MWVBTA Meeting Tuesday the 17th

The MWVBTA meets the third Tuesday of each month. The November meeting is this coming Tuesday, the 17th. This month (and in December), we'll be meeting from noon to 2:00 p.m. at the Sassy Onion on State Street. Agenda items will include:

Transportation System Plan Update
Sunday Parkways (V2020)
Bike/ped safety bond projects (please bring ideas for projects)
BSE funding
Bikeshed routes refinements
Holiday Parade of Lights
Police training videos
Downtown parking - free or metered?
Crossing 12th St. @ Mill
Top 12 Bike Projects
Commercial St. restriping
Wallace Road @ Glen Creek - proposed changes

If you are a member of the BTA, would like to learn more about the BTA, or are interested in making the Salem area a better place for bicycling, please join us!

Council Advances Pringle Parkway Vacation

Though the Commercial street plan was the big news, also on Monday night Council advanced the ordinance to vacate a parcel of Trade Street right of way.

This ivy-strewn plot, overlooking the Mill Race and a bike/ped path, isolated between two legs of the Pringle Parkway, is inactive and a little desolate. Envisioned changes offer the prospects of better landscaping and modest picnicking amenities.

Earlier in the year when we learned that the City was considering the vacation, some transportation advocates questioned whether the downtown core needed more surface lots, especially if built on public land.

At the October and November Vision 2020 Bike/Ped Workgroup meetings, Mark Shipman from Saalfeld Griggs very kindly joined the group and explained their hopes to purchase the lot and to make it into a more fully landscaped area around a 21-space parking lot expansion for clients and employees.

Though some members of the Vision 2020 group were ambivalent about the project, several members argued that the space along the Mill Race and the pedestrian path was downright unattractive in places, and that improved landscaping and use of the space would help to enliven it. They noted that it was a neglected "gateway" into the downtown core. As a whole the group expressed more interest in seeing a good project move forward than in taking a position against the vacation and sale.

At his second visit, Mark offered a sneak peek at the draft plans for the lot. The purchase is not final, so these are tentative and provisional. Nevertheless, the plans offer the prospect of making the area immediately overlooking the pedestrian underpass of Pringle Parkway a more lively place. The area is currently underused, and the Vision 2020 group was united in wishing for reasons for people to use the area and for improved landscaping to attract and delight the eye.

The overall plan makes use of lots of maples and gets rid of the ivy. The plant list also features Rhododendrons, vine maples, and looks to offer a good grouping of native plants. There's also some Japanese influence.

One of the highlights is a picnic area directly overlooking the plaza between arms of Pringle Parkway. The trees on either side of the area are cherry trees, and echo, perhaps intentionally, those on the Capitol Mall.

Regardless of what one thinks of the parking lot expansion, the landscaping plan looks significantly more inviting than what's there now!

Council Approves Restriping Plan

Good news! This evening City Council voted unanimously to move forward with the Commercial restriping plan. This is a big step for Salem and a great step in the right direction. Public Works did a terrific job of outreach and creating a plan that lots of very different people could get behind!

Crossing 12th at Mill Street

In this morning's Statesman is an article about the pedestrian bridge over 12th Street.

Crossing 12th street here is very difficult, and Willamette University and Tokyo International University of America together funded and built a private footbridge across 12th street. Initially the bridge was open, but vandalism and theft led the universities to close the bridge to the public. Crime diminished by 90%. It's hard to argue with that!

Nonetheless, the crossing remains difficult for the public, and the bridge is not very bike friendly.

The city has dormant plans to finish the 12th Street Promenade and add a pedestrian median to 12th. These plans could be funded by the bike/ped portion of the Keep Salem Moving road bond.

In general terms this is a great idea! Mill Street is an important low-traffic bikeway that connects to Willamette University. Just as Chemeketa is an important way between State and Center, so is Mill important between Mission and State.

The draft plan, however, requires bicyclists to use the crosswalk on the south side of the intersection. West-bound bike traffic is especially crimped in this way. The project can be improved so that both the walking and bicycling public can cross 12th Street more easily.

Commercial Street Plan...Finally at Council!

The Vision 2020 Bicycle and Pedestrian Connections Workgroup met on Wednesday, and we got confirmation that the downtown Commercial restriping plan will finally go to City Council on November 9th!

Lots of people have been working on it, and it has twisted and turned. The plan that is on the table (staff report here) enjoys a broad range of support, and while it is not perfect, the breadth of support should make for a stronger execution and set the table for future projects. This looks like real progress!

Those who support it include:
The Citizens Advisory Traffic Commission supports it unanimously.
A Go Downtown Salem survey of 34 businesses (out of 79 distributed surveys) support it 23:9 with one undecided.
And the Downtown Advisory Board supports it unanimously.

These groups were not all in support of the previous plan, and there is still considerable opposition to bike lanes on Commercial. But since bicyclists are themselves in many cases not persuaded that bike lanes here are best, it's not valid to conclude that merchants oppose bike lanes generally. Angle parking is a problem in many ways, and underlies much of the concern - though different parties value the angle parking very differently.

The plan is for lane reduction + sharrows. It will reduce Commercial from 4 to 3 lanes, and add sharrow markings on the outside lanes. The cross-section will have five segments: a 15 foot parking strip, 15 foot shared lane, 11 foot travel lane, 15 foot shared lane, and another 15 foot parking. The outer lanes with sharrows will be extra wide, allowing for flexibility in auto and bike positioning in the lane.

Here is a comparison of existing conditions and the proposed cross-section.



The use of sharrows on a high volume street like Commercial is perhaps stretching the customary uses for sharrows. With stop lights at every block, and with the signal timing, traffic engineers believe this is a sound use of them, albeit at the outer bounds of established practice. In some ways it will be a good experiment. Slow bicyclists and families were unlikely to want to bicycle on Commercial anyway, and the sharrows ratify that those who are confident enough to bike on Commercial will be doing so largely using vehicular cycling practices.

If approved, it is not yet certain when the rebuild will occur. The summer of 2010 is still a possibility, but the condition of underground utilities may require a delay.

The Commercial project will also extend south to the 12th Street cut-off. This is more than we were expecting, and the workgroup expressed interest in fixing two problematic Y-junctions: The Y at Liberty, and the Y at Sunnyview. A subcommittee will meet to analyze the intersection and to discuss bicycle improvements to propose.

We also learned that the balance of funding for signage on Chemeketa Street and the Union Street RR Bridge had been completed. Look for more on this once it's installed!

Buffett bets on Burlington; WES can't Silence Horns

Normally we're all about bikes here, but two pieces of rail news this morning are worth extra attention. Because, of course, with better rail, we don't need to make as many car or truck trips.

The big news is Warren Buffett's intention to purchase of Burlington Northern. When the shrewdest investor in America bets on rail rather than roads and road expansion, others are sure to listen.

In other news, Portland and Western, which operates the Westside Express Service, is resisting Trimet's request for quieter horns. According to the Oregonian

"We believe public safety is our No. 1 challenge," said Ron Russ, general manager for the railroad company, which operates WES for TriMet. "We're putting public safety at risk here by allowing the differential."

Not that safety is unimportant, but one would think that things like moving goods and maintaining schedules would be more central to the core mission of the railroad.

Here in Salem the bugaboo of overcautious rail safety concerns creates disruption in the downtown core along 12th street, where residents would like less horn, and made the Boise Redevelopment Project choose to close State street at the Carousel.

Perhaps Warren Buffett and the minds at Berkshire Hathaway will examine "rail safety" and offer improved risk analysis and create some novel solutions. We are hardly alone here, and if we are not to let rail lines slice and dice our communities, we will need to figure out better ways to create connections across railroads as in the next 50 years they will again be used more and more.

Addendum: Streetsblog has an interesting note in which the writer mentions the possibility that Buffett's move is more about moving coal and coal-burning electric plants, than about shifting transportation infrastructure. Even if it is, the investment will still surely bring more attention and other investment to rail.

Straight from NY Pizza and Bike Parking on the Other Corners

One of the best racks around town is the one on the rear of Straight From New York Pizza at the intersection of Owens and Commercial SE. It's from Creative Metalworks and is the same design as the one at LifeSource. On some days, the "Liberty" cut-out catches the afternoon sun and makes a lovely silhouette.

One of the principals of SFNY is a big bike commuter, and provided excellent pizza for the Bike Commute Challenge Kick-Off. Again, a big thanks to SFNY (and Indigo Wellness and Widmer Bros.)!

Turns out there's actually an interesting cluster of bike parking at the intersection!

Just across the street at the Best Little Roadhouse is a stylized bike. This rack is pretty, but as it is separated from the entry by quite a ways, and it is not visible from within the restaurant. But it does advertise bikes! Was there a bike shop nearby at one time?

And on another corner of the intersection, Dutch Brothers has two racks installed between the drive-thru and the sidewalk. The racks aren't ideally placed on the concrete pad, and it's not clear the pair could be loaded to intended capacity with four bikes. These look like they might be installed as part of code for new construction.

The cluster of bike parking, more than decent by Salem standards, suggests this could be an area for bikey business. Wouldn't that be great! The biggest problem is the difficulty of biking along South Commercial here. The road narrows and there's no bike lane. With the high speeds and high traffic volumes, the Salem-Keizer bike map marks it in red. While Saginaw offers a scenic low-traffic alternative, Saginaw is something of an orphan, dead-ending on both the north and south. Even so, there's intriguing potential here.

On the other side of downtown, at the corner of 13th and Chemeketa, Dr. Gary Boehne's dentist office has a cute bike rack that doubles as business sign and advert. It's visible from within and from the entry, and lacks only shelter to be top-notch. That's a great form of short-term parking for a trip to the dentist! (h/t reader Stephanie)