body that reads white and masculine.

Harassment is a problem - via Twitter

He does not have to contend with routine harassment. Another reporter at the paper immediately pointed out the problem of "cat callers."