A new Project on Musgrave Ave? The Budget Committee Looks at the CIP

The Budget Committee meets tonight Wednesday the 24th, and this meeting will look at the list of capital projects. On the budget process itself others have much better things to say, but we've followed the CIP a little over the years. Here are some passing notes.

Musgrave Ave in West Salem (not part of CIP)

One project stands out as something new.

New crossing under Musgrave?

What exactly are "pathway improvements under Musgrave Ave NW to create a connection with the Union Street" bridge and path?

My best guess is something at No. 2 on the map above, but it's hard to see how going under Musgrave would work. $1 million also seems small for a real tunnel type undercrossing.

An undercrossing at No. 1 on the map has been discussed for several years, but it had seemed to be abandoned. It also involved Wallace Road and Second Street, not Musgrave. Its estimated cost was also much, much more than $1 million. 

This will be something to learn more about!

Other project did not seem new, but sometimes there were new details.

Vision Zero and Twenty is Plenty

It was nice to see the Vision Zero and Twenty is Plenty project formalized!

By a Divided Vote, SKATS Finds Path for Aumsville to Join: At the MPO

On Tuesday the 23rd, the Policy Committee for the Metropolitan Planning Organization meets. Last month they did what had seemed increasingly unlikely. They voted to add the City of Aumsville and to add an additional voting representative from the City of Salem.

A substitute motion

You will recall that Mayor Clark of Keizer and Chair of the MPO had introduced a motion to add Aumsville to the MPO without any changes to the voting structure.

The original motion

Councilor Phillips of Salem offered first a friendly amendment for Salem to have an additional seat and vote on the Committee, and after it was not seconded this became a substitute motion.

After a good bit of debate, Mayor Clark called for the vote and herself voted for it. It passed 4-3, with Marion and Polk Counties and the City of Turner opposed.

Calling the vote

It had not seemed likely that Mayor Clark would support Councilor Phillips and the City of Salem. So that was a nice surprise.

Still, there was some maneuvering. Commissioners Mordhorst and Cameron of Polk and Marion Counties respectively proposed to eliminate the School District from having a vote. If that happens, that might dilute the new vote from the City of Salem.

It should not happen. The School District has a vital interest in traffic safety and Safe Routes to Schools. And since SR2S staff are now employees of the COG/MPO, it is appropriate for the School District to sit on the Committee and to vote as part of it.

This is something to watch.

More than a bike rodeo!

In the miscellaneous updates for the current meeting it was great to read that a multi-week Bicycle Safety Education course would be returning to Salem schools after an absence of a few years, having been very incompletely replaced by bicycle rodeo concepts. (See "Bike Safety Education and the Hammond Bike Train" from 2010 for a brief hit on an earlier example of multi-day Bicycle Safety Education.)

The Policy Committee meets Tuesday the 23rd at noon. Meeting information, agenda, and packet is here.

City Council, April 22nd - MUHTIP for the old City Hall Site

At Council on Monday is an application for a MUHTIP property tax abatement on the project for the old City Hall site. On a site vacant for a half-century, this is an incentive for exactly the kind of project it is supposed to benefit.

Concept for the old City Hall site

In the application packet is an elevation view from the northeast corner of Chemeketa and High. Seeing something there will be so great, and even just the rendering itself is cheering. This corner has been such a hole in the urban fabric, a real void at what had been a genuine civic center. To see life there again, and right across from the Transit Center, will be wonderful.

via Postcard dealer Mary L. Martin

But also in the packet is a sobering analysis of the apartment market. I don't recall seeing one before, and the City might consider making them a requirement for public subsidy. It's good to know what the developer/investor side is thinking.

No evidence of our housing crisis from this angle

Reading it, you'd never know we have a housing crisis. From their standpoint we have a "market-wide occupancy rate [of] 94.5%, which is within the range of a well-balanced market." High rents and low vacancies are feature, not bug.

Will it be Crickets for the Circuit Rider's 100th Anniversary on Friday the 19th?

100 years ago on April 19th, 1924, the city and state dedicated the Circuit Rider statue.

June 2023

It was a big deal, and got extensive front page coverage in the papers.

Afternoon: April 18th, 1924

Morning: April 20th, 1924

Today we might have more deeply mixed feelings about it.

New "Better Homes" Sunday Section Joins Automotive Section in 1924

Back in 1924 the morning paper started a Sunday section titled "Better Homes." It promoted home ownership and advertised real estate and real estate firms, construction trades, home appliances, and home furniture and decoration.

An automobile section had already been going for a few years. The ad placements for the car trade had been considerable and it was clearly an important revenue stream.

To see the two sections developed and published in close proximity really underscores the connection of land use and transportation in the new autoism.

February 24th, 1924

February 24th, 1924

On February 24th of 1924 the "Better Homes section" started. (The page below from the May "homes week" reproduces the graphic more clearly on a single page.)

Final Cordon-Kuebler Plan Finally Published

About a month ago the County finally published the final report on the Cordon-Kuebler Corridor Plan. (Find it under "Transportation Plans" here.) The project website hadn't been updated since November 2022, then it was deleted from the web. Meeting notes suggested the plan had been finished early last fall. But here it is, with a February date. Maybe it needed some last-minute edits.

To supersize Kuebler Blvd and Turner Road
(Remember, a big housing project is just south of here!)

Finally out

Broadly speaking it seeks enlarge the road, and in some places to supersize it.

Alarming warming in our ocean (NY Times)

New record

Not only in the introductory "goals and purpose" section, but throughout the whole of the summary report, there are zero instances of the words "climate" or "emissions." It is wholly disconnected from the Salem Climate Action Plan. Since this is primarily a County document, and they had already telegraphed their intentions, this is not surprising, though it is still disappointing.

Parks & Rec Board to talk Baseball and More

The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meets on Thursday the 11th, and there's a lot of interesting items on the agenda and in meeting materials.

Before the stadium seating  (note cars, too)
(Willamette University Archives)

The main one is the prospect of a summer college wood bat league and associated improvements to John Lewis Field and Spec Keene Stadium, an information and discussion item, not any action item, "Proposal Regarding Renovations and Improvements to the Willamette University Baseball Stadium and Tokyo International University of America Softball Stadium." (The softball component has not generated the same level of interest and critique.)

But first a digression, which seems actually to be a little related.

Fairview Park: 2016 (top), 2024 (bottom)

One of the items also in the meeting packet is an update on the Fairview Park Master Plan "revisit."  Sentiment on the park seems to have shifted quite a bit, and the change is easily visible a side-by-side with the adopted 2016 plan and one of the new concepts.

People want accessible paths to walk on, passive recreational amenities, and flexible spaces that can support a range of activities. There was also some interest in active recreation and sports facilities, as well as interest in preserving the park's natural resources, especially the existing mature trees, as a retreat for reflection and rest.

The reduction to "some interest in active recreation and sports facilities" is striking. People now want the "retreat for reflection and rest." Maybe the Pandemic has prompted a shift.

A dwindling interest in "sports facilities" and associated numbers of spectators and participants also seems to characterize a lot of the debate over baseball improvements at Bush Park.

Incoherence on Emissions, Congestion, and Safety: At the MPO

The technical committee for our Metropolitan Planning Organization meets on Tuesday the 9th, and they should, but likely will not, face the incoherence in our dominant autoist paradigm.

Frames for less driving vs more driving

Right now the policy conversations on greenhouse gas emissions and on congestion relief are disconnected. They each happen in a vacuum as if the other was not happening.

Our need to reduce emissions from driving means less driving and slower driving so that non-auto transportation is safer and more comfortable.

But our wish for congestion relief means faster driving and more driving from induced demand.

We need to connect the two discourses and make congestion relief secondary to greenhouse gas reduction and to safety.

How seriously will they take this?

I am not sure at the moment that the technical details of picking a particular target measure are all that critical.

New Bike Parking at Bush Park looks Nice, but not to Code

The other day SCAN posted a nice note about some new bike parking at Bush Park right by the Barn and playground. The old parking had been an old set of "toast" racks that were not very secure and prone to wheel-bending.

New wave racks at Bush Park - via FB

But somehow, despite SCAN having a transportation subcommittee, and the City having new bike parking standards, a highly visible location where the nearby sculpture had been installed improperly, and various levels of review in the grant process, the installation used wave racks, which are not to code!

Wave racks not to code. SRC 806.060

The new wave racks are unambiguously an improvement on the older toast racks. It might seem unreasonable to complain about them. But we have a real problem with not following code on bike parking installations, and this was a public place where a model installation ought to have been attainable. Big sigh.

Housing Production Strategy is Chance to Think Deeper about Our Salem and Climate Friendly Areas

The City's announced the start of the Housing Production Strategy project.

Salem needs more housing. To help meet that need, the City is creating a Housing Production Strategy (HPS) to outline how Salem plans to encourage housing development. The HPS is expected to include tools, policies, and actions that promote the production of a variety of housing types.

The published information is mostly prelude and throat-clearing rather than anything substantive.

They did publish a schedule, however.

The schedule (notes on step 2 added)

And one of the elements for this summer, ranging from spring to fall, is to "evaluate feasibility of developing housing in mixed-use areas."

Here, an ongoing criticism of Our Salem has been that the new mixed-use zoning, MU-I, MU-II, and MU-III was deployed in unrealistic ways, mostly along the biggest of our arterial corridors.

Much of the proposed change was
for arterial corridors
Our Salem map (2021)

So I hope the project truly grapples with the realistic prospects for housing in the new areas zoned for mixed-uses.

Are the big box stores, strip malls large and small, and parking lots going to convert to housing any time soon? 

What will the market be for warehoused housing right on top of our traffic sewers? If built to the concept in Our Salem, will people really want to live there?

And what is a realistic rate of change to housing for the downtown areas proposed for Climate-Friendly Areas/Walkable Mixed-use Areas?

Catalogue plans for apartments! - former twitter

More generally, we've already eliminated parking mandates, and there will be other ways to reduce costs of building housing. Hopefully the project will also support faster implementation of single-access apartment blocks (without the long corridors with two exits), which offer greater flexibility on lots and maximize housing. There's real potential here.

I hope this planning study asks real questions and generates real answers, not hype and puffery, but sober analysis and realistic forecasts.

Previously:

• "Our Salem Vision and Draft Plan Relies too Much on Arterial Conversion to Mixed-Use" (2020)
• "Problems with Seattle's Urban Villages might Prompt more Thought on Our Salem" (2021)
• A summary on CFAs and WaMUAs, with links to further dicussion, "City Council, September 25th - Overlay Zones and Climate-Friendly Walkable Areas" (2023)
  

History Talk and Book on Hop Lee Lead Qingming Events

This year's Qingming ritual has an impressive density of associated events.

via FB

The Mill will have a talk Thursday the 4th on Hop Lee, who was a prominent Salemite.

This year we have the privilege of hosting Dr. Russell Low, the grandson of former Salem-Keizer resident Low Sun Fook, also known as Hop Lee, the name of the laundry business he operated. Dr. Low has published several books about his family’s history.

His newest release: A Willow Tree Becomes a Forest: The Story of Hop Lee looks at the life of his grandfather and the family’s experiences living in the Salem-Keizer area, from operating a laundry to turtle wrangling to hop farming and brokering. Two book presentations are scheduled in Salem and Keizer which will talk about the book and the unique experiences the family had in both places. Dr. Low will be bringing signed books with all proceeds dedicated to supporting scholarships for nursing students at California State University San Marcos. Guests are encouraged to bring checks or cash, and the books will be available for a $20 donation.

Other events, via FB

Salem Reporter has more, including some strong claims about tolerance in Salem.

Cherriots' new Crosstown Route, US Traffic Deaths in 2023, April Foolery - Bits

In what looks like the first real prelude to a future South Salem Transit Center, Cherriots is launching a new crosstown route from Walmart to the Amazon warehouse, with stops in between at Costco and other warehouses in the new Mill Creek center area.

New crosstown route 22

Yesterday Salem Reporter had the news in their update on the Cherriots Board meeting last week. The agenda item published before the meeting was very understated, "Service Change Briefing for May 2024," and it looks like we all missed it. The meeting packet was over 300pp, and this item was at the end. But it deserved more attention! Salem Reporter added it rightly to their update.

The route will start boarding in May. It seems an obvious assumption that when the South Salem Transit Center is opened, the route would shift to originate from there.

Autoism in the Headlines

Does the headline best describe things?

Separately, on an interior supplement page, the paper trumpets a slight reduction in road carnage, but it's really more mixed news, and centers too much on those inside of cars at the expense of those outside of cars.

April Foolery

via Instagram

Readers shared some April Foolery highlights, and this one from Bikepretty, a blog and merchant of cute bike accessories, landed nicely. It's a literal instantiation of the "traffic cone theory of walking and biking."

Bits on Climate Coverage, Mahonia Hall, McGilchrist Area

It was good to see on the front page yesterday a big headline, "Heat records alarm scientists."

Front page yesterday

It was a national USA Today story about ways current temperatures, both land and ocean, are not just meeting but exceeding those in climate change models.

But so many of our local stories are also climate stories, and the paper could do much more on making connections. There's a misalignment in tone and detail on climate between national stories and our local stories. For more examples of disconnects between climate and local news see:

• On the airport, "Disconnecting the Dots Still on Climate"
• On methane infrastructure and use, "Siloed Discourses on Fossil Fuel"
• On our wildfires and ski resorts, "Stories on Fire and Snow omit Essential Climate Context"
• And on Cherry blossoms, "Cherry Blossoms Arrive on Schedule this Year - But What's a Schedule Now?"

March 15th, 1924

100 years ago the afternoon paper showed a drawing for the house we now know as Mahonia Hall. I am a little puzzled by the use of "pretentious"! On the one hand, the house was bigger and fancier than anything in Salem at that time, and it would be reasonable to call it pretentious. On the other hand, the caption is sincere and positive, even flattering, and lacks negative connotations suggested by "pretentiousness." So it's hard to say how the house was received and understood by Salemites.

• See also, "Sledding down Lincoln Street on Fairmount Hill 100 years ago"

Lack of east-west connections

The City's announced street closure and detours for the first phase of the McGilchrist project at the intersection at 22nd.

Among other things, the detour map shows the lack of east-west connectivity between Hines/Mission on the north and Madrona on the south (compounded by the railroad and airport, of course). The industrial development really degraded any street grid. The City recently vacated a small segment of Cross Street, which by itself is not very meaningful, but in the context of the whole area, the City should be cautious about further disconnection and vacation.

• And lots previously on McGilchrist here.
  

Showdown on Aumsville: Drama at the MPO

On Tuesday the 26th, at the MPO is a showdown on how to admit Aumsville.

Showdown!

The conversation and debate last month led up to this. 

Since at least June of last year it has been known that the Feds had ruled that Aumsville was going to be joining the metropolitan area for the MPO. So how to add them? There was some flexibility on this part. The most simple way, and the way that was used 20 years ago when Turner was to join, was to give Aumsville a single representative and vote on the Policy Committee. This is to take the mode of the US Senate rather than the US House, a mode that gives very small jurisdictions and their residents the same voting weight as very large jurisdictions and their residents.

The City of Salem and Cherriots are interested in rebalancing things with a somewhat more proportional representation.

In February the Mayor of Aumsville, with 4,200 residents, said that "the city of Aumsville's voice will be diminished if Salem is provided additional votes."

One vote for 4,200 residents vs. 175,000

Mayor Hoy pointed out that Salem has 175,000 residents, whose voice is very diluted if they have the same voting weight as the 4,200 of Aumsville. Mayor Hoy asked for "fair and balanced representation."

175,000 residents vs. 4,200

Councilor Philips offered some additional math: "the city of Salem is equal to 42 'Aumsvilles'."

Salem = 42 Aumsvilles in population

The Mayor of Turner asked if Salem had had two votes, what would have been different.

Mystery of Thomas King Solved!

In the paper this morning the history column is an especially good one!

In today's paper

 A couple of years ago this obituary turned up in research on the Wallace orchards.

March 5th, 1904

Nothing else turned up in preliminary research on King, and it was something to put on the back burner for another time.

But now Kylie Pine has found a good deal more! This is great to see and will provide leads for further research. Check it out.

Cherry Blossoms Arrive on Schedule this Year - But What's a Schedule Now?

Before the rain and cloudy skies arrived, did you get out to see the Cherry blossoms last weekend?

Wednesday's Seattle Times had a front page piece about tracking the dates of Cherry blossoms for science.

Seattle Times front page, 20th

They wrote:

In 2018, [university researchers] began collecting data on bud development and bloom for more than 100 trees covering 25 species on campus, to help inform local events centered on the bloom....

Records in Kyoto, Japan, and Washington, D.C., suggest those cities’ cherry trees are blooming earlier in response to a changing climate. UW researchers have hypothesized the bloom would also be earlier as a result of increases in spring temperatures but only if the trees experienced winter temperatures cool enough to complete their dormant, or rest period.

Researchers in 2011 found peak bloom in D.C. could be as much as four weeks earlier by 2080 depending on how much warming occurs.

“The cherry blossom has been kind of used as an indicator of climate change that we can see,” said Soo-Hyung Kim, a UW professor....

This year here in Salem peak bloom at the Capitol happened "on schedule," happily coincident with last weekend's nice weather and the officially scheduled "Blossom Day."

Front page here, March 17th

Last year, you may recall, it was "behind schedule."

City Council, March 25th - A New Urban Renewal Area?

The most interesting item at Council on Monday is a proposal to create a new Urban Renewal Area. (Curiously, I thought we were going to start calling them Tax-Increment Financing Districts.) As Urban Renewal Agency, Council will consider initiating the process.

As the downtown Salem becomes built out, interest is growing in development and redevelopment opportunities within the north waterfront/north downtown area. Building on prior City-wide strategic planning efforts that examined areas for future urban renewal areas and current interest in redevelopment along Front Street, Staff is seeking Agency Board approval to begin the process of creating a new urban renewal area between the Riverfront-Downtown Urban Renewal Area and the North Gateway Urban Renewal Area.  This area meets the statutory requirement of “blight” due to changing economics, uses, and vacancies. With Board approval, staff will begin the process to create a new urban renewal area (URA) to assist with redevelopment of the area. Following the analysis of a potential new URA, staff would bring back to the Agency Board a draft plan, draft financial report, and draft geographical boundary for review before initiating the steps to adopt a new plan as outlined by Oregon Revised Statute.

Industrial parcels along Front St.

While the lots along Front Street, including riverfront parcels, have been slow to redevelop, there are also residences along Liberty, Commercial, and Broadway whose residents could be displaced in Urban Renewal. Drawing boundaries and considering displacement would need care.

• Previously see notes on the former Truitt Bros. site, which with Front Street itself looks to be at the center of any future URA here.
• Also recent notes, "City's Lack of Reporting Hides Range of Urban Renewal Projects"
• And with the claim that the City currently misses $6.7 million annually from the URAs, "City Council, January 22nd - Urban Renewal, Climate, Baseball"
  

A prior question that Council should insist on asking is how effective are the URAs to begin with. They are an instrument to fund wanted projects, but we have no idea how effective they are to "grow property tax valuation."

When it was closed, the value of the old Pringle Creek URA seemed to underperform a simple calculation of inflation.

It is nonsense, devoid of real meaning!
(Comments reversed in white added, chart from 2020)

In published materials, the City, seemingly willfully, has muddled city-wide property value appreciation in general with URA appreciation specific to the district. A few years back they trumpeted "growing assessed value," but they did not say anything about compared to what. In our current market a vacant, rotting building is "growing" in value. Merely to assert growing value is a trivial claim. And if the growth inside a URA is not exceeding the growth outside it, we should look more closely at whether we need that URA.

We need a more critical analysis, even audit, of the whole URA program and figure out whether it is really doing what we want it to do.

ODOT Online Open House at Charlie Foxtrot by Police Station is Thin and Weird

ODOT has a new online "Open House" for a project on Commercial Street near the new Police Station at the charlie foxtrot that is the intersection of Division, Front, and Commercial.

Part of the "Open House" imagery

The whole thing is weird.

The context map shows a much larger area

It says "Market Street to Union Street," but the detail map (at top) shows only a one block segment from Division to Union.

Is there more?

As for the Division to Union segment, overall it retains the Rube Goldberg system of crosswalks, islands, deviation, and multi-phase crossing procedure that together prioritize car travel and make walking and biking through it inconvenient.

The Open House has four numbered places on the map with a little more detail.

Grocery Outlet Looks to Open Store in South Salem

While lots of us hope for a new grocery store in the heart of downtown some day soon, an area that has seemed relatively well supplied with grocery stores, an area Safeway abandoned not too many years ago, and whose store was replaced by a Wilco, looks to get a new Grocery Outlet soon.

Grocery Outlet has initiated with City planning a "tenant build out of existing 17,366 sqft building into Grocery Outlet."

The building at 3975 Commercial St SE is next door to Northern Lights Theater Pub.

November 5th, 1964

The shopping center dates from the mid-60s, and unsurprisingly this part started out as a grocery store. Piggly Wiggly opened in 1964.

Approvals had been contested and took several months. (By our standards today it was not so long, but by theirs it was slow.)

October 11th, 1963

Within a few years ownership churned and a grocery store there operated in the 1970s under several different names.

Then it stopped being a grocery store, and now looks to return to that.

Nearby major grocery stores

Major stores nearby are Lifesource, Roths, Fred Meyer, Natural Grocers, Trader Joe's, and WinCo. Some of these are more niche, specialty grocers, but they are much larger than a corner store.

This would be the third Grocery Outlet in Salem, joining the downtown-ish one on D and Commercial and one on Lancaster Drive.

This is an interesting move and there might be more to say later.