Person Biking on High Street at base of Gaiety Hill Dies from Crash; Driver Finally Charged Five months Later

Tuesday a person operating a truck collided with Marganne Allen biking down High Street southbound at the intersection with Leslie Street. Allen later died from injuries sustained in the crash. After a protracted investigation and something of a coverup, on September 6th, Marion County charged the driver with "criminally negligent homicide."

via Twitter

From Salem PD yesterday:

At approximately 3:45 p.m. on Tuesday, March 28, Salem Police patrol officers responded to the scene of a traffic collision involving a bicyclist and the driver of a pick-up truck at the intersection of Leslie and High STS SE.

The preliminary investigation by the Salem Police Traffic Team revealed the bicyclist was riding southbound on High ST approaching Leslie ST when the driver of the truck traveling eastbound on Leslie ST entered the intersection and crossed the bicyclist’s path of travel, resulting in a collision.

The bicyclist, 53-year-old Marganne Allen, suffered critical injuries and was transported to Salem Health where she later died.

The driver of the pick-up truck, Samuel Landis, age 37, was not injured. He remained on the scene and is cooperating with the investigation.

The intersection remained closed for approximately four hours as the incident was investigated, and the scene cleared.

No citations have been issued or arrest made as the Traffic Team investigation into the collision continues. No further information is available for release.

High Street is not stopped at the intersection, but Leslie Street is stopped, and on the surface it looks like Landis failed to yield and could also have misjudged Allen's rate of speed on the downhill section. Allen may have been unable to stop in time for a truck operator improperly in the intersection and t-boned the truck.

Leslie Street eastbound at High Street

The initial police tweet focused on Oak Street and a "pedestrian," neither of which turned out to be the most accurate descriptions.

via Twitter

The subsequent police release corrected these. It also did not mess around with saying whether Allen was wearing a helmet, and used active verbs and human subjects/agents in talking about "the driver of the truck traveling eastbound."

At Salem Reporter

Even with a "crash not accident" bill at the Legislature, Salem Reporter used "accident."

Promoting the Safety Action Plan: At the MPO

On Tuesday the 28th the Policy Committee for our Metropolitan Planning Organization meets, and as they are rolling out the process for a Transportation Safety Action Plan, they might consider a regular agenda item for reading the roll of recent deaths in the violence of traffic crashes.

BikePortland has more on a Portland-area policy group doing this at the start of meetings, "Why reading names of crash victims matters."

Though Cherriots Board President Davidson is not a member of the SKATS Policy Committee, in a promo video for the safety survey it was salutary to see him at the corner where a driver killed COG/MPO coworker Denise Van Dyke, acknowledging that particular crash and death.

At a crash site, via Twitter

There are in fact at least three other video clips circulating, on a variety of media also, to promote the survey and project:

• Mayor Hoy (youtube)
  
• City Councilor Stapleton (FB)
  
• Cherriots Director Carney (twitter)
  

While the survey has seemed like it risked mainly rediscovering known knowns, it is very good to see local electeds and appointeds rallying around the project. Maybe that will build more political support for a change in approach to safety.

On the agenda here is the formal removal of the SRC from "the list of Critical Urban Freight Corridors." It is interesting how long it is taking to untangle that web.

To strike the SRC from Urban Freight Corridors

They're also looking to release for public comment the full draft of the long-range Metropolitan Transportation Plan. It is possible that the safety plan and survey could prompt a greater focus on safety in the MTP, but climate and emissions are still struggling for adequate weight in the MTP.

However, it is the short-term plan, with a four- and six-year horizon, where the MPO makes and ratifies the main funding decisions and priorities, and so here, anyway, the long-range plan has not seemed so important.

Meeting info (yellow in original)

The Policy Committee meets Tuesday the 28th at noon. The agenda and meeting packet can be downloaded here.

City Council, March 27th - Mini-Street Sweeper for Bike Lanes

You may remember a discussion a little over a year ago of the Union Street bikeway:

[Citizens] asked for separation and protection greater than mere paint. The eastern side of the project shows a buffered bike lane marked by paint only.

City staff said that problems with sweeping the narrow space of a curb-protected bike lane were an important reason it is not being used and reason that the design relied on paint only. Councilor Stapleton suggested we will face this problem more and more, and that the City should figure out how to sweep narrow spaces rather than design more paint-only bike lanes.

At Council on Monday, City Staff propose something of a solution.

The City has an opportunity to pursue grant funds from the Portland General Electric (PGE) Drive Change Fund grant program (PGE Drive Change Fund 2023 Guidelines Attachment 1) to purchase an electric battery-powered mini-street sweeper.  The narrow width and short wheelbase of the sweeper would make it ideal for sweeping buffered bicycle lanes, downtown alleys, parks pathways, plazas, parking lots, and public spaces.

It would probably look a little like this!

This fits six-foot lanes! - via Twitter

It would involve a City match of $25,000 and a PGE grant of $225,000. The City would have to use it for 10 years, so maybe it's more like PGE subsidizing a lease than an outright purchase.

It is important to find out how wide would be the sweeper and if it could be used on future curb protected bike lanes, not merely on existing buffered bike lanes.

Still, this looks like a real advance on bike lane maintenance.

Bullets for the rest:

• An application for a State Parks and Recreation grant to fund construction on projects at Geer Park, including more bike parking.
  
• Approvals for a pot manufacturing facility and change of use in the old German Motors site on 12th Street. (Haven't we reached saturation on these yet? It sure seems like there would be higher uses for lots along 12th.)
• Second Reading and final enactment for designating the charmless concrete bunker as a local historic resource.
• Approvals for 90 apartments in three-story walkups set on a large parking lot off of Portland Road. Eliminating mandated parking minimums wouldn't eliminate parking in a development like this, but it will be interesting to see how it modifies the amount of parking and moves to decouple it from rent so that people who don't need to pay for spots don't have to.
  

Urban Skyline on Commercial St Looks Great! Nursing Home site for Sale

With the nice weather and the New Holman Hotel soon to open, last night was a good early evening for a walk to check on it.

I was also checking in on the two-wayification of Court Street, but that's not quite done yet.

Turning the corner from Court to Commercial southbound, the skyline formed by Pioneer Trust, the Nishioka Building, and the New Holman Hotel was really delightful. A proper urban procession, and so very cheering.

New Holman Hotel, Nishioka Building, Pioneer Trust
Looking south-ish on Commercial Street near State

New Holman Hotel, Nishioka Building, Pioneer Trust
Looking north-ish on Commercial Street at Ferry

In context the hotel looks great! This is the midrise downtown Salem needs.

(Hopefully some time a real architectural photographer will get not just the hotel but the whole group in good light and with perspective control.)

Front page today

And it turns out the hotel was already open! It was nice to see it on the front page. When the restaurant opens later this spring, it will be great to see the new sidewalk life.

• Previous notes here on the first Holman building, the Marion Car Park, and now the New Holman Hotel.

Just a couple blocks down it looks like the Nursing Home concept has been abandoned and the lot for sale. (See previously at the Planning Commission in April 2021.)

Nursing home lot at former Boise site for sale

This is old news, it turns out. Listings say it's been publicly for sale nearly 2/3 of a year already, and it's listed for $3.5 million.

The Nursing Home concept always seemed like a suboptimal use for the corner, and maybe now something with more public-facing elements, something to leverage the creek and proximity to Riverfront Park, something that might also enliven and complement the emptiness of the sculpture court, will be able to happen.

W. E. B. Du Bois Lectured at Willamette University 100 Years Ago

Amid the rising popularity of the Second Klan, and in support of an early book concept, W. E. B. Du Bois lectured at Willamette University 100 years ago on March 20th, 1923.

WU Collegian
March 14th, 1923

The announcement hit the morning and afternoon city papers also. The morning paper simply churned the notice in the Collegian. The notice in the afternoon paper gave a different title to the lecture and seemed to be somewhat independently composed.

Afternoon paper
March 19th, 1923

Morning paper
March 20th, 1923

"The Black Man in the Wounded World," the title from the Collegian and the morning paper, is very likely the correct title. In a recent article, "In the Shadow of World War: Revisiting W. E. B. Du Bois's Black Reconstruction," Chad Williams writes:

Du Bois, in fact, envisioned Black Reconstruction as the first of two consecutive books exploring the history and meaning of democracy for Black people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The second book was a study of the participation of African Americans and other people of African descent in World War I, titled The Black Man and the Wounded World....Du Bois initially titled the book “The Black Man in the Revolution of 1914-1918.” He offered a detailed, albeit preliminary, survey in the June 1919 issue of The Crisis. The first indication of his revised name for the book appeared in early 1923, when he delivered a series of lectures on the Black experience in the World War under the title “The Black Man in the Wounded World.”

The book never got finished. (You can see an outline from 1936 here. I am sorry I did not find the lecture notice in time for the showing of the Buffalo Soldiers film last month!)

The afternoon paper's review the next day seems somewhat more engaged and less skeptical than the morning paper two days later, though they repeat phrases as if they were working off a common text.

Early Stage Plan for Climate Friendly Areas Seems Awry

As the City looks to implement new Climate Friendly Areas, as required by new land use and transportation regulations, they seem to be heading down a path that may meet the letter of the law and violate the spirit of the law. Things look awry.

CFAs/WaMUAs can hold 30% of needed housing
(February online meeting slides)

Terms and the Goal

Maybe to avoid politics of the word "climate," the City is attempting to rebrand them as "Walkable Mixed-use Areas." Since "walkable mixed-use area" is a generic description of the kind of "traditional development pattern" Strong Towns and many others extol, the pattern we see in nearly any older city worldwide, restricting the phrase to a technical term of compliance with new State regulations will make the concept less useful in other discussion. It's really limiting. Suddenly a place that is (or is proposed to be) mixed-use and walkable, but which is not formally recognized as a WaMUA, either is discounted or needs a new name. The City should strongly consider leaning into the word "climate" and restoring the statewide name. Even if CFA seems awkward, it is unusual enough that it is not a phrase we might want to use in ordinary conversation, and can reserve it for this matter of technical compliance. Then we are free to use walkable mixed-use areas as a generic description and value.

In any case, the new rules call for cities to "demonstrate that CFA/MaMUAs can accommodate at least 30% of needed housing."* (From the slide at top.)

In new memos they recently published the City has started the process to demonstrate complicance.

• Technical Memo #1, Housing Need
• Technical Memo #2, Draft Candidate Climate Friendly Areas (Walkable, Mixed-use Areas)
• Technical Memo #5, Dwelling Unit Capacity

Arguing with a Max Use Scenario

The City appears to be focusing on downtown and close-in West Salem. Last month's slide showed the "focus on mixed-use areas" for approximately 26,000 residences.

26,000 residences in mixed-use areas
(February online meeting slides)

Back in 2012 the City published a Master Plan for the Minto bridge and path. They argued for "up to 21,700 non-automobile commuters" using the path system. Even though the "up to" formula rendered it technically true, the statement was nuts. As a truthful statement it met the letter, but not at all the spirit.

Not at all a plausible forecast from 2012

With the CFA/WaMUA analysis, the City and our Council of Governments/MPO is engaging in a similarly inflated claim and argument. The City is literally proposing to say it is reasonable and plausible to add nearly 20,000 residences downtown, and nearly 10,000 residences in close-in West Salem by 2035. That is 12 years away. 

Max capacity for downtown and West Salem?
(This is a composite from the technical memos)

It's all an "up to" formula that meets the letter, but again violates the spirit. This is not a very helpful estimate or forecast. Its aim is to ensure Salem doesn't have to do anything more on climate.

New ODOT Climate Dashboard is Unconvincing

At the OTC meeting last week ODOT proclaimed great new progress on emissions.

Did we really do that much in four years?

To support this they've rolled out a new "dashboard." It is propaganda more than sober analysis, a bit of a slick farrago. (Old dashboard here.)

New dashboard home page

In general terms, the structure of the dashboard is hard to parse. Everything is hidden. A paper report has a table of contents, pagination, an executive summary, and appendices. You can grasp the whole shape.

Here with a website only, those elements and any structure are concealed. Who knows how deep you might have to click to find something. The structure is designed to look informative, but in in fact it obfuscates. If the progress were truly so great, the structure would be more transparent and easier to parse.

Meagre comparison section

More specifically, it lacks any detailed discussion of what changed between the 2018 forecast and 2022 forecast. It waves away all the changes as a product of the new Executive Order, but does not drill into detail. Those three paragraphs just above are it!

It is also incoherent.

Focusing on "Schedule," Cherry Blossom Story Could use more Context on Climate

It's always fun to read about the cherry blossoms on the Capitol Mall. This year's story calls them "behind schedule."

Front page today

After noting the blossoms were running late in our cold winter, the story focused on the history of planting and the current maintenance and rejuvenation plan for the trees, which are planted over a parking garage in soil that is not very deep.

March 7th, 2015

You may recall the best ever story on the trees from 2015. It was a glorious nod to citizen science, conducted by then 88 year old Wilbur Bluhm.

Each week Bluhm takes a stroll through Bush Park, the Willamette University campus, Chemeketa Community College campus, Deepwood Estates and a couple of other parks to collect plant, flower and tree data.

The retired horticulturist of 30 years records a variety of information including when trees are leafing, flowering, done flowering, bearing fruit, showing fall colors, and when they lose their leave among other things.

Bluhm has been collecting this the data each week for the past 56 years and says that this spring season is the third earliest date that the cherry blossoms have been blooming outside of the capitol.

"On average, the cherry blossoms bloom around March 15," Bluhm said. "But this year they started on March 1."

Each year, the story should reference this data! Our cherry blossom dates are a climate story, in addition to everything else. That dimension is not much addressed in this year's story. Mainly the inconvenience of not being "on schedule," particularly with the festival scheduled for this weekend. 

Indeed, with changing climate what even is "the schedule" these days? It is likely that climate change will bring earlier blossoming as well as increased year-over-year variability, as we also get colder, wetter winters sprinkled in among the warmer ones. "The schedule" is rather fictive, not some stable thing.

The annual blossoming date of the cherry trees is an excellent capsule of a climate story, and that should be in the frame always.

Addendum, March 20th

Here's the Washington Post centering climate: "early warning," "signaled a warming climate."

Front page, Washington Post, March 20th

To Restore the Street Grid with Smaller Blocks: ULI Report on West Salem

You may recall that the City engaged the Urban Land Institute for a technical assistance panel report on jump-starting redevelopment of the Industrial parcels between Patterson Street and Wallace Road in West Salem. With the Pandemic (and perhaps other stuff), it got delayed, but they've finally published the report.

cover of report

It came out in December, and then early this year parts of it were presented to the West Salem Neighborhood Association, but the City's never talked about it to any more general public or made it available on the City website.

No results found on City website

The quiet has seemed a little odd.

In any event, one of the big ideas is to break up the existing industrial superblocks with new street segments. They even talk a little about Portland's smaller 200 foot block faces.

Big idea: Break up the superblocks

They talk about:

• Extending Taggart south to Edgewater
  
• Extending Basset west to Patterson and east along the park margin to Glen Creek Road
  
• Extending Bartell Drive south across the path to connect with Musgrave

Adam Stephens House of 1876 Likely Demolished for I-5 Route in 1954

Adam Stephens house of 1876
(History of Hayesville Church)

Hopefully you saw in the Sunday paper the history column on "Sgt. Major John W. Jackson [and] his indomitable wife Caroline Woodson Jackson," who moved to Salem in the 1880s, initially had a farm in Hayesville, and are buried in the Hayesville Cemetery. It was full of interesting details.

On a Black Civil War veteran in Sunday paper

The Hayesville location and link to Adam Stephens spurred circling back with some new ideas on finding historic places impacted by I-5. You will recall the initial concept for a Salem bypass, which then was absorbed and built up as the alignment of I-5.

January 7th, 1952

The bypass intersected the old highway, still 99E/Portland Road, at the Hayesville Cemetery.

City Council, March 13th - Second St NW and the Charmless Concrete Bunker

On Monday Council looks to confirm the cancellation of part of the railroad easement along the former Salem, Falls City & Western line, now Second Street NW, west of Wallace Road.

Salem, Falls City & Western Line, 1915 USGS map

There were alternate universes in which this might have been a path and trail extension from the Union Street Bridge, but a street with limited bikeway provisions will have to do. 

The scope of the easement cancellation is a little ambiguous. The legal agreement itself suggests termination at Patterson. The "project location map" with the Staff Report is for the whole Second Street project and might seem to suggest termination at Gerth. But as I read it, the actual easement in question here is between Patterson and Wallace.

Patterson to Wallace
Formerly private, this section is becoming a road

A decade ago and more, connectivity on this segment of Second Street seemed a very distant prospect. Of course it still lacks a crossing, at-grade or grade-separated, on Wallace Road, and the City still seems to have designs for connecting Second Street with Marine Drive, very much compromising the path connectivity to the Union Street Bridge. But it's a partial connection even with those qualifications.

It will be very interesting to see ultimately how it all turns out.

Other Items

There are several First Readings on the agenda, but as First Readings they are still more preliminary than substantive.

Far bigger than the easement, but nothing on which there is anything new to say, is First Reading of the proposal to eliminate parking requirements citywide. Council will hold a Public Hearing later. The debate on it is sure to get shouty, but it will be a great improvement once enacted. 

Overlay zones on or near south Commercial
(City of Salem zoning map)

There's also a First Reading for deletion of the various overlay zones immediately along the Commercial Street corridor from the Cemetery to Mission Street. (Also the "initiation" agenda item which essentially duplicates the Staff Report.)

Cooke's goes back to 1870s, not just 1930s

Oof! In unsurprising but still painful news, it looks like Cooke Stationery is closing. 21st century retailing and digital modes finally caught up with the distinctly analog and old-school stationery store.

Though the headline focuses on 88 years, the lineage of Cooke's is even older than that.

July 1st, 1936

It was a surprise to learn that Cooke's is a direct successor to the Patton book and stationery store. Perhaps that has been minimized or even erased in family and business lore. But measured that way, its roots go back to the 1870s, not merely to 1936 (or 1935 as the current news and family lore reports).

The Boon/Patton store in 1880s
(Salem Library Historic Photos)

The Patton Block of 1869 was right next to Ladd & Bush bank on State Street. You can see the older section of the bank on the right, a portion of the Patton Block on the left, and after cutting away part of the Patton block a Belluschi addition to Ladd & Bush, now lost, in between. Eventually it was all demolished for the rebuilt Ladd & Bush. (The cast iron facade is historic, but the building structure underneath is more modern, see here and here.)

Patton Block, Belluschi addition, Ladd & Bush, 1959
(University of Oregon)

There seemed to be two stationery stores in the building in the 1870s. One was associated with H. D. Boon, son of John Boon, whose building is now our great pub, and one with Walter Jackson. (This is a little obscure, but not necessary to untangle just now.)

Transportation Safety Action Plan Launches with Survey: At the MPO

The MPO is cranking up a new Transportation Safety Action Plan. Though it looks like it is open already with a soft launch, formally they will hold an online Open House and survey starting March 13th.

A crash at Ferry and High

Summarizing data from 2015-2019 they write:

There is an average of 3,700 crashes per year within the Salem-Keizer area. Each year, these crashes resulted in 3,000 injuries, 100 serious injuries, and 18 fatalities. On average, 150 of these crashes involve a bicyclist or pedestrian, resulting in 6 fatalities and 12 serious injuries each year.

And introduce the focus areas:

• Safety while walking/rolling (i.e., using a wheelchair or other mobility device)
• Safety while riding a bike
• Safety while driving a motorcycle or other motor vehicles
• Safety at intersections
• People who are distracted while travelling
• People who are under the influence of alcohol or other drugs while travelling
• Speeding
• Safety of aging adults

It is annoying that the "distracted" focus area is framed with false egalitarianism to embrace the canard of distracted walking, and that there is not enough focus on speed generally, including the frequent lethality of lawful posted speeds.

There is also research on the effectiveness of various strategies, and it does not seem very useful to ask non-experts for an opinion on effectiveness. People will call for education, even when education campaigns have shown to be of limited utility.

Mayor Giesy attends Klan Dinner in 1923

100 years ago the afternoon paper published news that Salem's Mayor attended a Klan dinner honoring Fred Gifford.

March 6th, 1923

Clear links between Salemites and the second Klan have been scarce, and this was very interesting to see. In Salem Klan activity had been furtive, masked, and not much discussed the newspapers.

A day earlier, the first coverage of the dinner in the afternoon paper, and featured on the front page, had focused on Governor Pierce's attendance. Pierce had practiced a kind of "plausible deniability" in his relation to the Klan, and this was an undeniable sign.

March 5th, 1923

The afternoon paper also published an editorial in the same edition.

Draft Oregon Transportation Plan Shows new Themes, Still Biased for Driving: At the OTC

This month's meeting on Thursday the 9th of the Oregon Transportation Commission is jam-packed with interesting things on climate and non-auto mobility. There is too much, in fact, for a single preview. I'm sure others will have interesting things to say.

Climate and non-auto mobility

We'll start here with a high-level document, the draft of new Oregon Transportation Plan.

Early in it, in a discussion of "key drivers of change," the way the authors handle two "conflicting trends" does encapsulate a bias that still infects the whole.

Encourage reduction vs. driving demand

They write

climate change implications are encouraging a reduction in single occupancy vehicle use. On the other hand, emerging technologies...are driving demand for single occupancy vehicles.

"Encouraging a reduction" strikes a very optional, aspirational, discretionary tone: We'll try, but maybe not very hard. It's the soft science of social psychology. "Driving demand" strikes a different tone of realism and accommodation. It's the hard science of economics and the market. 

In this pair and framed in this way, the second is clearly the one to honor.

Throughout the new draft plan, there is not enough on actual policy to reduce driving and VMT. It's still stuck in the theoretical and discretionary realm of "transportation options" and not enough attention given to policies that actually reduce driving, that induce people actually to make the choice not to drive.

Questions for Traffic Modeling: Climate Action Plan Committee meets Monday

The Climate Action Plan subcommittee meets on Monday the 6th for their bi-monthly session. The change in transportation analysis remains interesting.

March agenda

In yesterday's paper

Transportation Modeling

In the packet is final report on the new emissions inventory on 2021 data, and as we noted in January on the video presentation, it has some important analytical changes. One of them is on transportation.

Revised pie chart on transportation
(yellow highlighting added)

About the change, which purports to use empirical data rather than computer modeling, they say:

The 2021 data used in this report were based on...Google's proprietary location history data....The source for local VMT data in 2016 was the Salem-Keizer Metropolitan Area Travel Demand Model. This model provides a computer-generated estimation of vehicle trips and does not use on-the-ground measured data.

From Corpses to Cars: Mid-Century Redevelopment at the former Withnell Dodge Site

The mid-century history of the just-shuttered Withnell Dodge dealership site is quite interesting. On the edge of the city at that time, it cycled through several types of business before settling on the car dealership for a half century. It may be only coincidental, but that history has an amusing echo of the Ike Box and Starbucks on Ferry and Church, both of them also on the sites of former mortuaries. It also is another instance of a mid-century move of a car dealership from downtown farther out.

The redevelopment started with Ladd Funeral Home in 1940. In 1938 Thomas W. Ladd had proposed to open one on Cottage and Marion, but the school board opposed it so near to Garfield School. He was able to secure a different site, apparently just far enough from McKinley that proximity to a school was no longer a problem.

April 14th, 1940

The mortuary lasted only a few years at that site, and immediately after the war the building became a nightclub, the Normandy Manor. 

December 23rd, 1945

That didn't last long either.

Remedy on Mildred Lane Misses Real Cause of Problem

The City posted a note yesterday about a new stop sign with flashing lights around its rim on Mildred Lane at south Liberty Road.

A new flashing stop sign on Mildred Lane at Liberty
via FB

The intersection has had its problems. About the new sign the City says:

New stop signs are in place at Liberty Rd S and Mildred Ln S. The new 30-inch edge-lit solar-powered stop signs will flash 8 bright LED lights continuously to warn drivers on Mildred Ln to stop and look both ways for oncoming traffic on Liberty Rd S.

The LED flashing system is designed to draw attention to the intersection and reduce running through the intersection.

Remember to drive carefully and obey all traffic signals, especially during times of extreme weather and low visibility.

August 2022

Speed is the real problem, however. Though a recent lawsuit about a death at this site focused on signage and messaging, a more fundamental problem is the road design itself.