Salem Still Scores Poorly in People for Bikes City Ratings

The annual City Rating from People for Bikes is out, and Salem still rates pretty poorly, though perhaps with a tick upwards.

Rating summary

Last year Salem received a numerical rating of 17/100 and was in the 35th percentile overall. We've moved up to 48th percentile! The rating itself of 17 or 23 is surely within a margin of error, though. 

They included chart of seven years of scoring, but also included a weird set of comparables. It would be better to see mid-sized cities in Oregon.

Ratings history (in blue)

All four cities moved up, and it would be interesting to know if the increase is more in a change to the algorithm than real change in Salem and the other cities.

The only significant change I can really think of is the segment of new bike lane on Union Street.

Analysis detail

An important part of the rating, highlighted above in the chart of comparables, is "adjustments to speed limits." 

Even apart from better bike lanes, slower speed is crucial. This is part of the argument here against the sidewalkification of bicycling. Multiuse paths seem safer, but they do not alter the widths of roads, their design speed, or their posted speed. Crucially, they do not offer protection at intersections, when people biking must re-enter the street from the sidewalk refuge and ramp.

The forthcoming "Twenty is Plenty" will be helpful, but most deaths aren't happening on neighborhood streets, and the speed reduction badly needs to find its way onto our busy stroads and other collector and arterial streets. A driver apparently going lawfully with the posted speed at about 40mph killed Selma Pierce when she tried to cross the street in West Salem, we should remember. There is also preliminary evidence from Wales that very significant urban speed reductions are associated with an equally significant reduction in auto insurance claims. Slower speed saves!

Front page on Sunday

The recent piece in the paper hardly gives any attention to posted speed and the role speed, even lawful speed, plays in the lethality of collisions.

We need to center speed more in our conversation about traffic safety.

• "Metropolitan Transportation Safety Action Plan should focus more on Speed"
• "New Strong Towns Matrix on Road vs. Street Widens Definition of Stroad"
• "Safety at the MPO"
  

See notes on previous rankings from Places/People for Bikes, League of American Bicyclists, and Bicycling Magazine back to 2008.

BikePortland has a longer discussion focused on Portland. They also show the full list of Oregon cities with Salem 28th out of 34.