Walk and Bike to School Day Gets Nice Press; Memorials, also

So it turns out that Washington Elementary School may be the epicenter of walking and biking to school in Salem!

Yesterday's Walk+Bike to School Day enjoyed nice coverage with a story and big photos on the front of the Mid-Valley section in today's paper.

Washington Elementary School students already walk in greater numbers than most schools around the district, according to a 2010 survey of 2,750 Salem parents. As many as 43 percent walk home, according to the survey. Poton hopes to boost those numbers and to make sure they’re doing it safely.

He often sees students arrive at school on bikes without helmets, he said, likely because families can’t afford them. He is looking for community partners, including the local fire department, to help fill that need.

So far his efforts to get students moving have paid off. As many as 300 students walked or biked to Washington on Wednesday, according to his count.

Washington Elementary School was one of five schools selected for an in-depth analysis as part of Bike and Walk Salem's Safe Routes to Schools recommendations. (The other schools: Englewood, Hoover, and Faye Wright Elementary Schools, and Walker Middle School.)

Map of Improvements proposed in
Bike and Walk Salem's
Safe Routes to School Plan
(click to enlarge)

It may be that if we are talking about "return on investment," this is a part of town where devoting a relatively greater proportion of resources will yield a commensurately greater reward.

Though the SJ piece focuses on Elementary schools, Waldo Middle School is practically co-located here, and as middle school students are significantly more independent and have better judgment than elementary schools, investments for Washington students should enjoy a multiplier effect - though if Waldo students aren't walking and biking much, it would be interesting to learn more about why there is such a difference.

In any case, maybe we need to think hard about focusing a larger proportion of investment here.

Office Building by Pietro Belluschi Demolished Today? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!

A commenter reports that the mid-century modern medical clinic at 13th and Center designed by Pietro Belluschi was demolished today.

Medical Clinic Designed by Pietro Belluschi at 13th and Center

Anyone else gone by the site and can give additional confirmation on this?

Another reader pointed out by email that a broker's website lists it for sale as "land."  So demolition looks all too possible.

The Coldwell Banker listing is for "land" and not a building

While the building is "minor" Belluschi, about him the Oregon Encyclopedia says:

Pietro Belluschi of Portland was an internationally known architect and a key innovator in the development of an elegant modernism, especially in residences suited to the materials and climate of the Pacific Northwest. His work won him widespread admiration and resulted in his appointment as dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....During the second half of the twentieth century, Belluschi was a major architectural visionary in Oregon and the United States. He was admired for his use of fine craftsmanship and careful detailing, his response to regional conditions, and his preference for classical clarity of form.

He was a big deal. Preservation of the building might not have been possible, but that its demolition would occasion no debate and happen in silence in Salem would be a travesty. 

If true, where's the Historic Landmarks Commission when you need them?!  How is it possible to get a demolition permit without raising flags?  WTF!  Geez.

Here is the best list I have of Salem buildings he designed (#7 now gone, and #6 looks to follow in the State Hospital redevelopment):

1. Willamette University Library/ Smullin Hall, 900 State St., 1938
2. Willamette University Science Building, 1941
3. Willamette University Baxter Complex, 1943
4. Willamette University Doney Hall, 1948

5. Oregon Statesman Printing Plant, 280 Church St. NE, 1944
6. Oregon State Hospital, Breitenbush Hall, 2600 Center St. NE, 1945-50
7. Clinic for Clark Campbell and Wulf, 1280 Center St. NE, 1948
8. First National Bank of Portland, 280 Liberty St. NE, 1947
9. YWCA Building, 768 State St., 1946-52
10. Marion County Courthouse, 100 High St. NE, 1950

Drink a toast tonight, friends. Raise your glass to Pietro Belluschi.

Commercial Real Estate Newsbits

A good bit of interesting commercial real estate news over the past few days!

The big news that REI choose Keizer Station for a Salem area store.  It makes sense - new construction, easy for tenant improvements, big parking lot, easy access to I-5 for its regional draw.

But still.

Vacant big box - former Safeway on Middle Commercial

As the Transportation and Growth Management proposal recently awarded a grant says,"several parcels such as the old Safeway store remain vacant or underutilized" in the middle Commercial district.

REI also would have been a terrific anchor-type tenant for the Boise redevelopment project. Or maybe a different parcel in or near downtown. The Portland store on NW 14th and Johnson might have been a model more than the Jantzen Beach store, which closed when the downtown location opened.

Faux Streetcar style of Keizer Station

Instead, they'll by-pass Salem for the faux "town center" of Keizer Station.

So What about that Urban Land Institute Report on Boise and the Carousel?

Good for architect Geoffrey James for putting out some ideas for a revised approach to redeveloping the Boise Property.

His first two points are:

1. Implement the ULI Plan in next two decades
2. Extend Riverfront Park south to encompass mouth of Pringle Creek

As others have pointed out, in at least one important way, his vision differs from that of the Urban Land Institute. Points 1 and 2 are, if not contradictory, at least in tension.

Urban Land Institute Report, 2006
(click to see notes in red)

The Urban Land Insitute proposal (additional slide deck here) uses State Street as the primary access for two mid-rise mixed-use buildings:

St. Mark's Celebrates St. Francis with Lectures on the Environment

Pope Francis is everywhere in the news these days, and you don't have to be Catholic to be intrigued by the audacity of taking on the name of the most universally loved saint. That's setting a high bar for yourself!

And it also no doubt raises the visibility of those themes closest to St. Francis, two of which are obviously animals and the environment.

Turns out the Feast Day of Saint Francis is Friday, October 4th, and St. Mark's Lutheran has structured what looks like it could be a fascinating series of lectures around the feast.

St. Mark's Lutheran

As part of their Visiting Theologian progam, Dr. Barbara Rossing will talk about Christianity, ecology, and environmental ethics.  The first talk today, on Thursday the 3rd, will be in Corvallis at OSU, and the Friday and Saturday talks will be in Salem at St. Mark's.  (See the schedule or brochure for full details.)

Catching up on Two 2013 State Reports

These reports have been out for a while, but with the Legislature seemingly fumbling the special session - at least the State government's not just simply "shut down" - it seemed like a good time for the ODOT summary of transportation-related legislation and for a quick hit quote from the Global Warming Commission.

ODOT 2013 Legislative Summary

The Legislative Summary reports on some 42 bills from the House and 35 bills from the Senate that became law. And some other stuff.

Oregon Global Warming Commission 2013 Report

Not good news from the Global Warming Commission report:

Oregon is not on track. “On track” would mean a GHG reduction trajectory that reduced emissions some 20 percent between 2010 and 2020 (only seven years away)....Only in transportation do we see downward‐trending emissions curves that look sustainable, and these are still not dropping sharply enough to track Oregon’s goals....Improving transit, bike, pedestrian and car‐share modes are essential to our region’s economic and equity goals as well as our environmental ones...

If anything, the brand-new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is even grimmer.

Warming in the climate system is unequivocal and since 1950 many changes have been observed throughout the climate system that are unprecedented over decades to millennia. Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850.

(More from IPCC here.)

Newsbits: Trees, Rain, Capitol 75th, MWACT

Maybe not sun, but the cloud cover is breaking some, and the intensity of light finally yielding some soft shadows!   Gads it was a gloomy weekend.

There was a nice guest opinion in the paper yesterday about the value of urban trees and mentions they ways they help reduce speeds on streets and roads.

Ha ha!  Remember when it was spring and summer and sunny?

Our Area Commission on Transportation, MWACT, meets on Thursday, and both the agenda and info packet are on line.

at the Capitol

One interesting bit: Cherriots is cranky at the bike/ped people! And it's the result of the highway and autoist policy of divide and conquer. 

From the minutes to the August meeting:

[Cathy Clark said] "Transit ongoing operational expenses, specifically buses, should be a budgeted item rather than a less certain competitive grant process.” Marcia Kelley added that at the end of the meeting she indicated that transit needed to be better represented in projects, or they would have to take up the issue with the process because flexible funds are their only funding source as they can't use the highway dollars...

Allen Pollock, Salem - Keizer Transit, stated that he understands that resources are limited. However, he commented that there is only one transit project included on the MWACT priority list [for "Enhance" funds]. The rest of the projects are bicycle/pedestrian projects. He encouraged commissioners to consider equity issues. Perhaps some of the other projects could be scaled back to allow funding for another transit project.

The problem here isn't that there's too much money going to bike/ped stuff; on the contrary, there's still too little.  The problem, rather, is that we don't have a good mechanism for funding transit.  We're all just begging for the table scraps.