The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meets tomorrow the 13th, and in the packet is a request for letters of support for a couple of project applications at the MPO. (See notes on the pre-application phase at SKATS here and here. Both projects scored in the bottom third initially.)
One of them is new: A project for sidewalks along Orchard Heights Road in West Salem and connections to a new internal path in Orchard Heights Park.
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| Pre-app project description |
In the meeting packet is a plan view, but there are two options called out, and it's not exactly clear what is understood as the "essence" of the project.
For the moment, let's consider the parts that would be in the road right-of-way.
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| Crosswalk and path proposal at Orchard Heights Park |
The current conditions on the inbound and downhill side show a sidewalk on the west/south side and a bare shoulder into the shrubbery on the east/north side.
The bike lane has a dashed weave across a right-turn only car lane as it widens for turns onto Chapman Hill Drive.
Since people biking are going downhill, they might be able to keep up with cars, but at the same time, people in cars often misjudge the speed of people biking downhill, and this weave with a right-hook hazard probably works only for very confident people on bike.
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| View downhill, inbound to Wallace Road |
Orchard Heights Road here is optimized for throughput and speed. Zooming is prioritized. There are three lanes on the north, downhill side, and four lanes on the south side, including a merge lane for right-hand turns from Chapman Hill.
The lanes might mitigate the risk of rear-end crashes for those in cars, but since they also prioritize free-flow for non-turning car travel, they exacerbate speeding and hazard for those not in cars.
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| Aerial view at flanged Chapman Hill intersection |
A median island and enhanced crosswalk could help calm some of that speeding.
On the Pringle Creek Path (several previous notes here), it is interesting to see in the pre-application summary language about "separation" and the problem of the state highway.
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| "separated" facility |
This is language that has got separated from the reality on the ground. The path system is very meandering and does not represent a "corridor" for bike travel. By encouraging bike travel, it also compromises the experience of those on foot. Instead of inconveniencing people on foot, we should inconvenience people in cars! If we want less driving and emissions, we have the incentives aligned wrong here.
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| The path system is not suited to bicycle travel |
The way the City is framing the path connection is not very sound.
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| Pringle Parkway/OR-22 at Church: Crap in bike lane, car crossing over white line into it |
The separation should instead be in the road right-of-way, with hard
barriers along the bike lane so that zooming cars and trucks do not encroach on the
bike lane. That requires buy-in from ODOT, alas, but the City should not be so eager to bikewash its partial solutions to absolve ODOT of responsibility. (You may recall that Pringle Parkway and the Trade/Front couplet was identified as a problem in the Active Transportation Needs Inventory.)
SPRAB teleconferences at 5:30pm on Thursday the 13th.
3 comments:
Another problem with Orchard Heights road in that section is that, though it is a 30mph speed limit, the lanes are ridiculously wide. Going downhill towards the park (from both directions) it is really easy to find yourself up near 45mph. Some sort of traffic calming seems in order.
The city should install 2 of those speed reading boards (one for each direction, at locations where the road is sloped downhill), like the one installed on Glen Creek near the fire station.
Lane width also induces speeding. Thanks for pointing that out there.
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