Guidance of Youth and the Ideology of Pioneer Mother Monuments

Guidance of Youth, Bush Park

A friend of the blog saw a Salem statue, "Guidance of Youth," in a notice for an interesting history talk sponsored by the Lane County Historical Society. Cynthia Prescott will be giving a pub talk in Eugene on "Myth and Memory in OR's Pioneer Monuments" on July 15th.*

Prescott is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Dakota and author of Pioneer Monuments in the American West. Her current project Pioneer Mother Monuments: Constructing Cultural Memory will be published by the University of Oklahoma Press in Spring 2019.

In Salem:
May 23rd, 1919

A different Pioneer statue on the UO campus has been in the news this spring, and so the subject is a timely topic in Eugene.

Last month the Daily Emerald wrote:

[I]n the early 20th century, pioneers were depicted in statues across the country to “valorize” their achievements.

On the day of the statue’s instillation, May 22, 1919, the president of the Oregon Historical Society gave a speech to dedicate the statue that praised the Anglo-Saxon race and its ability to assimilate other races and cultures to become a part of it....

In 1919 it was big enough news that Salem newspapers covered it also.

But interestingly, the lead image for the pub talk is not that Eugene Pioneer or any other statue in Lane County, but instead is "Guidance of Youth," the statue in Bush Park, right here.

And it happens that "Guidance of Youth" appears prominently in Prescott's book, Pioneer Mother Monuments, as well as on the home page of the book's blog, the monument database, and sections on the sculptor, Avard Fairbanks, and the cluster of pioneer monuments in the Willamette Valley. So it has a substantial place in the book's argument.

The publisher blurbs the book this way:

In recent years, Americans have engaged in heated debates about Confederate Civil War monuments and their implicit racism. Should these statues be removed or reinterpreted? Far less attention, however, has been paid to pioneer monuments, which, Prescott argues, also enshrine white cultural superiority—as well as gender stereotypes. Only a few western communities have reexamined these values and erected statues with more inclusive imagery.

"Guidance of Youth" provides the lead and structure for Chapter 3, "Memory and Modernity in Postwar Family Monuments, 1940 - 1975."

Thanks Especially to Kathy Lincoln on her Cherriots Retirement

One of the consequences of all the politics around new funding for Cherriots is that the Board will be appointed by the Governor. Next month Cherriots will have four new Board Members, who will serve admirably. As this note from Cherriots suggests, there will be a generational shift and Cherriots will lose a great deal of institutional knowledge. There will be benefits to youth and fresh perspectives, of course, but the loss will also be real.

Biking and walking more than transit is the focus here, and so three of the four have contributed in ways that have regrettably not been visible for our interests and attention. But Kathy Lincoln's contributions to critique of the Salem River Crossing's folly have been important and should be singled out. She also served on the Policy Committee of our MPO, SKATS, and was often an important voice of dissent and critique when they were going down their autoist roads.

It is, then, a little unfair to Directors Kelley, Thompson, and Evans, and maybe you will know more about their particular accomplishments, but Director Lincoln deserves our special thanks for her focus on rational transportation and anti-boondoggularity. Cheers and Thanks!

Rail History and Art in Salem and Eugene

The Downtown Advisory Board is meeting today - right now, in fact - but there wasn't a meeting packet to flesh out the agenda items. They are talking about congestion on Front Street and about the mid-block parklets pilot. There will be more to say later.

Buried a little in the minutes from May also is a note about "Handout: Capital Cornerstones – Outdoor History Panels." Unfortunately the handout itself is not bundled into the meeting packet. But it sounds like the utility wrap project that went in the SCAN SESNA neighborhood is being extended to the downtown area. That could be very nice!

So here's a couple of related notes not themselves on the DAB agenda. If you haven't been to the Train Depot lately, you might not have seen the new historical signage at it and the Baggage Depot next door.

Newish historical interpretive signage at the Train Depot

On one of them was a photo I hadn't seen before. Or, I had, but the scan from the photo in the Library's Historic Photo collection is terrible. Unfortunately the caption at the Depot is also a little thin. Without any compass direction, it's hard to orient yourself. If the photo dates from the 1870s, it must be from Waller Hall, though. Was there any other structure tall enough and early enough to give that view? The Capitol is another candidate, but it would have been a little more directly north of the Depot.

A rare image of the first Depot of 1870

Down in Eugene it was interesting to see the brand new mural (several more images in the painter's FB note) on the circa 1910 "trolley stairs" on Willamette Street at College Hill.

New Safe Routes to Schools Plan Released

Earlier this week Ride Salem, the rental bike program, launched and yesterday Safe Routes to Schools published their 2019 Visioning Plan for Salem-Keizer. These are auspicious beginnings for the summer!

The committee
(Councilor Cook is identified with County only)

The plan is worth a look, but it's also a vision, and still early in the process. There's not a lot of concrete detail on actual plans. It's more about hopes and ideas and potential.

The main thing is to hire a full-time coordinator and to establish programs at four schools.

Chief Goal: Hire a full-time coordinator,
then install programming at four schools

Then there's a whole wish-list of things that might be done.

Failure at the Legislature and a Bridge's Name

There is sad and infuriating news on the front page today, even as the interior pages have at least two stories about climate-related disruption.

Front page today

Interior page today

Also interior today

There are many dimensions to the story, and I'm sure more will be written, but one of them has to be about the basic failure in exercising power by our Senate President. Apparently he chose collegiality over hardball, and his colleagues chose nullification rather than reciprocating. In trying to play nice he failed badly. A little bit of Charlie Brown to Lucy, in fact.

Last spring, there was another instance of a pattern where he apparently chose collegiality with peers over justice and protecting more vulnerable charges. It seems necessary now to read these two stories together.

It may be we need to consider a different name for the Minto Bridge.

As the scandal at the Legislature unfolded, and again as Cap and Invest appears dead, and the minority party practices Legislative nullification at this very moment, it is reasonable to ask whether it was best to dedicate the bridge to a still active, still living Legislator, before his legacy could adequately be assessed. 

Though the SJ evaded it, WW highlights the Minto Bridge

Willamette Week's story from last spring opened:

When Leah Mangis walks the Peter Courtney pedestrian bridge in Salem, the beauty of the new span across the Willamette River conflicts with her ugly memories.

It's been hard to tell if the "Peter Courtney" bridge name has really taken in the popular imagination. Here it has seemed like the enduring name was going to remain the "Minto Bridge."

However that may be, it's probably early still to say outright that we should pull the "Courtney" epithet from the bridge, but it's also now more of a legitimately open question whether the prior act of naming might have been premature. Maybe we will come to have buyer's remorse. Or maybe we will judge that on balance Courtney's legacy remains positive, despite what appear to be grievous missteps at the Legislature and at WOU.

Ride Salem Rental Bike System Opens with Soft Launch

While the Cap and Invest bill to curb carbon pollution now seems dead, Ride Salem, the rental bike system, launched over the weekend.

In that context, the launch is definitely one small step forward while we take two or three or more giant steps backwards.

In this we are consistently celebrating small ornamental wins while we fail and lose on the bigger structural change.

via Twitter

Still, there is opportunity for the system to grow and for it to help catalyze change, especially on downtown streets, which are currently ill-suited to a public bike system.

via Facebook

Check out the system and consider making it part of your own transportation toolbox. The more who use it, the better it and the better our whole system will be.

Idaho Stop on Front Page and a Third Reading Today

The piece on the front page today about the "Idaho Stop" bill is mostly pretty good!

But the headline's frame about "letting cyclists roll through stops" might not be the best, as it hits the tropes of the lawless cyclist and of special privileges for cyclists. It might better to have framed it as a measure for safety, efficiency, and climate.

Still, before the piece got to the autoist recalcitrance of some Legislators, it cited data. The juxtaposition implies a little shade, that some Legislators might be ignoring evidence even as they called for more support from the public.

It was also great to see a little journalistic conversation with BikePortland. (See BP here and here.)

Front page today

But it might have looked at problems with stopping cars. Even well away from stop signs, responsible stopping remains problematic for those who operate cars.

A couple days ago - but where's the driver?
A person crashed into the watermelons!

There's a long list here of local crashes where people crashed into inanimate objects well off the roadway.

Public Process at the MPO: SKATS

The Policy Committee for our local Metropolitan Planning Organization meets today, Tuesday the 25th, and one item is a discussion of the project vetting for 2021-2026 funding. In it is a four-page memo on the "outreach plan." It looks pretty robust.

The MPO pretends to care about public comment...

And yet, as we just saw with the RTSP, the MPO is not always interested in responding substantively to informed public comment.

but when faced with actual informed comment last month,
they ignored it.

This is not unusual. City Council, the State Legislature, all policy-making bodies struggle with popular things that are bad or false or problematic, and unpopular things that are true or necessary or valuable. They struggle with vocal minority opinion that leverages power to foil change, or with majority opinion that moves towards tyranny. These are perennial questions.

Even so, at this moment, the interesting question for the MPO may not really be, "how do we get more public involvement?"

More interesting questions for the MPO should be, "how do we authentically engage public comment when it runs against our wishes?" and "what if we are wrong?"

The process we have is more procedural than substantive, and this may be the best we can do. But too often the result is a Potemkin process.

Other Items

There's a long memo on the history of the proposal for a South Salem Transit Center.

Talking about Gas Prices the Wrong Way

Average temps in Oregon from 1895 - 2018 (L to R)
(Show Your Stripes)

One of the things that is a little strange about our conversation on carbon reduction is how persistent is a "punitive" framing on pricing. Yesterday's piece in the Oregonian went in on this:

For drivers, that means higher gas and diesel prices -- significantly higher as time goes on.

This is the no-pain-no-gain reality at the heart of the “market-based” cap and trade policy. If businesses and consumers don’t feel it in their wallets, they won’t change their behavior and reduce emissions.

It's all about pain, feeling it in the wallet, stickin' it to 'em.

Front page yesterday in the Oregonian

It's not about pain; it's about market failure in multiple dimensions

But it's not really about pain. An important foundational frame is about pricing signals, information, and rational choice. The basic Econ 101 framework of markets is missing in the article. There are alternatives to gas and driving, and people will make choices about travel.

State Level Traffic Safety Targets are Likely Ineffective, even Confused

Strong Towns linked to a Streetsblog piece today about the latest round of traffic safety goals the FHWA is compiling.

via Twitter and Streetsblog

The Streetsblog piece compiles a number of States' goals that actually adopt increasing numbers of deaths and injury.

some of the most progressive states are calling for more people dead under new “targets” for certain performance measures they must report to the federal government....

But the first round of goal-setting makes it clear states aren’t willing to make the substantive, structural changes to really improve safety. All of the states seem to be treating it more like a modeling exercise than any sort of call to action.

We've occasionally checked in here on SKATS' work on goals as they compile the regional subset of the statewide goals, but not really looked at the whole for the state.

So it was natural to see if Oregon, as a "progressive state," was calling for more people dead.

Salem Brewers Call for Better Walking and Biking - Sunday Newsbits

The Sunday paper's full of interesting things this morning! So we'll ramble through a few notes on some of them.

In a piece about the proclamation at Council for the Salem Brewery District, there's a terrific note about walking and biking.

Bikes mean business

"We want people to feel safe and be safe when they are walking or biking between locations."

Is this the first time in Salem a group of businesses have unambiguously and enthusiastically called for non-auto improvements on a major road?

This feels like a shift in the conversation, and it's great to see.

Salemites Flocked to see Army Curtiss Jennys in 1919

Have you heard the rumble and looked up to see one of the vintage planes passing overhead?

Photos with Governor Olcott in the Oregonian, June 11th, 1919

June 9th, 1919

As it happens, 100 years ago Salemites flocked to the Fairgrounds to see what was then a far more novel sight, Army Curtiss planes associated with World War I.

The group was barnstorming around Oregon in very much the same way and pattern the current group is.

They were making stops in Medford, Roseburg, Eugene Corvallis, and Lebanon before reaching Salem, and then moving north to Portland. After Portland they were going to work their way south back to their home at Mather Field in Sacramento.

The planes were a model of the now-famous Curtiss Jenny.

Though they're described as "big army planes," "big" here might be operating in a different way than we would think of today.

Curtiss Jenny via Wikipedia
(See also the "inverted jenny"!)

Oswald West Bikes to Depot, Apprehends Forger

Note leaning bikes, 1891 (Salem Library Historic Photos)

January 29th, 1895

Incidental to some other research, came across an amusing anecdote about Oswald West in 1895 when he was working at Ladd & Bush, much before he was Governor. At this time bikes were high-status, leading-edge transportation technology.

Another Forger Caught

Was Leaving the City With His Coin When Arrested

This afternoon, about 1:15, a tall, smooth-faced young man, wearing a dark brown overcoat and a black crush hat, walked into Bush's bank and presented a check for some $80, signed by Leo Willis. Cashier Oswald West questioned the man before cashing the check, but the forger seemed honest, replying that West could look up the signature if he desired.

The check was cashed, but no sooner had the forger passed out the door when West ran straight for Leo Willis' office [probably in the Reed Opera House], where he learned that it was a forgery. Hastening back to the bank he met Andy Coss, whose services he secured, and they went immediately to the depot on their bicycles, arriving just before the train reached the depot.

West pointed out the forger to Coss just as he was going aboard the train and they both seized the man. He offered considerable resistance at first, but was soon under control and marched to the county jail. Upon being searched, $2[hundred something] was found on his person, $255 of which was gold. Besides this amount he had eight checks already made out and endorsed by Salem business men but had not signed them. He also had the signatures of a number of Salem gentlemen, among whom were Father White and Ben Hayden....[text is increasingly garbled]

Old Depot from 12th/13th side, circa 1889
(Salem Library Historic Photos, misdated to 1920,
but clearly related to this image labeled 1889.
See also this image and this image
with baggage end we see today fully restored.)

City Council, June 17th - Just Raise the Gas Tax Already!

As we consider a Climate Action Plan and the initial assessment that 55% of the city's greenhouse gas pollution come from transportation, it is curious that Council has, at least for the moment, decided to pass on a local gas tax.

Council meets on Monday for a formal Work Session on new revenue, and they'll be discussing an operating fee and an employee-paid payroll tax only.

In a very general way, it seems like we are badly missing on the notion that we should tax things we want less of and reduce taxes on things we want more of.

Others will have more to say on the operating fee and payroll tax.

And maybe after Cap and Invest is settled at the Legislature, a path to a local gas tax devoted to climate action on transportation will be clearer.

There's a "hockey stick" spike for you - via Twitter

Leslie Venti's brother, Jason Box, in the news

As a footnote on greenhouse gas pollution and climate, Greenland is in the news, and in a bad way. This is far afield, and ordinarily wouldn't be noticed here, but you may recall a local connection.

Jason Box in Esquire (2015) - via Twitter

Weird Defeatism and Autoist Bias on Bikes and Emissions

Earlier this week there was a funny piece in Salem Reporter about the City's failure to improve walking and biking rates. It's hard to land on a reading of it, and perhaps the ambiguity is intentional, that "view from nowhere." But in this ambiguity it does not illuminate very much, and it shies away from useful analysis.

Study projects Salem's greenhouse gas emissions could grow by 2035

The analysis suggests the city likely won’t convince people to trade cars for bikes or sidewalks any time soon. And it arrives at a time when councilors are debating measures to study and reduce the city’s carbon footprint.

The headline changed over a couple of days, and perhaps this is merely SEO and click-traffic maneuvering. (Get those hate-clicks about bikes?) But its evolution points to a problematic framing away from reporting on emissions and towards opinion about mobility. The whole thing is just a little odd.

Headline on the 11th

New headline on the 12th, more defeatist

The difficulty with improving walking and biking rates is real and true. But fundamentally the story's frame seems to be "the City's tryin' real hard, and the obdurate citizens just aren't responding...People loooove to drive, and won't be changing any time soon."

Julie Warncke, the city’s transportation manager, concurred biking and walking aren’t currently popular ways to get around the city.

“We’re trying to provide opportunities, but we do have a hard time measuring,” she said.

The city has invested in bike and pedestrian infrastructure in recent years, she noted. In the last five years, 20 city projects added bike lanes, fixed crosswalks, improved sidewalks and more, she said.

The piece does not pursue more detail on why the City's "investment" has not paid off, however, and veers away instead, petering out in vague generalities.

EarthWise is Mainly about Garbage, Not Carbon Pollution

Our 350.org chapter has the good news on Council's action Monday for a Climate Action Plan.

From Our Salem (logo and comments in red added)

Over on FB, some have argued that the City already has a Environmental Action Plan, the County already has the EarthWise program, and that a Climate Action Plan might therefore be superfluous.

Driver Strikes and Kills Marshall Leslie on Foot near Downtown Safeway

In his Cadillac SUV, and possibly suffering what Salem Police are calling a "medical issue," Willie Dempsey struck and killed Marshall Leslie on foot while in a crosswalk on Center Street at 12th Street near the downtown Safeway this afternoon.

The Evolving Story and Erasing the Driver

The initial and very brief notice by Salem PD, with a neutral "x vs. y collision" formula:

Due to a fatal pedestrian vs vehicle collision Center St NE will be closed from Capitol St NE to 14th ST NE. 12th ST NE will be closed to both N/B and S/B traffic between Marion ST NE and Chemeketa ST NE.

The SJ revised this in the first draft for the passive voice with the "a pedestrian was struck" formula:

A fatal pedestrian vs. vehicle crash near downtown Salem has prompted closure of several streets, police said. A pedestrian was struck on Center Street near the Safeway grocery store and died on scene.

In the Wednesday paper (second revision)

In the SJ's third revision online, made after the print deadline, they write about a person driving:

A pedestrian was struck on Center Street NE near the Safeway grocery store and died on scene, according to police....

A driver in a Cadillac SRX was heading eastbound on Center Street and hit the pedestrian in the "crosswalk area" of 12th Street, said Lt. Treven Upkes of Salem Police.

By contrast, Salem Reporter's early version (not sure if it was the very first) has a sentence with the active voice:

A driver hit a pedestrian walking near Center Street Tuesday afternoon and police said the pedestrian died.

Salem Reporter's second story on Wednesday the 12th, after the Police released the identifications, is similarly accurate:

A Salem man ran a red light on Center Street Northwest Tuesday afternoon before hitting and killing a pedestrian crossing the street, police said.

All of these early stories struggle with humanizing the dead and the SJ's with erasing the driver.

Vetting for the 2021 - 2026 Cycle Continues at the MPO

The Technical Advisory Committee for our Metropolitan Planning Organization meets tomorrow the 11th, and they have a light agenda. On it is a preliminary ranking of the pre-application list of projects tentatively submitted for funding in the 2021-2026 cycle.

Preliminary rankings (some columns omitted)

Tied for first is realigning the intersection at McGilchrist and 22nd. The whole corridor from 12th to 25th has been a TIGER and then BUILD application; it has not been successful in winning funding, and it's not clear that it's a strong candidate for the programs as the Feds have defined them. So the City wants to move ahead in a piece-meal fashion.

The April pre-app sheet on McGilchrist and 22nd

It's billed as a "complete street/intersection" project.  It is in a way, but by picking a street segment in the middle, rather than starting from an end, it's an isolated fragment, an island, and in that sense it's not at all "complete." Even with sidewalks and crosswalks and bike lanes, until it's connected to other segments, there's nothing "complete" about it. It still remains non-functional for people on bus, on foot, and on bike. (Update - See comments and addendum for discussion of 22nd as north-south route.)

Moreover, the offset intersection may also have a traffic calming function, and by aligning the intersection, it may create more zoomy streets.

As a "complete streets" project, then, this is a little bit non-sensical and something of a Potemkin performance.

City Council, June 10th - Crosswalks

There's a cluster of interesting transportation items on Council agenda for Monday.

Most interesting is the report from the Crosswalks committee.

The City of Salem Pedestrian Safety Study was conducted in response to a spike in pedestrian fatalities in 2015. Completed in March 2018, this study evaluated the various causes of pedestrian crashes, identified trends and patterns, and developed a set of recommendations aimed at reducing the frequency and severity of pedestrian crashes. Among the recommendations from the study was for the City to develop a “Safer Crossings Program” (Program). The purpose of the Program is to establish an objective, request-driven process to evaluate pedestrian crossings and rank potential safety improvement projects at the crossings.

Staff worked with a Project Advisory Committee between October 2018 and February 2019 and developed 12 weighted criteria for ranking potential safer crossings projects. Once the Program is fully implemented, users will be able to propose crossing projects online and see how all of the submitted projects are ranked. The attached initial list of ranked crossing locations illustrates how various proposed projects scored relative to others. This listing also identifies which crossing projects are proposed to be included in applications for federal funding through the Salem-Keizer Area Transportation Study (SKATS).

Ranked candidate crossing sites by weighted scores (partial list)

Mostly the ranked list looks pretty good; maybe there will be more to say after we've all spent more time with it.

But one element, in a way a small and insignificant detail, but in another way a systemic problem, is worth comment.

Bearscat Baking to Open in Former Garage, now Ira's Alley

Business names are strange sometimes! The paper's got an online notice that "Bearscat Bakehouse" is going to go into the old Croissant & Co. space.

(As with "Growl Movement," what is it with this toilet jokery, even with the appeal to "cowboy" nostalgia? Apparently it works, at least in North Dakota, as they've established a successful business there and are expanding here.)

June 5th, 1919

It's great the space will be full again, and while restaurant news isn't the thing here, it turns out there's some transportation history.

Advertising the renovation, September 23rd, 1983
(The "before" dating of 1909 is too early - see below)

The building is a former garage, and was renovated with more than a little of the 1970s revival of olde-tyme style.

Cherriots Seeks Grant for New Long Range Plan

Last month at the Cherriots Board meeting one of the items was authorization for a Transportation and Growth Management grant application to fund a new long-range 20 Year Plan.

Applying for TGM grant to fund a new 20 Year Plan

It's TGM season, and the City's again passing. Since the State Street Study, the City hasn't applied for any new ones, I don't believe, and this seems like it comes from the new City Manager, his emphasis on the Strategic Plan, and the fact that we are far from fully implementing most studies. (This post from 2014 is a little old, but the number of unfulfilled study projects is a little shocking, and the pattern persists. Much of the studies sit on the shelf and do not result in funded projects and the envisioned changes.)

Cherriots has applied for a few grants without success.

SAMTD has submitted applications for TGM grant funds every year since 2016, but has been unsuccessful. However, staff have received positive feedback from TGM program staff from the pre-application submitted on February 27, 2019.

With Our Salem and its update to the Comprehensive Plan, this is a good time for Cherriots to consider an update to their long range plan. This also dovetails with the new funding from the State, which is not automatic and requires project applications.

The long range planning points to two interlocking elements that seem very important. The City of Salem must be an active participant, not merely in an advisory, "stakeholder" role, but as partner. You may recall the structure of Eugene's long-range planning project for arterial corridors. Our Salem and Cherriots' long range plan should be developed in tandem.

Cherriots project will necessarily go beyond Salem, but Salem is the principal entity. And if we are serious about decarbonizing transportation, creating alternatives to drive-alone trips, and improving safety and health, we will include frequent service corridors and hopefully move to bus rapid transit.

EmX Bus Rapid Transit in Eugene
 (image via LTD)

BRT includes these differences from regular bus service:

• Raised platform
• dedicated bus lane
• bigger bus
• all doors open for entry/exit
• on-demand proof-of-fare (paying off-board, rather than paying the operator)
• frequent service (so you don't have to consult a schedule; just walk up to a stop)

But this also requires changes to road striping and design as well as changes in land use, with more housing and employment on and near the frequent transit lines. These require the active participation and planning of the City. Unsupported by changes in land use, frequent service lines and transit plans in general will be inefficient.

Public Bike System to Launch; City Mainly sees Tourism Toy

Tipped off by the City Manager's update, Salem Reporter has a piece on the prospect of launching the public bike system this month.

via Twitter

It's been a little bit of a slog, and it will be great to see the project finally come to fruition.

In the piece the Mayor and Transportation Planning Staff talk around some of the issues, however.

Center Street Bridge Seismic Retrofit Update at MWACT

Ordinarily there's not a lot on the MWACT agenda for us, but tomorrow the 6th, there is an update on the Center Street Seismic project.

Update at MWACT

The Mid-Willamette Valley Area Commission on Transportation is a regional advisory commission to the Oregon Transportation Commission. It's area is Marion, Polk, and Yamhill counties.

They'll be getting an update from ODOT on the bridge reinforcement. The materials in the meeting packet are only this single page, but some bits are worth notice:

• Reinforcement to a Magnitude 8, but not Magnitude 9, standard. 
• Does not retrofit the bike/walk sidepath
• Does not include reinforcement of the 24" water line attached to the bridge

So again, the cost escalation and the explicit design limits here are evidence that the estimate for the much longer SRC over a greater extent of unstable soils of $425 million was wildly under-estimated for political purposes and for public acceptance.

MWACT meets Thursday the 6th at 3:30pm in Courthouse Square, the Senator Hearing Room, 555 Court St NE.

Deadly, Dirty, and Costly: Three Recent Views of our Autoism

Today: Cars are Costly

Yesterday: Cars are Deadly

Saturday: Cars are Dirty

Yes, It's the Cars

It's nice to see a front page piece that states it plainly: "Drivers account for most of Salem carbon emissions."

Front page today

Yes, it's the cars.

And we will do most anything to avoid facing this.