Apparently because the City has featured repeatedly one cross-section with a multi-use path (misleadingly labeled a "cycle track"), people are under the impression that a multi-use path is continuous.
Published "60%" plans do not support this understanding. On parts of McGilchrist they show a 5-foot sidewalk, a 6-foot planting strip, and a 6-foot paint-only bike lane.
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| Paint-only vintage style bike lanes near 22nd (click to enlarge, yellow and red added) |
These cross-sections are not consistent with the one in color the City features and seems to want us to believe is typical.
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| The featured image from March 2023 Bond meeting (comments in red added) |
As part of PR for the McGilchrist project, the City wants us to believe they are installing something new, a "cycle track." But the facility they show is neither a true cycle track nor continuous. It verges on a kind of bait-and-switch. For $50 million, and on a truck route currently signed for 40mph, Salemites deserve better.
4 comments:
From what I learned, those 60% plans you've posted are an older set of plans, not the latest. Off-street bike facilities are planned for full length of the project. I strongly suggest that you contact Salem Public Works to get an update of the more recent design plans for the corridor, so the most relevant information is shared.
Re: 60% plans. We should be able to trust information the City publishes!
https://www.cityofsalem.net/government/departments-agencies/urban-renewal-agency/urban-renewal-areas/mcgilchrist-urban-renewal-area/mcgilchrist-complete-street-project
The City has a simple remedy. Publish the latest plans to the project page. (The 60% plans are under the "design documentation" tab.)
Public debate is only as good as the City furnishes the proper information. If the City feels they are unfairly criticized for something that is no longer true, they have only themselves to blame. But the City has not always been trustworthy, and they should make the plans public, not convey "assurances" by back channel communications.
The 60% plans are from 2017; things change, it has been 5 years. And the first page of the 60% plan says
something like “not to be used for construction”
Also, this page says the project will have cycle tracks.
https://www.cityofsalem.net/community/neighborhoods/construction-in-your-neighborhood/mcgilchrist-complete-street-project
The City has consistently mislabeled a multi-use path and tried to sell us that it is a cycle track. The City's most recent drawings do not show a continuous multi-use path even.
60% drawings of course are not complete, and the City could alter them. However, until the City actually publishes updated drawings your claims must count as unverifiable speculation.
As we constantly saw with the SRC, just because the City says something, the mere assertion does not mean that it is true or likely true.
(Again, if you want to engage more, please use a pseudonym.)
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