State Street Downtown Scheduled for Two-Way Conversion in June Next Year - Updated

There was a lull in publishing updates from the City Manager for a couple of months, but this week a flurry for October and November appeared. In them is very interesting news about State Street downtown: It is poised to go two-way next year!

State Street circa 1920: two-way travel,
back-in angle parking, streetcar in the middle
(unknown postcard source - our Strong Towns group has used it!)

The update refers to the project as "State Street Streetscape," which I read as a conflation of the Streetscape study for sidewalks and the Central Salem Mobility study. But when they say "two-waying," that signals we are talking about the Mobility Study's recommendation, not merely the sidewalk plan.

Latest on State Street two-way conversion, October 31st

The final plan, adopted in August of 2013, selected Alternative 2, for an old-school cross-section of two auto travel lands, one auto center turn pocket, and two standard bike travel lanes in the door zones of parallel parking along the curb.

State Street - Alternative 2 appears to be the choice

That's an important upgrade!

But not necessarily to 21st century best practices. It's very much a late 20th century design.

In the intervening time we've had the Streetscape/Sidewalk Study and also added this pocket for EV charging stations.

EV charging stations at Capitol, November 22nd

So it will be interesting to see what the final drawings look like. The project has been flying under the radar a little, and I suspect this signals that it will be a little disappointing, perhaps further reduced. If they were doing something magnificent, they'd probably be talking more about it.

It does not appear that Court Street is included yet, so it will also be interesting to understand how they compensate for breaking the couplet. That seems like it could make the project more complicated.

Update: City Staff write:

[T]here may have been an inadvertent error in Steve's recent update (from October 31st) about the State Street two-way conversation....

The plan for State Street is to change to two-way from Liberty Street to Church Street.

So yeah, this is another bit, a two-block increment, not the whole stretch to 12th. 

Addendum, Sunday December 15th

Here's the charging station site.

By the east wing of the Capitol

"Coming soon: A new Electric Avenue"