City Includes Protected Bike Lane on Latest McGilchrist Proposal: At the MPO

Next week on Tuesday the 8th, the technical committee for our MPO meets, and there are two pleasant things to note, one small and one middle-sized.

The middle-sized thing is a project design that has been meaningfully improved. Interestingly, the City's not said anything about it.

In the project briefs accompanying the applications for the 2024-2029 funding cycle at the MPO, the City has a new cross-section for the McGilchrist project. It shows on both sides a five-foot, six-inch planter strip with a 10-foot path, half for biking, half for walking.

Separation proposed for bike lane and sidewalk!
(The design is symmetrical, but truncated here)

That is a real improvement, though it will be important also to see how turning movements across driveways and intersecting roads are handled.

Here's the earlier concept.

2017 concept with legacy bike lanes next to trucks

The bike lanes in it are right next to the big trucks and zooming cars.

But do the auto travel lanes really need to be 13 feet wide? Even on a designated freight route that seems wide and a design choice that will induce speeding on a street that at present is already posted for 40mph. Speed likely needs more thought.

Still, the bike lane shift is a genuine improvement in the plan, and something to cheer. (Previous notes on the McGilchrist corridor here.)

Safer walking and biking! (2019)

The small thing arises from new Federal guidance, and there's a new project criteria explicitly about greenhouse gas emissions for the new 2023 MTP that is just starting. The criterion is not yet fixed in a weighting scheme, and could be weighted more, though it seems unlikely to make any great change in project ranking. But it is something.

New GHG criteria and Goal 7 (yellow in original)

Separately, not for the MTP but for the 2024-2029 funding cycle, as a result of the pre-application scoring and other factors for various jurisdictions, several potential project applications have dropped out. 

The final application list has 17 projects.

Completion Funding:

• Connecticut Ave: Macleay Rd to Rickey St Marion County $ 251,244 
• State St (near Lancaster) to 46th Ave Marion County $ 753,732
• Delaney Rd: Battle Creek Bridge Marion County $ 944,857
• Commercial Street SE: Vista to Ratcliff Salem $ 1,615,140
  

New Projects:

• Wheatland Road Multi-Modal Improvement Project Keizer $ 5,320,759
• Delaney Road Street Improvements Turner $ 667,980
• Motor Pool Vehicle Replacement Cherriots $ 367,893
• Paratransit Vehicle Replacement Cherriots $ 323,028
• East Salem Transit Center Cherriots $ 4,836,447
• South Salem Transit Center Land and Construction Cherriots $ 6,729,750
• Lancaster Drive: Monroe Avenue to State Street Improvements Marion County $ 4,988,091
• State Street: 46th Avenue to Cordon Road Marion County $ 5,860,266
• River Road NE and Brooklake NE Intersection Feasibility Study Marion County $ 336,488
• River Rd S: Overheight Truck Detection and Turn-Arounds Marion County $ 1,993,801
• Center St. NE North Side Improvements (45th Pl. NE to Cordon Rd NE) Salem $ 3,522,924
• McGilchrist Street SE: Phase 2 Ford to 25th Salem $ 6,117,230
• McGilchrist Street SE: Phase 3 16th to 19th Salem $ 5,613,835

Total Requested: $ 50,243,465 

And projects not advancing with full applications (pre-app ranking in parentheses):

• (4) Pedestrian Crossings
• (14) Winter St NE: Winter-Maple Greenway Improvements
• (15) Broadway Street NE: Hood to Pine
• (16) State St.: 14th St NE to 17th St NE
• (16) Cherry Avenue NE - Bicycle Facility and Intersection Improvements
• (21) Orchard Heights Rd. NW Pedestrian Improvements
• (22) Kennedy School Area Pathway and Sidewalk Improvements
• (23) 25th Street SE Multi-Use Path
• (24) Cordon Road: State Street to Center Street Widening
• (27) Commercial Street SE: Promontory to Sunnyside
• (27) Pringle Creek Multi-use Path, Phase II
• (29) Cordon Road and Hazelgreen Road Intersection Improvements
• (31) Salem Industrial Drive Extension

That's a lot of non-auto transportation left out, especially on projects that ranked in the middle. And then there's the pedestrian crossings, which ranked high. That choice will be interesting to learn more about.

Like on the State Street and Center Street applications, even when the projects include full sidewalks and bike lanes, there's still a bias for auto capacity. It will be nice when we get to the point where we can think of reducing auto capacity and actually reducing driving.

Meeting info

The Technical Advisory Committee zooms on Tuesday the 8th at 1:30pm. The agenda and meeting packet can be downloaded here.