Budget Committee on Bike Lanes and Photo Enforcement

The Budget Committee meets tonight, Wednesday the 3rd, and in the Addendum to the previous week's meeting on the CIP, are several notes on transportation.

Especially interesting was an explicit mention of what has not yet been done on the Winter-Maple Greenway.

To Do list on Winter-Maple Greenway

What's up with the Greenway

One item that continues to be odd is a disconnect at the intersection of the Union and Winter bikeways.

The "to do" list shows a roundabout still for Winter and Union. The most recent Union Street plans do not allude to any future roundabout. They also employ sidewalkification at the bus stop.

No roundabout; sidewalkification instead

It would be helpful to see evidence that the two plans are properly coordinated.

The Mill Creek Corporate Center also got some attention. The map of multi-use paths has been little seen, and may not have been published before. It was new here, anyway.

What about the Mill Creek Corporate Center?

Map with Multi-use Paths marked

Since there are no residences here, and the area remains very autoist and car-dependent, this may very well be a place where sidewalkification with multi-use paths is reasonable. We'll have to check them out some time this summer!

There were lots of other details on various projects. One that stood out was the current timeline for the buffered bike lanes on middle Commercial Street SE.

Buffered bike lanes almost ready for bids!

Moving from the Addendum to the last meeting to the current meeting's agenda, the 2021 report from Salem Police on photo enforcement was interesting. The data on speed enforcement was a little thin and provisional since there was only a couple years worth of data, heavily shaped by Pandemic distortions. But the red light enforcement at the original intersections, over more than a decade, offered a better comparison: Police saw a very significant reduction in crashes.

2007/2008 compared to 2019/2020

HB 2095, which will allow Salem to expand photo radar enforcement, passed both Houses, and awaits the Governor's signature. Hopefully this will happen!