Senior Mobility Fair, Flood Plains, Missing Crosswalk Stop Sign, Critical Mass - Bits

Just some short bits for the week.

Tuesday: How to Ride a Bus: Mobility Fair for Seniors

Mobility Fair for Seniors

Thursday: Flood Plain Open House

In conversation about the overlay zones, a person suggested 12th street was better for mixed-use projects than Commercial Street. A trend in thinking about flooding is reducing development in flood plains, and there is one on and around 12th Street at Pringle Creek and Clark Creek. This is another reason we should encourage infill on higher elevation sites. Shunting infill to flood plains in order to insulate from change wealthier residents on the hills is not prudent.

Housing and density in flood plains? (excerpt)

The Open House on Thursday the 28th isn't necessarily going to touch on this directly, but as we think about trees and creeks, we have to start accepting more height and density where we do build in order to preserve trees and creeks. Building up means more trees and riparian zones.

Low-intensity development coupled with open space means things are kept far apart and just means more driving.

School and City give up on "In-street Pedestrian Sign"?

At Grant Elementary School last week, the in-street signs for the crosswalk on Market at Winter, and part of the Winter-Maple Neighborhood Greenway, were gone, and the crossing guard suggested "they" had finally got tired of drivers hitting it with their cars and weren't going to replace it. The hitting had started right after installation, and it never let up, even after relocating the sign a bit away from the crosswalk and replacing it multiple times.

They finally gave up on replacing the sign!
School crosswalk on Market at Winter

A couple years ago, Bike Boulevard advocates had said

Some may see the sustained damage to the signs as a problem – but we view it as a success. Drivers moving too quickly through the intersection received a bit of memorable feedback when they struck the signs with their cars. The effectiveness of a treatments isn’t lessened by the need for repair/upkeep. The city can replace the damaged signs twice a year for the next 150+ years before reaching the initial cost of installing of a pedestrian signal.

We disagreed and thought the lesson instead was: If drivers are hitting the sign so often, that means the crosswalk is not yet safe and needs further hardening. (Bollards!)

Apparently the City and School are drawing neither inference, and instead letting the sign go away. (And letting people get away with jaydriving!)

This would be a disappointing lack of commitment to the Winter-Maple Greenway and school crossing. (See previous notes on the greenway here.)

Friday: Critical Mass

On that note of diminished commitment, it is interesting to see an attempt at a revival of Critical Mass this Friday the 29th.

via reddit

Earlier in the life of this blog, Critical Mass had seemed like a kind of demonstration and disruption that was not suited to the actual politics of Salem. Kidical Mass always seemed like the more promising variation. But that project was not able to be sustained; and further, over the life of this blog "asking nicely" by many different advocates and groups has made little progress, and our climate crisis has only got worse.

Maybe Critical Mass is necessary and will be helpful, though the 7pm start time seems more like a recreational ride, an instance of bike fun, than a demonstration.

If Critical Mass is for you, check it out. (See more conversation about it specifically at reddit here and here.)