Friday, January 7, 2011

Bike Plan Update Progress; Meeting Scheduled for Jan 20th

Bike & Walk Salem, the process to update the walking and biking chapters of the Transportation System Plan, is making progress!

The project team will hold its second Stakeholder Advisory Committee meeting later this month.
SAC Meeting 2
Thursday, January 20, 2011, 6:30–8:30 p.m.
Pringle Hall, 606 Church Street SE, Salem OR 97301
At the meeting the consultants expect to report on the existing conditions and needs assessment. The consultants made several first-hand visits to see conditions on the ground and to suppliment the survey and mapping data. In mid-December Rory from Alta said he'd "logged almost 200 miles so far on Salem streets this summer and fall."

Several open houses will follow the SAC meeting the next week. Tentative locations include the Senior Center (AKA "Center 50+"), the West Salem Library, and a couple of others.

The online survey and map project have closed. The survey yielded over 700 responses, and the map appears to have gained about 160 pushpins and comments.


As you might expect the map was most densely marked in the older, streetcar grid, where it is easiest to bike. Mid-project, in November, there were few comments in South and East Salem. With time, it did fill in with comments in South and East Salem.

Interestingly, at the beginning of January, when the map project closed, there were still very few comments and pins in West Salem.

It may be that getting people interested in bicycling in West Salem is more difficult than in other areas of Salem. Because of the bridge crossings, creating a robust set of transportational choices that makes it easy for people to choose not to take a drive-alone trip, is terribly important for the city and region. The paucity of pushpins suggests there might be stronger than usual inertia behind the drive-alone trip.

It will be very interesting to learn more about the consultant's analysis of the survey and mapping.

The project team plans to accelerate in the winter and spring, with monthly stakeholder committee meetings.

2 comments:

Daniel Evans said...

This looks promising. I am glad the Alta consultant was down here so much getting a feel for what was going on. It will be interesting to see what they have to say. Thanks for covering this. You are all over it - as usual.

Salem Breakfast on Bikes said...

Here are the meeting dates and sites:

* Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Center 50+

* Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., West Salem Library

* Wednesday, January 26, 2011, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Main Library, Anderson Rooms

* Thursday, January 27, 2011, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Houck Middle School Media Room, 1155 Connecticut Street SE, Salem, 97317