A Survey on Priorities for 2027-2032 Funding at the MPO and a Nice Story about an old Oak on Gaiety Hill

Our Metropolitan Planning Organization started a survey for preferences in scoring, ranking, and ultimately choosing projects to fund in the next 2027-2032 cycle, in which about $28 million is expected to be available.

Safety and Climate head the list

The survey design is a bit dodgy. At the top of the list are high level values like "climate" and "safety." But the next item is "reduces a gap," much more specific. The level of generality is not at all consistent.

They also jam together disparate elements. Safety and security have different connotations. The problem of greenhouse gas is acute and chronic right now in a way the problem of carbon monoxide is not. It wasn't necessary to mention carbon monoxide unless you deliberately wanted a path to old-school congestion relief.

Some of the categories overlap. Reducing gaps also increases access. Improving transit also reduces greenhouse gas.

And the very great problem of speed is not mentioned.

With the way the survey is constructed, it may not be possible to give the MPO clear signals about what to prioritize.

Still, take the survey and reply more fully in the free response box towards the end. Safety and climate deserve more attention!

An Old Oak

The Oak at High and Oak Streets on Gaiety Hill

Salem Reporter has a lovely story about the prospect of cutting down the old Oak at the intersection of Oak and High at the crest of Gaiety Hill, right by the Smith-Fry house of 1859.

Smith-Fry House in 1878, perhaps with the same tree at center

The tree may have been included, centered even, in this drawing from 1878.

Professor David Craig, whose advocacy was featured in the piece, had earlier this summer remarked on an Oak that failed right by Pringle Park Community Hall. Counting rings, his team determined it sprouted around 1790.

The old trees deserve veneration for age and their place in our ecology here.

And yet, the photos of this Oak have omitted the root location and cracked retaining wall. The road cut from long ago on High Street shaved off a good bit of the root system, even with the sidewalk deviation around it, and the trunk is a little precarious. The retaining wall cracks and breaks regularly. And now there is a fungal problem. 

The City Forester is taking some samples in hopes of delaying cutting down the tree, but it really is not in a good place.

The second part of the story is a wonderful one about regeneration. The trunk may not become a nurse log for wildlife, but it may become creative material for furniture and woodworking in the neighborhood.

Rather than clinging to the past, this is a creative, life-affirming gesture to the future. Not so much any strict "natural" lifecycle, but an urban, human, and cultural one.

The demolition at the old YMCA and replacement with the new YMCA is a similar cycle. This pattern we should stress more in the ways we think of loss and renewal. Change is the normal order of things, but it is wasteful change, not regeneration, that is the true nullity.

Update, December 4th

Yesterday late afternoon the tree was already cut down! I had hoped to visit it one last time.

All gone!

The core of the trunk had so much rot, though. It was just held up by a few inches of wood on the outside adjacent to the bark.

The center had so much rot

Probably the City or neighborhood advocates will have more of a post-mortem, but it seems clear it was likely to come down in a storm in the foreseeable future.