Cordon Road Update: at the MPO

The Policy Committee for our Metropolitan Planning Organization, SKATS, meets today, Tuesday the 26th.

Project site hasn't been updated lately

The main item of interest on the agenda is an update on the Cordon/Kuebler Corridor Study. Unfortunately, there's still no public review draft on the Cordon plan published, nor any materials in the meeting packet. So there's much to say yet.

The reason the City was advertising for a planner

Much less important, but interesting to note, was detail that the former City transportation planner with a focus on biking and walking projects had joined what might be the City's favorite consulting firm for transportation projects, one that would reliably deliver "mild" rather than "spicy."

Three recent City and one ODOT DKS plans

Over the years DKS has seemed to be consultant that would develop relatively more autoist and 20th century kinds of plans and designs. This was most starkly visible in the "Pedestrian Safety Study" of 2017 when they recommended reviving jaywalking laws and struck a note of false equivalence between driving behavior and walking behavior, wholly ignoring the asymmetry in lethality.

False equivalence and reconsider jaywalking laws
Pedestrian Safety Study, 2017

Even now on their current website, they feature a beg button in a video on "our culture." Sure there's a streetcar and bicycle in the background, but foregrounded is that button of autoist supremacy.

We love beg buttons?

Still, in flipping through social media postings, there was a tile for ribbon cutting on a "Union Street Protected Bikeway." It was too good to be true! Of course it was for a different city.

For a moment this was exhilarating!

Maybe with the prospects of a budget crunch, exiting the City made sense, but it has been difficult for the City to retain planners who focused on walking and biking, not to speak of planners with any real passion for them.

The revolving door is something to note.

In the agenda and minutes from last month there was also lots of talk about adding Aumsville as a voting member. This is very much an on-going topic with little certainty at the moment. The City of Salem, Cherriots, and the School District would like more urban representation — again, it's the Metropolitan Planning Organization — but the counties and small towns would prefer to retain their disproportionate representation. Very much a debate between House v. Senate models of representation.

Staff are giving increasing visibility to the fact that voting on only two matters actually requires unanimity under the current agreement.

Unanimity required in only two cases

Main options for adding Aumsville

Interestingly there is a TIP amendment that just went out, and it probably also requires unanimity.

The amendment is to add $3 million in unassigned Federal funding to the McGilchrist and 22nd Street intersection project.

You might recall adding money to a project on Verda Lane earlier this year.

Verda Lane overrun options (April)

Can't do $3.5 million, but $3 million works (June)

According to a spreadsheet from earlier this year, $3 million appears to be about the max they can shuffle.

Updated from September TAC (see comments)

But this also appears to empty the reserve fund for future cost overruns. An impact seems likely now to be a delay on the Commercial Street sidewalk between Vista and Ratcliff. Other crosswalk projects might be affected also.

This funding decision on McGilchrist is nearly certain to have cascading effects.

The Policy Committee is meeting today, Tuesday the 26th, at noon. The agenda and packet is here.