On Wednesday the 11th, the City and University of Oregon are kicking off the public phase of the Sustainable City residency program at Peace Plaza. (With the current weather, it seems very possible they will move indoors to the Anderson rooms.)
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| Kick-off and Open House flier |
One of the classes of particular interest here is a GIS course in the Geography department. Geography 482/582 will conduct "walkability and corridor assessments."
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| Walk Score for Salem |
There is already Walk Score, which could be refined. A full service grocery store nearby is more valuable than a convenience store, and the algorithm may not fully account for this. Equally, a big box store with ample sidewalk connectivity but bounded by zoomy stroads, is less walkable than a somewhat smaller store on less busy streets. There are qualitative nuances that probably could be added to the algorithm. Walkability isn't just about destinations and raw proximity, it is also about quality of connection.
In 2020 our MPO published a sidewalk inventory also. |
| The sidewalk inventory by SKATS |
So what's the special sauce the Sustainable Cities class will add? Don't we already pretty much know how walkable are Salem corridors?
It will be interesting to see what they develop and what is in the final report!
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| Excerpt on Willow Lake project |
Probably we will not follow the Sustainable Cities project as closely as we did in 2010-11, when we overestimated prospects the City would absorb and act on the projects and reports. The Willow Lake study on cogeneration, which still took about a decade to realize, may be the most consequential of them all, but many others are on paper only. (The City should really publish a sober assessment of which reports led to actual City policy or investment. Workshopping is probably the best short metaphor to frame reasonable expectations on delivery.)
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