Friday, December 29, 2023

The Year we got Real about Parking: 2023 in Review

Three themes stood out here on the blog for 2023: Parking reform; new projects downtown; and the City's coverup for a cop who killed Marganne Allen as she was biking on High Street.

WSJ earlier this year and
Capitol Shopping Center
now Red Lot

Parking Reform

Though it was driven by State climate requirements, Salem was hardly alone in the move for compliance, and Salem had already been chipping away at parking requirements, it was nevertheless terrific to see the City completely eliminate minimum required parking on new development and changes in use. We might look back on 2023 as the tipping point for real change in the way we approach temporary car storage. As part of the State regulations the City also adopted rules for climate mitigation on new large parking lots. On its own, the City formally initiated a project for right-priced curbside parking on downtown streets. Actually installing meters is a few years out yet, but it's good to see it initiated for real.

New Holman Hotel, Nishioka Building, Pioneer Trust
Looking north on Commercial Street at Ferry

Downtown Building

Though it was completed a couple years ago, the Nishioka building may be the pivot project for this decade in the way the McGilchrist & Roth project was in the last decade. The Nishioka building was proof-of-concept for small apartment homes with minimal parking. The project on the former Nordstrom block followed, and this year there were more announcements. None are certain, and some may be cancelled, but a kind of dam seems to have burst and we will see more of them. In nearly all cases eliminating minimum required parking allowed for projects to pencil out and move forward.

A little farther away from downtown two large projects were announced and one completed:

Hopefully this momentum downtown and close-in can be not just maintained, but accelerated. The City's plan for Climate-Friendly Areas (more on this below) requires it, and any general interest in downtown vitality calls for a shift from seeing it as a drive-to destination like a mall and instead understanding it as a real neighborhood and place.

Early reporting, via Twitter

Deadly Jaydriving and a Coverup

Without the persistent reporting of Salem Reporter it seems impossible DEA agent Samuel Landis would have been charged in the death of a cyclist on High Street.

Not seeing it here

While the Police talk about trust and legitimacy, and attempt to strong arm Council and the citizenry for more Police, even as they cannot seem to fill positions they already have open, the seeming rot at the core of the collaboration and coverup between Salem Police and the DEA should give us all great pause.

Marganne Allen and her family and friends deserve so much better.

In Memoriam:

Other Items

Climate Friendly Areas

One item that is a continuation of the State climate regulations is also hard to assess at the moment. We'll note it here with significant ambiguity.

The City insists on a wild concept for designating Climate Friendly Areas. This is still in process, and has no real impacts yet, so it's not really a strong event shaping 2023. It also defaults and tends to more of the same, even with the fancy language, and isn't yet a clear positive or negative. But it is dismaying in two big ways: It will be a real missed opportunity for walkable neighborhoods, something in the future we will see as an impact; and the City is conducting a phony process in bad faith.

DLCD is nuts

The most recent development is a broad signal of approval from DLCD. In formal comments on the City's plan, DLCD's notes read like flattering boilerplate (or chatbot AI word salad?) and not anything based on a genuine reading of what Salem has proposed. They are now complicit in the phony process!

Three CFAs and the target

Salem is proposing exactly three Climate Friendly Areas. Nevertheless, DLCD says your "study evaluates sufficient areas...[which]should give you a good number of potential CFA areas to consider for the designation of CFAs." Did they read the documents? There are three, and three only.

Then they say that Salem's study "will enable more feasible development within your CFAs that will be more in line with community expectations" and express "a 'lighter touch'." Again, did they read the documents? To hit 25,000 new homes in the three downtown areas requires redeveloping nearly every block with midrise quarter blocks like the Nishioka and Nordstrom projects. How is that a "lighter touch"? That is not at all realistic or attainable.

Finally, they say the new mixed-use areas designated in Our Salem (the arterial corridors mainly) "could be designated as CFAs." The City specifically excluded mixed-use zoning along south Commercial and Lancaster Drive in the process that selected the three downtown areas. The suggestion they "could be designated" indicates DLCD was not paying attention to Salem's process. (Or else it is very calculated disingenuousness, but in the context of the other comments it just seems dumb.)

So what do we have? Do we have ignorance and dumb at DLCD? Or did they make a spectacular mistake at the beginning of the rulemaking and are now too far in to insist on a correction, and have to pretend everything is great? At the beginning of the year 1000 Friends even warned them about this problem.

The whole thing is just so very strange, and years down the road it will be seen as a tremendous missed opportunity.

Payroll Tax

The defeat of the payroll tax and the City's new Revenue Task Force are tremendously important, and it would be wrong not to mention them. But the impacts won't be seen until 2024, starting with the reduction in hours at the Library. Additionally, others follow the budgeting process more closely and have better things to say on the problem. 

The reduction from 40 to 30mph should be kept

Projects Completed and Underway

It was great to see another segment of the Union Street Bikeway completed. The City published updated McGilchrist plans, which were disappointing and expensive, dealt with cost escalation, and started construction. It would be great to see the reduction in posted speed kept permanently! Funding for the Pringle Creek path between Mirror Pond and Riverfront Park was assembled.

The City finally hired a Climate Action Plan Manager and hopefully they can add momentum to what has been an underwhelming implementation program so far.

Two studies were completed, one fully published for the Neighborhood Traffic Plan, the other not yet published on Cordon Road. Action on them is largely unfunded and theoretical, so it remains to be seen how powerful they are. The Center Street Bridge seismic retrofit continues, and this year the project was broken in two, with only one part fully funded. When that funded part is completed, there will still be more to do, and the unreinforced part would still collapse. 

High crash corridors

And though it slid in at the last minute in mid-December, the $2.8 million Vision Zero and Twenty is Plenty grant is huge. It doesn't affect 2023, but it will be a substantial story for 2024. The big, big question is how much the Vision Zero and Twenty is Plenty planning will alter the most dangerous streets, and not merely residential streets. This fall the MPO released its list of "high crash corridors," and these are nearly all arterial stroads with higher posted speeds.  (Union and High Streets are interesting exceptions; since both now are important bikeways also, they will deserve more attention.)

A Final List of Items to Note, Many Looking to 2024

  • While the MPO started conversation about adding Aumsville and changing the governance structure, that's going to be a story for 2024.
  • Salem Bike Vision announced a slate of rides for 2023, and they're sure to be more active in 2024.
  • The Meyer Farm dispute continues, and it will be very interesting to see how it develops in 2024.
  • The University of Oregon Sustainable Cities Residency returned to Salem, and there will be things to report in 2024.
  • The new Public Works Building opened.
  • Rite-Aid's national bankruptcy closed the downtown store, and big-box, anchor retail continues to leave.

And a last word: climate. Whether it was Europe last winter, or right here this winter, the signs of warming are clear. We aren't going fast enough.

January 2023

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