City Councilor, Cherriots Board President, Parks vice-Chair Float Protected Bike Lane Proposal

If you don't like high gas prices, you should support bikes!

For kids and for ordinary people

In a press release accompanying a proposal for a network of protected bike lanes, Councilor Virginia Stapleton, Cherriots' Board President Ian Davidson, and Parks vice-Chair Dylan McDowell underscore a message the City should lean into:

A comprehensive bike system would offer a safe, affordable, and carbon-free mode of transportation that is unaffected by fluctuating gas prices.

Climate, equity, and safety have not always registered widely, but high gas prices do. And right now is a moment.

The most resilient, patriotic way to manage high gas prices, is to get off the fossil fuel. The City should make it easier to convert some or all of your trips away from the car.

"That's the way, Patriot. Let the OPECs keep their gasoline. We'll just tap into a far more efficient energy source. Manpower."

This was a manly holiday beer ad, a little limited in that regard, perhaps best read now as a kind of counter to "rolling coal." But it's the kind of message to lean into. Dependence on oil is not powerful or independent. It was true over a decade ago when the ad came out, and it is true still now. For we have another petrostate autocrat to fend off.

via Twitter

Timing for a bike lane proposal, then, is right with rising gas prices just now and with the opportunity, which they highlight, to do more with the $300 million bond proposal in process. Our current system of 1970s and 80s style paint-only bikes lanes on busy streets is not enough.

A framework of
protected bike lanes on main streets

The proposal right now is very conceptual, more or less lines on a map for streets to get protected bike lanes with a real layer of separation from zooming cars.

They have made some interesting choices. Marine Drive in West Salem is not yet a thing, Boone Road in South Salem is used instead of Kuebler, and Broadway instead of the Liberty/Commercial couplet in North Salem. Other choices are obvious busy, main streets.

It is not important at the moment to quibble with any particular street selection or other detail.

What is important is the idea of committing with actual budget (not merely writing a plan that sits idle for years or decades) to a broad, citywide network of protected bike lanes on streets where people actually want to go, streets with important destinations on them, and streets offering direct connections.

via Twitter

Some argue that all we need is a greenway system of low-traffic alternatives. Low-traffic alternatives usually don't connect to destinations, though, and they are often indirect, even roundabout. A network of protected bike lanes on busy streets works together with a network of low-traffic alternatives. They go hand-in-hand.

Back in 1942 Salemites showed great support for conservation and the scrap drive during World War II. Scrappo at the Courthouse was iconic for half a year. We pulled together then, and we can pull together again.

July 31st, 1942

September 26th, 1942

The proposal by Councilor Stapleton, Board President Davidson, and vice-Chair McDowell is worth great interest. You can show support and sign up for updates here.