Bond Candidate List looks back to 20th Century Standards, not Forward to the 21st

The bond selection subcommittee met yesterday, and they are beginning round up a list for the total package.

Except it doesn't really have a shape.

It appears to be mainly a grab bag of old projects we haven't yet managed to fund. It might be better to have a real vision for it instead of merely a scattershot collection.

Local coverage today on the UN update:
Oregonian front page, SJ supplement deep interior

With the new UN Climate Report out, and our own Climate Action Plan a little stalled, and also with Our Salem still in progress, it might be prudent to hold off, and not send it to the ballot in November. For it looks still too strongly to 20th century standards, and not enough to our 21st century exigencies. Even when the projects were identified more recently, the designs and project scopes themselves respond to best practices of the previous century, not yet to a vision of the city we want and desperately need to have in 2050.

If this is going to be the big bond for the next 10 years, our big opportunity, shouldn't we be including more assertive climate action in it? Without a stronger sense of vision and values behind it, and instead relying on older lists of unfunded projects compiled under a different set of assumptions, the list feels more than a little ad hoc and a la carte. The process almost looks like a set of competitive applications for inclusion in the funding source. 

A better approach might be to ask what high-level outcomes we want and then to select projects that instantiate those.

Here are a few notes on a small number of transportation items. It's hard to grasp a pattern, and perhaps later there will be a better way to nutshell things. Or maybe you will see things more clearly.

Last month one very knowledgeable person offered a brief critique of the transportation project selection. They highlighted funding sources and proportionality.

Consider some different funding sources?

For the "urban upgrades" on McGilchrist, Fisher, and Pringle, they suggest SDC funding as an insufficiently considered resource. On rehabilitation projects, they highlighted the lack of explicit bike lane and crosswalk striping, as well as gas tax funding. They also point to ways that climate isn't really thought through as a scoring criteria or given a strategic value in selection. 

Here's climate in the latest proposed grouping (a subset of the full list, do note):

There's a token climate assessment in the scoring

Though the scoring rubric assigns a small value for "climate" it is more token than substantive. The first two projects (with which we we quibble in a moment) get the full two marks, and then there's band of zeros.

"Bike/ped" projects (also not the full list)

As I understand the current state of the list, only Tier 1 projects are proposed to be funded by a bond, so keep that in mind.

Projects labeled Bicycle/Pedestrian:

• Tier 1: Construct a pedestrian bridge crossing of Pringle Creek under the Commercial Street bridge,construct a new path along Pringle Creek from Commercial Street under the existing railroad bridge to the Riverfront Park. Includes creek overlooks and art wall.
• Tier 1: State St, 13th to 17th. Pavement rehabilitation and striping reconfiguration to one travel lane in each direction with a center turn lane and bike lanes. Includes a pedestrian crossing at 15th Street and streetscape features. Also includes a new traffic signal at the 17th Street intersection with NB and SB right turn lanes on 17th Street.
• Tier 2: State St, 17th to 24th. Pavement rehabilitation and widened sidewalks to accommodate bike traffic. This segment maintains the existing lane configuration. Includes a pedestrian crossing at 21st Street and between 18th and 19th Streets and streetscape features. [italics added]
• Tier 2: Market St, Summer to 32nd. Pavement rehabilitation that reprofiles the roadway reducing the existing crown and striping reconfiguration to one travel lane in each direction, a center turn lane, and bike lanes. Includes pedestrian island crossings at 15th, 19th, 25th, and Childs Street and curb ramp replacements to comply with ADA requirements.
• Tier 2: Construct a new 8' sidewalk and bike lane along the north side of Brush College Road helping connect Brush College Elementary School and Brush College Park. Includes street lighting and a retaining wall.
• Tier 2: Construct a new sidewalk along the north side of Orchard Heights Road with a new pedestrian access to Orchard Heights Park. Includes a new crosswalk and pedestrian island on Orchard Heights Road at Chapman Hill Drive and a new pedestrian bridge crossing Glenn Creek in the park.
• Tier 2: Winter St Greenway, Court to D. Pavement rehabilitation and striping reconfiguration to include bike lanes and parallel parking instead of angled parking. Includes curb extensions at the intersections.
• Tier 2: Construct a multi-use path along the east side of Cherry Avenue between Auto Group Way and the Salem Parkway, completing the northern segment of the Winter-Maple Bikeway and connecting to the existing multi-use path along the Salem Parkway. Includes two new pedestrian islands at the Salem Parkway intersection and traffic signal modifications for the bike crossings.
  

The very first project, a parks project really, rather than a transportation project, for the path along Pringle Creek between Mirror Pond and Riverfront Park, gets 2 points for climate. But it is a path for walking and recreating, not really something very useful for running errands or commuting on bike. It's hard to see how this will enable significant numbers of shift from car trips to bike trips.

The second project, for a short segment of State Street between 13th and 17th, also gets full marks for climate. But it is interesting to see that the State Street 4/3 safety conversion is not included. The candidate project at the moment "maintains the existing lane configuration" between 17th and 24th. It also mentions the sidewalkification of biking. This is a wasted opportunity, and a primary example of the way the project list is retrospective rather than forward-looking. The concept for State Street doesn't really deserve full marks for climate.

The "climate" scoring seems more symbolic than a substantive prediction about shifting meaningful numbers of car trips to bike trips. Rather than fundamentally shaping project selection, it is a late and small add-on to the scoring criteria. Since the projects also are small, and not corridor length, they may not yet make very much difference.

(Since the McGilchrist project, not included here in the image or bullets, is in fact conceived as a corridor between 12th and 25th, and since it has been improved now, it might be the best one among them on the transportation side. It has one of the highest total scores also. But consider the first comment, that it should be eligible for SDCs also, and would swallow up a large proportion of any proposed bond. Is this the best strategic use of bond funding?)

None of these "bike/ped" projects are visionary or transformative. Instead they represent improvements on the edges or filling in gaps on the existing network. There's no sense of a substantial change to our total transportation system to reduce driving.

Other street projects (partial list)

Other Street projects of interest:

• Tier 1: Madrona, Peck to Commercial. Pavement rehabilitation including curb ramp replacements to comply with ADA requirements.
• Tier 2: Madrona, Croisan to Balsam. Construct collector street standards, including new curb, sidewalk, bike lanes, stormwater treatment, and streetlights. Includes replacing the Croisan Creek crossing for fish passage and retaining walls to accommodate steep changes in grade.
• Tier 1: Marine Drive. Construct collector street standards to the special TSP cross section (2 travel lanes), including new curb, a sidewalk on the westerly side, 12' multi use path on the easterly side, stormwater treatment, and streetlights. Includes connector streets at Harritt Drive, Beckett Street, and 5th Avenue.
• Tier 3: (2 separate projects) Commercial Street at 12th Cut-off to Natural Grocers. Replacement of an old span-wire traffic signal and curb ramp replacements to comply with ADA requirements. Includes some missing sidewalk along both Commercial Street and 12th Street.

Madrona lacks bike lanes. With Vista and Fairview, there is a cluster of significant east-west streets that are not to current standards. While the Croisan to Balsam leg would add them, they would remain missing from Peck to Commercial. Madrona is a minor arterial, and keeping it without bike lanes also keeps it substandard. It also has constrained right of way, so there are practical reasons for this, but its pavement does not seem to be very bad. It might need ADA ramps, and there are no crosswalks between Peck and Commercial, which do not seem to be included here, but perhaps other streets need the pavement rehab more. The way the project is defined seems to express the lack of focus and strategy.

It is interesting to see Marine Drive finally.

The Commercial Street projects were proposed during the preapp phase at SKATS, but were withdrawn after not scoring very highly. At the moment, Tier 2 and Tier 3 projects are not included in the bond, so this current proposal wouldn't fund this pair, either.

Altogether the selection at the moment seems more random and piecemeal than strategic, and it seems likely things are being rushed in order to hit a November ballot date. Patience might be a better course. With more focus there would be a stronger story to tell in support of the bond, also.

The bond committee meets again on April 15. There will likely be more to say as things percolate and mature.