Trees in Salem - Crowdsource the Sequoia Class of 1872?

You probably have heard of Waldo Park. It's a dinky little thing with a couple of plaques located at the corner of Union and Summer Street.

It's not really interesting because of its size - and as Wikipedia points out, Mill Ends Park in Portland is actually smaller. No, Waldo Park is interesting because of the age of its tree. The City says

Waldo Park is named for Judge William Waldo who came to Salem in 1843. Waldo was a lawyer and later became a Marion County Judge. He lived on an estate along Mill Creek in what is now the center of Salem. In 1872, a traveling salesman with a bundle of redwood saplings, convinced Waldo and many other Salemites to purchase the miracle trees.

So where are the other Redwoods of '72? You'd think at least some of them have survived around town, and since houses from 1872 are few and far between, the locations of the trees might say something interesting about Salem history. If nothing else, some of the path of this mysterious salesman might be traced out.

But it's not obvious that someone has asked and documented this question. Cursory research hasn't turned up anything.

One of the problems, at least for me, is pervasive uncertainty about Redwoods and Sequoias. Wikipedia says Sequoia, the City says Redwood, and I'm not sure I can tell them apart. Based on the sizes of other trees of known date, it's hard to believe that the Waldo tree is really from 1872. Other, similar sized trees date from the middle of the 20th century.

The National Park Service and Sequoia Natural History Association have helpful discussions, but I'm still not confident. (Update: It's a Sequoia!)

Sequoia Natural History Association

So here's some notes on some big Redwood/Sequoia trees around town. Do you know anything about them? Maybe we can crowd-source a list and then map of the Redwoods of 1872!

After the Waldo tree, the next best known big trees of this type are surely the Star Trees at Willamette University. They seem to be Sequoias planted in 1942.

Here's another one whose date seems certain. One day I saw the owner of this house on Hoyt Street, and he said he'd planted the tree in the early 1960s. So it's only 50 years old.

On Hoyt

Minto Path and Orchard Heights Miss Cut for Bike and Ped Grants

It was great to see a story in the Statesman feature a bike project proposed in Silverton, but there were also three projects in Salem about which more could be said!

Crucially, two of them didn't make the cut.

It's old news, but the list of projects "not invited" to the second round for the Combined Transportation Enhancement - Bicycle and Pedestrian Projects 2012 Solicitation includes Salem's Orchard Heights and Minto Path projects.

Ouch.

On the list of "invited to apply" for round two, the Brown Road project made the cut!

That's the good news. Still, the Brown Road project is legacy remediation for sidewalks and bike lanes - nothing visionary or transformative.

It's frustrating because Salem could be developing stronger, more visionary projects, but the City does not.  Interestingly, Corvallis has three projects that made the cut. Even Marion County has one project at Hayesville.  

This is another reason for Council to take assertive action on Bike and Walk Salem - we're missing out on funding because our projects aren't the strongest!

ODOT Hosts Passenger Rail Open House Thursday

Exactly a century ago, in the summer of 1912 Salem had 8 daily round trips to Portland on the Oregon Electric. The Southern Pacific line had 6 northbound and 10 southbound.

That's 14 total to Portland and 18 total from Portland!

By contrast, in 2012 there are two Cascades and one Coast Starlight per day - 3 total!

Passenger rail service is lousy right now.

Fortunately ODOT is working on that. Via a study sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration,

ODOT is just beginning a study to improve passenger rail service between the Portland urban area and the Eugene- Springfield urban area. This 125-mile segment in Oregon is part of the Pacific Northwest Rail Corridor that stretches between Eugene, Oregon and Vancouver, B.C. The study will help decide on a general passenger rail route and evaluate options for train frequency, trip time, and improving on-time performance....

We are currently in “scoping” - an early step in the process to identify issues to be addressed. It is an important opportunity for public input.

On Thursday, September 6th, from 5pm to 7pm, there is an Open House in the ODOT Transportation Building, Gail Achterman Conference Room, 355 Capitol St NE, Salem, OR 97301.

The early phase will generate a "purpose and need" statement, followed by an Environmental Impact Statement and preferred alternative.

It is not clear whether this is the high-speed rail project. If not, it could represent a lower-cost solution with more immediate prospects for completion. If it is starting as a consideration of high-speed rail, part of the scoping could be to refocus on conventional rail.  (Rail Now! advocates have argued that ODOT shouldn't wait for high-speed rail to make improvements.)

In any event, rail's going to be in the news right now.  If there's an important negative case against coal shipments, there's a positive case for improved passenger rail service.  It's nice not to be just a nay-sayer!

Bike Commuter of the Day

During September's Bike Commute Challenge we'll have an occasional series on bike commuters in Salem!

Eric uses one of the new bike lockers installed recently! He has a five mile ride to and from the park-and-ride lot, and then goes in to his job in Wilsonville by motorpool or shuttle. He says he'll commute year-round this way.

He looked like a pretty confident rider, but many of the park-and-ride lots are located on intersections of very busy arterial roads, and they are not designed to attract "interested and concerned" or new riders. In order to become meaningfully attractive connections for the "last mile" leg of a trip, the park-and-ride lots as well as the roads adjacent to them will need improvements for people who bike or are interested in bicycling.

Area Commission on Transportation Meets Thursday; MWACT to Moot Modfifications

Remember the chart spaghetti?

The Mid-Willamette Valley Area Commission on Transportation meets on Thursday, and while pretty wonky, the discussion looks interesting and even important if you're into that sort of thing. The committee prioritizes millions of dollars of funding for road projects, so the discussion is far from merely academic.  (They will meet at 3:30pm, at Mid-Willamette Valley Council of Governments, 100 High St. SE, Suite 200.)

ODOT Director Matt Garrett will talk about "new directions" at ODOT (the 2-part interview at BikePortland is especially good - part 1, part 2).

Then folks will talk about the Oregon Transportation Commission's request that the composition of the Area Commissions on Transportation (which advise the OTC - see chart spaghetti!) include representatives from modes other than cars.

On the one hand the Portland Bicycle Transportation Alliance urged the OTC to include bicycling representatives on the ACTs.

Require any new local decision making process to include adequate multi-modal representation. ODOT has been working to improve their stakeholder outreach and engagement process through the ACTs and we ask that they continue by requiring explicit representation in the form of one seat each for public health, bicycling, pedestrian, transit, and land use representatives.

On the other hand, bicycle advocates who were around for the SKATS-BAC era (the Salem-Keizer Area Transportation Study Bicycle Advisory Committee) have suggested that the committee wasn't sufficiently independent and functioned largely to ratify decisions already made by staff. We have seen this over-and-over in the citizen committees charged with advising planning studies: Too often they have neither the information nor the power/authority to act effectively as a counterweight to staff.

MWACT as currently constituted here is heavily weighted in favor of persons advocating for facilities for the drive-alone trip. Just adding one voice for multi-modalism may not generate meaningful change.  It risks being something of a greenwash.

So the prospective change could be more cosmetic than structural.

Also on the agenda is information about pilot studies on a VMT tax for road funding, a tax on actual miles traveled rather than on gas purchased.

Between ODOT's own budget problems and the Federal changes in the new authorization, MAP-21, and onwards, things are changing, and it's an interesting time. But it's not yet clear how much will be just talk and how much will effect real structural change.

The Kroc Center's Industrial Wasteland Setting Forbids Kids - Updated

Is it really that much of a mystery? Ostensibly a center for families and children, the Kroc center is located in the middle of an industrial wasteland, rife with trucks and broken glass.

Two railroads, the Parkway, and Portland Road are all formidable barriers. Who's going to send their kids there?  You have to drive them.  Of course you do. 

Yet we have to ask why it is not successful?

Three years ago The Salvation Army Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in Salem opened to much fanfare and great expectations. Thousands of community members, from all walks of life, had banded together to turn a long-shot idea into reality. They raised $10 million, in part because other nonprofits put aside their own fundraising ambitions to focus on the Kroc project....

Civic leaders and residents believed they were getting a broad range of youth-focused programs and activities, not a fitness center that would compete with the private sector. They looked forward to kids being brought to the North Salem building from throughout Marion and Polk counties, with no child ever being turned away because of inability to pay.

Instead, the center seemed to turn inward instead of outward. The Salvation Army and the community clashed over its direction. Key community leaders dropped their association with it. Membership fell nearly in half. Employment had to be cut and a deficit developed. A transportation system for youth never came together; and minimum fees for youth were instituted, although Pontsler wants to increase the number of partial scholarships.[italics added]

It's in a freaking compound, ringed by multiple moats! Of course it turned inward - that's how it was sited and designed! And you shouldn't need a special transportation system for youth.  Ordinary walking, biking, and bus service should suffice.  But the siting is so bad that even pro-walking and biking parents would be foolish not to drive their kids.

How messed up is that?

The Kroc Center probably has multiple challenges, but an important one that is not getting enough play is the structural one caused by its location, the barriers that surround it, and its lack of transportation connections.

Update! Sunday night

The Kroc Center Access Study has a website now. It it mainly looking at the problem of coming from Keizer and crossing the Parkway.  It's not looking at Salem Industrial Drive, at crossing Portland Road, or other parts of the connectivity deficit.  Just getting across the Parkway and RR lines.

Here, for example, is one bridge concept (all of them can be seen on the project document page; the bridge concepts document seems to have the embedding disabled, unfortunately.)

On the Advisory Committee are Robert Fox and Kenji Sugahara.

New Flashing Beacon at Crosswalk on Court Street

What do you suppose the Golden Pioneer thinks of the new flashing beacons alongside the crosswalk on Court Street at the Capitol Mall?

A couple of weeks ago in a comment Stephanie pointed them out and asked about their effectiveness.

The crosswalk itself isn't striped yet, so the crossing isn't complete and the full suite of visual signals to drivers isn't either.

But in the bright morning sun after Breakfast on Bikes on Friday, it was not difficult to see some questions.

Maybe it's the angle of the photos here, but it sure seems like between the contrast and a bit of sign clutter, the beacons don't necessarily stand out as important visual data. The contrast is interesting, and a function of light levels and the green foliage. But the signs really don't stand out from a distance. In the fall and winter, when there's less green on the trees and the sun is at a different angle, things may be different. But the signs just didn't pop with "pay attention!" until you got closer - after stopping distance.