Between the military ambitions of a petrostate autocrat, rising gas prices, and our need to reduce emissions, maybe it's the time we will finally reconsider our relation to petroleum.
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| Micro scale - via Twitter |
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| And Macro scale - via Twitter |
In a side conversation a few days ago, and speaking only personally, the person who is also Board Chair of Cherriots suggested an interest in planning for Bus Rapid Transit in Salem. That was great to see!
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| Surprising leading candidate - via Twitter |
I had thought that Lancaster Drive was the most likely candidate as it had the highest ridership, but he suggested instead South Commercial Street might be the most promising, especially with the prospect of a forthcoming transit center in South Salem.
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| Zoning change areas (May 2021) |
That also dovetails with plans in Our Salem to rezone for mixed use and put housing on South Commercial. You can see the change areas proposed along Commercial Street. (And Lancaster and North River Road.)
But so far, Our Salem has not considered structural transportation changes. These are apparently only considered as a secondary, supporting element to be undertaken in amendments to the Transportation System Plan. Now that we are moving into the formal Public Hearing phase with a
Hearing at the Planning Commission mid-month this counts as a real
omission and renunciation.
It is unlikely that mixed-use and housing will be very attractive on South Commercial Street as long as it remains an overbuilt and zoomy stroad. People will still want to take shelter from the nasty street environment by using private cars. Any increase in walk, bike, or bus trips will be small rather than any large and structural shift.
The changes to land use in Our Salem should be more carefully aligned with changes to transportation. Transportation and land use should be more of a marriage of equals than a relation with transportation in a subordinate position.
In this light, it is worth thinking more about Eugene's BRT system, the EmX. Riding it is great, but it is not yet fully-realized.
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| Slack land use, too many car lanes Agate Station at UO - via Twitter |
Lane Transit District first opened the Eugene to Springfield leg of EmX in 2008, and they opened an extension north from the Springfield Transit Center, the Gateway route, in 2011. At first it ran as one continuous route from Eugene all the way up to the McKenzie River area in north Springfield. In 2018 segments were decoupled at the elbow and frequency on the Gateway segment dropped. If you want to go there from Eugene, or go to Eugene from North Springfield, you have to get off the bus in downtown Springfield and transfer. It is no longer so "rapid."
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| Current EmX routes - via LTD |
If you look at a map of that Gateway route in the north, though, it's not hard to see why ridership might not have been high. There's little "transit-oriented" about that pattern of development. It's parking lots with malls, corporate campuses, and the hospital. (Even at the University, in the image just above, the land use is not yet very "transit-oriented.")
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| Too many parking lots - via Twitter |
Lane Transit and the City of Eugene have been working on identifying the next corridor for EmX.
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| Late last year River Road recommended for EmX |
Late last year they announced the preliminary conclusions. One corridor was a strong candidate for full BRT, three corridors for "enhanced" transit short of full BRT, and one corridor was essentially dropped from further consideration with a "no build" recommendation. (You can read more about it in an interactive storymap here. Here's the full project website also.)
Salemites should look at EmX and this latest planning process with great interest, borrowing the most promising elements and also improving what is not working as well. We can advocate for BRT in Cherriots' current long-range planning project, in Our Salem, in the Climate Action Plan, and in the amendments to the Transportation System Plan.
The despot in Russia isn't the only one. There are despots in the Middle East as well. In nearly every way it is clear we need to transition from petroleum-based energy and transportation systems.
Without real modification of our streets and transportation planning, the changes in land use contemplated in Our Salem as well as necessary emissions reductions contemplated in a Climate Action Plan will be too timid and slow.
It's time to think about a future with BRT in Salem.
5 comments:
Councilor Andersen here. For some time I and several others, including folks from Cherriots, have been working on a plan for a Salem Streetcar System stretching from West Salem looping through downtown to the freeway, with a spur to the sate complex, Willamette U, and the hospital, and possible spurs up Front Street on the east side and Marine Drive on the west side. This would address all sorts of issues - climate change, compact/higher density development, economic development along the streetcar lines, and over reliance on the SOV. Cherriots would be the lead agency due to its expertise, with all sorts of support from the City and the state. We are about to go out to the public for comments and input and to the two governmental agency's elected/appointed officials to get the project planning in motion. This will be along term effort with multiple benefits to our community.
I couldn't agree more that the success of a mixed use corridor on Commercial Street (and the other proposed corridors) are highly dependent on redesigning the roads. My biggest fear is not that the new Comp Plan is inadequate but that we will not invest the infrastructure funds that are needed to make this model work.
It will be very interesting to learn more about the concept Councilor Andersen discusses! There is potential for something terrific.
At the same time, a decade ago there was a different concept and here's a little bit of skepticism on that previous idea. Rail is expensive, more so than BRT generally, and any concept that degrades the Union Street Bridge for walking and biking merits extra scrutiny.
There will likely be trade-offs, and it will be interesting to see how they are proposed to be handled.
Look forward to learning more!
Tom Andersen here again. There are three potential ways to cross the river: 1)either over the top of the entire Union Street Bridge or suspended from the top of the superstructure with plenty of room for bike/ped underneath on the bridge surface (think Steel Bridge in PDX); 2) over a cantilevered southern extension of the Center Street bridge (we know there is enough loadbearing capacity on the bridge to add this extra lane when the earthquake retrofitting is done - this lane could also be used for other vehicles and would come down by the old UGM site now owned by the city; and 3) a completely separate new bridge - the main problem here is that it would have to span the train tracks on the east side of the river (the other two possibilities would not be at grade with the tracks but would come down at Commercial (the Center St. bridge option) or possibly extend over Commercial and Liberty to seamlessly connect with the Union St. bike way (the railroad bridge).It is much easier to span the east side railroad in 1 or 2 due to the street grids already in place. Federal transportation $$ and Urban Renewal tax increment financing $$ are very possible funding sources (both ends of any of these options are in Urban Renewal Districts - so two URA sources of funding). In PDX light rail system every $1 of public expenditures has resulted in $19 of private expenditures (mostly due to the permanent nature of rails). A street car system would be "lighter" than a light rail system so lesser cost.
Maybe...it seems like there is a real chance this still would be an overengineered solution. It's premature to try for any definite opinion, but until we are willing to try decongestion pricing or tolling on the bridges, we will likely overestimate and oversupply capacity in an expensive capital project.
From here, anyway, it's not a no-brainer, and something to consider very closely.
Thanks for the comments and look forward to more detail, analysis, and discussion!
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