Sustainable City Year Program Bike Presentations and Final Reception June 4th

Do you remember the SMILE lane concept from 2018/19?

The SMILE lane with stencil -
Michael Dooley and Daisy Jones, via UO

Probably not. It was generated by University of Oregon students when the rental scooters were popular and it was becoming clear that e-mobility needed greater consideration.

Five years later we might focus more on e-bikes.

But the problem remains the same. The mix of urban micromobility is changing and the electrified versions intensify conflicts with people walking on the sidewalks and paths. At the same time, more exposed users of the roadway deserve separation and protection from those in cars.

The bike lane needs to grow, both conceptually to accommodate users of electronic assist, and in width to accommodate a wider range of users at variable speeds.

The SMILE lane was a concept potentially useful in both.

The City's announced

the UO Sustainable City Year Program (SCYP) Bicycle Planning class final presentations next Tuesday, June 4, from 3:30-4:30 pm at Center 50+. Students will be presenting 18 projects displayed on posters showcasing ideas to improve bicycling in Salem. Members of the community will then be invited to interact with students, ask questions, and engage in their ideas. We’d love a big crowd of Salem bicycle advocates to connect with the students, so please help us spread the word to your networks.

Following the poster session, we will have a brief program (starting at 4:30) highlighting the over 20 classes that conducted applied projects over the academic year. Light refreshments will be available.

Here are three questions to consider.

Particular attention to Front and Edgewater

Sidewalkification: Shared paths vs. on-street protected lanes

Especially in light of recent conversation on Battle Creek Road and the sidewalkification of bicycling, it will be interesting to learn whether students leaned more towards path solutions or to in-street protected bike lane solutions.

Why? Dust, exhaust, zooming cars on Highway 22

Alas, from the end-of-year summary, it looks like the City seems to continue to want to stress the awful path along Highway 22 as an alternative to better bike lanes on Edgewater and Second Street. You know, bike lanes that actually connect to businesses and places a person might want to visit on a legacy historic "main street" and avoid hidey holes and blind corners and dirt and dust.

This is basically right, isn't it?

New Tech: Uncritical embrace or measured caution

Another theme to watch is the techno-utopianism. In the fall you may recall students offered a class at the Library on the chatbot mania. Given concerns with copyright and intellectual honesty, it was a little disappointing to see the Library embrace the dodgy tech. The SCI program is closely affiliated with the Urbanism Next Center, and that group has sometimes seemed more interested in boosting new tech than critiquing it. It seems to take emerging tech as an ipso facto good.

While there has been a focused effort of research on the technological aspects of new mobility, autonomous vehicles and other emerging technologies, there has been a shortage of systematic exploration on their secondary effects on city development, urban form, and design, or their implications for sustainability, equity, health, and municipal finance.

The Urbanism Next Center focuses on the impacts and implications of emerging technologies on the design and planning of our cities. In addition to engaging in research, Urbanism Next is building a national network of thought leaders from the private sector, public sector, and academia to collaborate on these topics.

From 2018 - How is this paper ageing?

A few years ago they were cheering for the robot cars and redesigning streets to accommodate them. But as we have seen much of the tech is in fact anti-urban and functions to hollow out the urban core and urban vitality.

Could be promising!

Results: Assessment and Feedback Loop

After the disappointment of a PR campaign on idling, the second on heat pumps and now a third on promoting active transport have seemed much more promising.

But in May the City did not seem interested in anticipating anything from the PR project on active transport to leverage publicity for Bike Month and Bike to Work Day.

So what is the actionable residue of projects and when does the City actually act on them? What are the real life outcomes?

The first round for the Sustainable Cities project in 2010-2011 seemed full of promise, but it's been treated oddly over the intervening decade plus. In some instances the student work is attractive but not actually very useful. In other instances the student work should be taken way more seriously, but the City doesn't seem interested. Too often there's a mismatch between the glowing rhetoric from the City about the projects and any actual implementation. The City should discuss the successes and failures more seriously, and in detail.

Church St/Bush Park vs. High Street alignment
(Bicycle Transportation, 2011)

For example, in the 2011 version of the bike transportation class there were projects on a north-south alignment through SCAN. One focused on an alignment along Church Street and through Bush Park. Another focused on High Street. This question is relevant right now!

The 2024 bike transportation class had a focus on Front Street in addition to Edgewater. I take this to be Front Street NE along the former Truitt Bros. site and the location of multi-million dollar application for a RAISE grant to fund a planning study for a redesign of Front Street and the railroad.

Front Street and North Downtown (2011)

Classes in 2010 and 2011 developed proposals for the south end of the area, between Mill Creek and Union Street. Are any of these still useful, in part or in whole?

Projects should be revisited and reassessed.

Maybe you will think of other questions. The students deserve cheering, but the projects are also framed up as instances of a real life consultancy, and we should also be asking in concrete terms, do these in fact, and not merely in theory, help Salem and Salemites?

• See at the UO the SCI Page for Salem's 2023-2024 Residency.
• Previous notes here on the 2023-2024 residency.
• Previous notes here on the 2010-2011 residency. 
• And see the "Rethinking Streets" series