City Council, December 11th - Safety for Whom? And Crosswalks, Capitol Street, Green Paint

You might remember a couple of years ago a new project concept for the junction of the 12th Street cutoff and south Commercial. It was not funded, as I recall, but something of a revised element of it appears in a set of three suites of applications for ODOT All Roads Transportation Safety funding at Council on Monday.

Who are we protecting here with the rail placement?

The new project seems, however, to slight non-auto travel. It identifies this site as one of three to "provide guard rails to address risks of roadway departures at three locations that have a history of roadway departure crashes or that have conditions that indicate a high risk for roadway departure."

But any "roadway departure," whether from jaydriving and high speed or from the impact of another vehicle in a crash, will endanger anyone walking or rolling here. This is a real problem with "forgiving" design and its emphasis on safety primarily for those inside of cars. 

This is an opportunity for a segment of protected bike lane! (See BikePortland for a recent note on a location there where the railing is in the traditional, and wrong, place.)

An unsuccessful project application (2021)

The current application doesn't mention the crosswalk or any of the other elements in that 2021 project scope. But turning around 180 degrees shows the messed up crosswalk, dead-ending in landscaping and the light standard, and without any connecting sidewalk.

The crosswalk dead-ends into landscaping

Isn't it embarrassing to scope a project only for drivers and passengers here? At the very least this deserves more discussion as an explicit "phase" in a solution for this whole area.

MWACT Meets Thursday: Lots of Crosswalks and other Safety Projects for 2024-2027 Funding Cycle

The Mid-Willamette Valley Area Commission on Transportation, MWACT, meets on Thursday the 2nd, and they have a number of interesting items on the agenda. 

Even though the membership of MWACT overlaps a lot with the membership of SKATS, the ACT is a creation of ODOT and State regulations, whereas SKATS is largely a creation of USDOT and Federal regulations. For non-specialists these expressions of the bureaucracy are largely opaque, duplicative, and Byzantine.

The ACT also represents a lot of rural area, the whole of Yamhill, Marion, and Polk counties, and often they are focused on highway matters or other roads distant from Salem. So we don't talk about them very often here.

But this month they have a lot of urban and non-auto matters of interest.

Alas, there is something profoundly remedial in the agenda items.

Do we really have to keep doing this?

The first agenda item is "Strategic Bike /Pedestrian Project Prioritizations for FY 24-27 STIP Update." Which might be great if it was really about "strategy" and "priority." But the presentation is padded with yet another instance of supplication, "why fund walking and biking."

Apparently, even with rising traffic fatalities and rising emissions from motorized vehicles, it is not a baseline or self-evident yet. That's the reality and it is dispiriting.

(In fact, outside of urban areas there are ways that walking and biking might be even more politicized now. See especially "How a trail in rural Oregon became a target of far-right extremism," a new take on the collapse of the Yamhelas Westsider Trail, which had been on the agenda of MWACT several times in the past few years. Here in 2016 is some criticism of it, which reads a little differently now in light of the news on right-wing extremism. Maybe the composition of MWACT really does need this presentation and approach. At the same time, ODOT could more firmly support walking and biking, and make it clear they are in fact a baseline, not an enhancement or amenity.)

In the minutes from last meeting they talked about the scoring for walking and biking facilities on the "Active Transportation Needs Inventory," but they do not seem to have made any changes since last time. The curves on the downtown Pringle Parkway remain the worst - but scanning the list of projects in this meeting I didn't see anything to address it specifically.

ODOT ATNI Evaluation Criteria and Prioritization

And there are a lot of projects buried in the agenda. The second agenda item is a list of projects proposed for scoping before final funding decisions. Many of these are new proposals that have not, I think, hit City Council agenda.

A bunch of new crosswalk improvements proposed

The most exciting might be a new list of crosswalks for improvement and a couple for outright creation.

City Council, December 7th - Time for "Twenty is Plenty"

On Council's agenda for Monday is a suite of applications for the State's All Roads Transportation Safety funding. The City proposes a couple of enhanced crosswalks at important intersections.

Between Eola and Glen Creek,
Doaks is a high speed rural road with hills and curves

But the City should think bigger about safety on all roads. On FB an advocate said this week:

With the recent tragic high-profile traffic death on a high speed-limit road (Doakes Ferry is signed for 40 mph), it's long past time Salem follow best safety practices and move to 30 mph or below on all high-traffic streets, and 15-20 mph on neighborhood streets.

via Placemakers

Lawful travel at 40mph is still too fast for any urban street where there are other users of the road not in automobiles. 

Eugene's "twenty is plenty" campaign

A citywide "twenty is plenty" campaign would be a good response and tribute to Selma Pierce.

City Council, January 14th - Crosswalks and Green Bike Lanes

Council meets on Monday the 14th. Councilor Leung will be sworn in for the first time.

Five Crossing Safety Projects
Project estimate is now at $566,220

On the agenda are a couple of intergovernmental agreements with ODOT for walking and biking projects. One is a set of five enhanced crosswalks, some with additional bikeway components on the Winter-Maple Greenway at Pine Street and Fairgrounds Road. These are scheduled for construction in 2020. The very first estimates totalled about $250,000. Once the projects were scoped in more detail, the final estimate and contract was for $566,220. For two reasons this seems unlikely to be sufficient now. These were priced several years ago (notes from 2015 and 2016), and since then construction costs have risen. Additionally, the crossing on Fairgrounds is not a simple one, and though the City has not commented on this directly, it seems almost certain that the project will be phased and that the budget here will only afford partial construction.

There is a second agreement for signal enhancements and green bike lanes, but the project description is still a little vague:

Typical enhancements include intersection lighting upgrades, traffic signal equipment upgrades, the installation of protected/permissive left-turn phasing, and the installation of green bike lanes to alert motorists of the potential presence of bicyclists. One or more of these enhancements will be incorporated at each intersection identified above.

I think this is from the last round of All Roads Transportation Safety funding. Based on that 2016 description, here are the sites for green bike lanes:

• D Street and Lancaster Drive
• Market Street and Lancaster Drive
• 12th Street at Fairview (see the awkward bike lane transition in the new striping here)

But some projects from that 2016 list are not on this most recent list: The Commercial-Vista Corridor projects and Broadway at Pine Street.

The Staff Report does not explicitly reference the ARTS program, and it is unclear how directly the projects in this agreement follow from the ARTS list. (This is a way that transportation funding is rather opaque and mysterious to non-insiders.)

Restaurant concept for 245 Court Street, with some zig-zags

In the information items is a modification to the single-story retail space on the east side of the residential block at the 245 Court Street project.

City Council, May 29th - New All Roads Transportation Safety Grants

Council meets tonight, on Tuesday, because of the holiday, and a safety grant program and parking debate seem worth some comment.

Applications for All Roads Transportation Safety grants could be interesting, but there are no specific projects listed on the Council item.

As of the staff report’s writing, staff is working to complete a preliminary analysis of candidate projects that will best meet the program’s funding criteria. Prior to entering into project funding agreements with ODOT, staff will return to Council for approval to add selected projects into the Capital Improvement Plan and request budgetary approval for the required 7.78 percent local match in the appropriate fiscal year (FY 2021-2022 through FY 2023-2024). Likely sources of local match funds include Transportation System Development Charges for countermeasures that increase corridor capacity, or the City’s share of State Highway Fund revenues for other countermeasures, including those intended for pedestrian and bicycle safety. [italics added]

Previously, the ARTS program funded the forthcoming buffered bike lanes and enhanced crosswalks on middle Commercial arising from the Commercial-Vista Corridor Study, the 4/3 safety conversion on Broadway around Pine Street, and green bike lanes in the widening project on 12th Street between McGilchrist and Fairview. Data on crashes and deaths is supposed to drive the program - and it seems likely that, among other things, we will see proposals for enhanced crosswalks arising out of the "Pedestrian Safety" study and the State Street Study. Sections of the Winter-Maple Greenway near the Parkway and Cherry Avenue might be candidates also, but not probably any inner portions. The grant amounts will probably not be sufficiently large to make a dent in the funding for any over/undercrossing along Second St NW at Wallace. There's also that tension between "increase corridor capacity [for zoomy drive alone trips]" and "pedestrian and bicycle safety." So it'll be interesting to see the project list the City proposes. (See previous notes on ARTS here.)

Buffered Bike Lanes on Commercial, Other Green Lanes Lead ARTS Funding

There have been some delays, but earlier this summer ODOT finally came out with the final list for the "All Roads Transportation Safety" grants. Salem received several, including funding for the buffered bike lanes and enhanced crosswalks identified in the Commercial-Vista Corridor Study. A few other sites are identified for modern green colored urban bike lanes. There's also a road diet for Broadway around Pine Street. (The full list of projects is a spreadsheet here.)

Buffered bike lanes on Commercial
(yellow highlighting added)

This is a lightly edited excerpt, not wholly decoded or unpacked. If you see something particularly interesting, please say so, and maybe there will be reason to come back and look more closely at this or that project.

Some of the projects look like the piggy-back on others: The Fairview@12th, Marion@12th, Lancaster@Market for example look like they build off of planned or already complete projects.

Most of the projects are pretty autoist, but several have meaningful components for people who walk and bike.

MWACT to Meet Thursday, Updates on the STIP and ARTS - updated

Our local area commission on transportation, MWACT, the Mid-Willamette Valley Area Commission on Transportation, meets on Thursday, and it remains astonishing that given the importance of agriculture to Yamhill, Polk, and Marion counties, drought, heat, harvest dates, and climate change don't seem to register much. (Full agenda and meeting packet here.)

You might have seen a couple of front-pagers over the weekend.

The articles, unfortunately, don't make any attempt to relate the summer's weather to larger climate change, to put our local conditions into a larger context of time and space.

But the information is out there, and at some point folks will realize that the argument is not abstract, and can be felt directly. And that this should have great implications for our transportation planning. (But, you know, sooner rather than later please?)

At the last MWACT meeting in June, ODOT gave an update on the new Bike/Ped plan in process.

Difficult Crossings near Safeway, Fred Meyer, Hospital Head List for State Funding

It might just be the random clustering of unequally distributed events, but I have a bit of that sinking, queasy feeling about this summer and safety. Another person on foot was killed here in Salem a few days ago, and Portland is having a rash of people on bike killed or seriously hurt. 

So it's a good time to contemplate improvements for safety.

This is old news, but back on March 23rd, Council and Staff advanced concepts for a suite of projects funded by ODOT's All Roads Transportation Safety Program. Prior to the meeting the proposed project list wasn't available, but here it is (the order has been altered slightly, the text is very lightly edited, and the photos are added).

You may recognize some projects from the Commercial-Vista Corridor Study. Other projects have been discussed in Bike and Walk Salem, the Sustainable Cities Initiative, and neighborhood association meetings. The projects are nearly all adjacent to important destinations - shopping, parks, the hospital, and schools. At least as far as the bike/ped stuff goes, it's a small but solid list.

The early word was that there would be about $1 million for ODOT Region 2 in bike/ped projects, and that would fund about 20 pedestrian medians. There are 10 counties and their cities in Region 2, and so it is hard to say how many of Salem's candidates are likely to be funded. The time-line calls for a 300% long list at this moment, so it could mean that Salemites should expect only 1/3 of these to get funded.

The relevant funding cycle would commence in 2017, it looks like, and construction wouldn't be likely to start any sooner. Most projects would formally be in the 2018-2021 STIP. Field evaluation is going on now and the final, funded project lists will be announced in March 2016. Then this final list of projects gets folded into the STIP process.

Staff is preparing applications to fund selected safety countermeasures at the locations listed below.

Marion and Center Streets NE (12th to 17th Streets NE)

• Install Rapid Rectangular Flashing Beacon at intersection of 13th and Marion Streets NE [at Safeway, discussed at NEN]
• Install pedestrian crossing median and crosswalk west of 17th Street NE, just westerly of Wyatt Court NE [serves bus stops near the Wilson House]

A flashing beacon and crosswalk right here
Fred Meyers on South Commercial at bus stops

Commercial Street SE (Oxford Street SE to Winding Way SE) [Commercial Vista Study]

• Install pedestrian crossing medians with crosswalks and Rapid Rectangular Flashing Beacons in two locations:

• Opposite Fred Meyers, near transit stops
• Near intersection with Waldo Street SE

• Infill street lighting and enhance lighting at pedestrian crossings
• Narrow travel lanes to 11 feet (City standard) and add 1-2 foot “buffer” for bike lanes

School Safety Improvements

• Install pedestrian crossing median on Sunnyview NE east of Lancaster Drive NE for improved pedestrian access to McKay High School
• Extend curbs on Jones Road SE to enhance student safety at Judson Middle School

Mission Street SE at Winter Street SE [SCI and many other times!]

• Modify approach to Bush Park to accommodate pedestrians and bicycles
• Install bike signal for northbound bicyclists

City Council, March 23rd - Transportation in the CIP and ARTS

A couple of wonky transportation things leads for us on Council's Monday agenda.

The Salem Bicycle Boulevard Advocates hope to be out in force as the City starts adoption of the five-year Capital Improvement Program. Public Works is also applying for a grant from the All Roads Transportation Safety program.

Transportation

When the "future report" for the CIP came out, it was pleasant to note an expansion of the Union Street bikeway project.

There are no other new bikeway projects, and perhaps the Boulevard Advocates will ask the City to consider more of them. But the rejoinder will be, of course, how do we fund them?

Overall funding sources for transportation

You'll see that the bond funds from property taxes are all obligated and no longer visible in the tables - it's a quirk of accounting that even though the work's not even started, the money is still "spent."

Several of the funding sources are constrained. ODOT grant funds can't be shuffled around, and Urban Renewal funds have separate processes for allocating them.

But some of the funding sources may be deployed by some amount of staff discretion with no public application or public comment. Here are some two of them it looks like:

System Development Charges ($5.2 million total over five years):

• $220,000 out of $2,777,000 for 12th Street widening between Hoyt and Fairview widening
• $1.6 million out of $3.1 million for Fisher Road NE Extension to Market St. NE 
• $50,000 for flashing yellow light signal upgrades at various sites, $25,000 for signal interconnects, and $500,000 for fiber optic interconnects
• $200,000 for developer reimbursement on Battle Creek Road improvements.
• $750,000 for 22nd Street extension at Madrona
• $1.1 million for Marine Drive "design, analysis, and Right of Way acquisition"
• $750,000 for Lone Oak Bridge across Jory Creek

It's interesting that two little stub road connections at Fisher Road and 22nd will be funded out of SDCs.

Maybe most interesting is that in addition to some bond proceeds for Marine Drive, now some SDCs are contemplated. That $1.1 million could instead be used for better bike lanes in West Salem instead of car lanes along Wallace Park. That's a pretty clear policy choice for autoism over human capacity.

New Commissioners Fill out OTC; New Safety Program for 2017 - updated

BikePortland has the news on new Oregon Transportation Commission appointments. I know of at least one person from Salem who was seeking an appointment, and it's too bad they weren't selected. Another time, perhaps! Still, it's significant there are more women and the first African-American now.

Not discussed at BikePortland, Buried in the materials from last month's meeting is an interesting note on a new approach to safety.

Cover memo for ARTS

The All Roads Transportation Safety program will start in 2017, and it's intended to have a significant component that is more data-driven and less driven by the short-term politics of protest and outrage at high-visibility crash sites.

Regional Breakdown with Bike/Ped Component

In addition to a substantial chunk for the high-vis or political "hot spots," part of it will include a budget specifically for bike/ped safety. Our region 2 looks to have about $1 million.

I'm sure we'll learn more about this as the project develops and matures, but it will be something to watch with interest.

In the meantime, in the same report BikePortland also reports the STIP's on hold:

Just last week, acting OTC Chair David Lohman announced that the commissioner has been forced to postpone the process to develop the six-year Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), “because of the uncertainty about state and federal transportation funding.” “It makes little sense,” he wrote in a letter dated May 28th and sent to members of the state’s Area Commissions on Transportation, “to select projects six years into the future when we don’t know how much money we will have in six months.”

Update, June 4th

First page of letter on STIP delay

The agenda and information packet for the MWACT meeting this week has the two-page letter from the OTC, so here are some additional details:

With the 2015-2018 STIP nearing conclusion, ODOT normally would be starting preliminary work on development of the next STIP. But because of the uncertainty about state and federal transportation funding, the Oregon Transportation Commission has decided to hold off starting the next STIP update: It makes little sense to select projects six years into the future when we don’t know how much money we will have in six months....

Holding off on the next STIP update means that instead of starting work on a STIP covering 2017-2020, the next STIP will cover 2018-2021. Since funds are already programmed out to 2018, building a 2018-2021 STIP also provides the opportunity to allocate three years of new funding rather than two years under a 2017-2020 STIP. Providing a realistic amount of funding to be allocated in the project selection process will be beneficial to applicants and make it easier for advisory committees to arrive at recommendations. Later this year, the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) will meet again with the ACT chairs as a group to discuss criteria to be used for the 2018-2021 STIP, the decision-making calendar, and mutual expectations.