WSRAB Hears about Crossing Wallace Road at Second Street and Path to Union St Bridge

The West Salem Redevelopment Advisory Board meets tomorrow morning, Wednesday the 7th, and in the packet is a letter on what looks like something we totally missed here.

Has there been a temporary crossing here?!?! (2018)

If I am reading this right, there has been a temporary crosswalk inline with the railroad path to the Union Street bridge and Second Street!

I am wanting to advocate for what I see as the top transportation priority in the urban renewal area, the 2nd st bike/pedestrian connection across Wallace. Part of what has prompted me to finally reach back out is that it looks like ODOT is getting close to removing the temporary crossing at 2nd st. This temporary crossing has been such a pleasure to have and be able to use. I wrote to the planning department when it was first put in and asked if there was any way to make sure data was collected about utilization and incidents, but never got a response from them.

What I would like to advocate for is a permanent street level crossing be put in place there.... [italics added]

Because this has been such a dissatisfying dead end, I never go there. ODOT did not publicize any temporary crossing, I do not think. So I just missed it, and did not notice anything when I was checking out Wallace and Edgewater earlier this summer. It would have been terrific to report in more detail on a crossing. You may recall that ODOT has been very opposed to any crossing here.

ODOT letter September 2015

The letter writer goes on to underline problems with the current "connectivity" by the path under the ramp spaghetti.

Less garbage and fewer campers back in 2012

They write noting some of the very real problems with that configuration:

I would also like to share how inadequate and unexceptable the current pedestrian/bike route is that goes under the bridge. My wife and I take our daughter downtown in the stoller probably every other weekend. And before the beacon crossing we took the route under the bridge. This was not pleasurable as once winter set in and other campsites where removed people began camping under the bridge. At times it was so full of stuff that we had to move stuff to get our stroller though. They also had a fire going on the concrete path. Most concerning was two incidents where a very large dog lunged at our baby stroller.

Even if we solved our housing problem, that route is still lousy, too meandering and non-intuitive, and lacks visibility for safety more generally. We need some kind of connection directly in line with the Union St path and Second Street.

The City was talking about an undercrossing there, but that project was tied up in the SRC and Marine Drive, it was very expensive, and it seems at the moment to be on hiatus or just plain dead. (This post is not the latest as it is from 2016, but I think it might be the best summary.)

I will try to get there in the next few days to see if the at-grade crossing is still up and if there is any more detail to see. 

Do you have any direct, first-hand knowledge of this?!

This post may be updated.