ODOT's Careless Approach on US20 Project Echoes in Geology Report for SRC

Maybe you will know otherwise, but I don't see any language about "earthquake" or "seismic event" in chapter 660 of the Oregon Administrative Rules that will govern the decision on the Urban Growth Boundary for the Salem River Crossing. There is Goal 7 about "Areas Subject to Natural Disasters and Hazards," but I couldn't find any corresponding rules. (Do you know where they are?)

So the fact that the SRC is proposed for unsuitable soils may not be directly relevant to the approval criteria of that Hearing. From here, for a non-specialist, it's hard to fit into the framework of the UGB decision.

Still, the Geology Final Technical Report Addendum is out, as are all the other addenda, and posted to the City website late last week.

It does not inspire confidence. And it seems relevant nonetheless.

ODOT's Big Project on Unstable Soil was a Disaster

"Ground Anchors" on an unstable hillside,
for US20 on the Pioneer Mountain to Eddyville segment

The other day you might have heard about the "Play on the Grade" event to commemorate the forthcoming opening of the Highway 20 Pioneer Mountain to Eddyville project.

But that's a big happy face on an embarrassing and costly mess for ODOT.

Portland Road Study Moves Quickly on the Mercado Concept

The North Gateway Redevelopment Advisory Board meets tomorrow, and in addition to the Portland Road project, there are some additional tidbits on the Epping parcel.

Former Rose Gardens Motel on Portland Road
(See history of motel here)

From last month's minutes (agenda and full meeting packet here):

Residential will be installed in the back with the two pads in front reserved for retail development (pads are owned by the Epping family trust). Targeted rental group will be individuals or families earning 60% of median income. Total development costs for the 180 units was opined along with the construction time frame (2018-2019). Anticipated funding will require that the project maintain affordability for 60 years.

That's good to learn about the plan for retail in front along Portland Road. While it won't be mixed-use in a vertical orientation, it will be mixed-use on the horizontal axis. That's promising!

The 60-year horizon is also interesting. Will the construction itself be robust enough to have a reasonable expected life-span of 60 years? New construction is sometimes not high enough quality for a reasonable expectation of several decades of use, and with a low-income housing project, there might be too many cut-corners in order to maintain a profit. That will be interesting to watch, although it may not be possible in any public documentation to assess the quality of design and construction.

Grant Neighborhood Association on Thursday is Packed!

Jason Lee Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, circa 1912
via Streetview, 2012

The Grant Neighborhood Association has an interesting meeting for Thursday the 6th.

But first a note from last month's meeting:

The Jason Lee Church is combining its dwindling congregation with Englewood Methodist. They are looking for creative uses for their building. It would be worth our while to engage them and pursue uses and historic preservation of the structure.

Hopefully they'll find new uses for the building. It's a little chunky and blocky, and I do not think of it as among Salem's loveliest just on aesthetics alone. (Here's one of the Barrick postcards with an historic image. They pressed their own concrete blocks, so there's some DIY involved! The First Congregational Church on the Park Blocks in Portland is a little older, and altogether more graceful in comparison.) But by Salem standards it's more than a little venerable and it seems like a candidate to be deconsecrated and repurposed for secular ends. Right across the street there is one of Salem's old fire stations, now an office or something (see here on one of its southside mates), and the six-legged intersection on Fairgrounds and Winter has a pleasantly weird energy that seems ripe for a new vision and modest redevelopment.

And in that light, next month the November meeting looks interesting:

Jason Lee Church – future prospects
Heritage Films – Salem Heritage All Star Forum – Kimberli Fitzgerald
Capitol Building Relics form 1935 Fire – Alice LaViolette

I know NEN has some of the 1935 relics. You can see them in Mill Creek at Olinger pool, just on the west of the 13th St. footbridge behind ODOT. Does Grant also have some relics? That could be interesting!

And you might recall that Heritage video, which seemed so much more expressive, soulful, and vital than the "sizzle" video by the Chamber.

The latest on Marine Drive, Second Street,
and the Union St RR Bridge paths and trestle (July 2016)

On the agenda itself for the 6th are Marine Drive and the Union Street Railroad Bridge, the UGB amendments for the Salem River Crossing, and a lively discussion on the right size for a new Police Station:

[6] West Salem Business District Feasibility Study, Virginia Green;
[7] Salem Plan Amendment UGB Changes, Cara Kaser;
[8] City Water Rates Discussion;
[9] Police Facility Discussion
Keep Salem Safe – Yes on 24-399, Patrick Sieng;
Salem Can Do Better PAC, Carole Smith and/or Brian Hines;
Questions & Answers & Discussion;

That's a lot of meaty topics of citywide significance as well having neighborhood impact, and if you live in the Grant neighborhood it would be worth your while. 

The Grant Neighborhood Association meeting is on Thursday the 6th, at 6:15pm in the Library of Grant Community School, 725 Market St NE.

Strong Towns is about Creating Value - Market Value and Social Value

If you didn't already have an interest in the Strong Towns thesis, what would draw you in for the lecture on Wednesday the 5th?

I was trying to think of an image or idea that would attract someone who'd never heard of Strong Towns or Chuck Marohn and who didn't respond to the question, "How can Salem become a Strong Town?" Someone who hadn't already decided that there was a problem with the way we plan, design, and build our urban streets and suburban subdivisions. Someone new, even skeptical.

And I think it's the fiscal efficiency argument that seems key: Compact, downtown development is way more efficient in creating personal wealth for owners, jobs for employees, and tax value for municipalities than suburban or big box development. That's it. That's the key to the argument. Most everything else follows from that. It's a financial argument about how best to create value for multiple layers in a city.

Detail via Twitter

Of course Chuck also seems like a friendly guy. Though he doesn't really self-identify as a "cyclist," he's interested in bike transport as a valuable thing for cities and residents.

Provincialism as Liability: Earthquake may Strand Salem without Surgeons

Sunday's piece about earthquake prep touched on transportation and civic culture.

Are we overdependent on surgeons who live in Portland?

You might remember from 2010:

Promoting the Salem area to incoming physicians can be challenging: The cost of living in Salem is comparable to other parts of the U.S.; reimbursements are lower in small-population states such as Oregon; and Salem's demographic size can be a tough sell to a new medical school graduate from Chicago, Seattle or New York.

"Salem looks very rural," [executive director of the Marion-Polk County Medical Society, Dean] Larsen said.

And back in 2012 when the corporate office of Holiday Retirement relocated to the Portland area:

The exodus of Holiday Retirement's headquarters to a Portland suburb reflects a persistent problem for Salem. The City of Roses is viewed as the state's business and cultural hub. Executives with the money and means often chose Portland over Salem for their homes. Even the governor [Kitz at that time] lives in Portland and commutes to Salem. When businesses and their employees flee Salem for Portland, money and community leadership go north as well....

Company officials told the Business Journal that it wanted to be in a metropolitan area, close to a major airport as well as its vendors and investors. They also noted that many of Holiday Retirement's employees already lived in the Portland area....

And a couple of years before that, in conversation a substantial Salem business owner said that six of the seven senior managers chose to live elsewhere at that time.

When we want to define ourselves as "not-Portland" or "not-Eugene" or "not-urban," there are costs to succeeding in that, and the loss of highly skilled, highly educated specialists is probably one of them. Our proud provincialism goes overboard sometimes, and there are ways we might instead want to be more attentive to - indeed sometimes straight-up copy even -  things Portland, Eugene, or other more cosmopolitan cities do better.

via Twitter

We don't have to flatten our narratives into one-dimensional comparisons. We can say things like "I want Salem to be more like Portland and have more low-traffic bikeways, but I don't want Salem to be like Portland in having a much higher cost of housing." Useful comparison is more complicated than simple imitation!

For earthquake prep this is a secondary point, to be sure, and no matter what Salem was like, some people might still wish to live in Portland. But there are strategic reasons to reconsider our provincialism and attachment to Salem's "uniqueness" and to give more thought to times they might hinder rather than help us.

October 5th: Walk+Bike to School Day, Strong Towns Curbside Chat, ADUs

Wednesday, October 5th is a busy day!

Over at Just Walk, about a month ago they posted about October 5th's Walk+Bike to School Day.

In light of our autoism, the response was not wholly surprising: Crickets.

The only response was from the Sponsor, the former Bicycle Transportation Alliance. The Just Walk members did not find it interesting or engaging, it seems.

The event hasn't picked up traction elsewhere, and most are passing by it in silence.

So here's another reminder. Walk+Bike to School Day is next Wednesday, October 5th. There is swag!

Registering is simple. Sign your school up for Walk+Bike to School Day here. After you register, you can order fun, free incentives to motivate your student body to walk, bike, or scoot to school. All Oregon schools registered for Walk+Bike to School Day are eligible to receive $40 worth of free incentives. Order your prizes here.

Salem-Keizer schools that are registered:

• Grant
• JGEMS
• Washington
• Forest Ridge

So there's lots of opportunity, as they say! Sign up, hurry, hurry!

Transportation Editorial Leads with Fix-it First; Congestion Relief comes Last

Probably in today's paper or online you saw the Op-Ed by Sen. Lee Beyer and Rep. Caddy McKeown on the prospects and need for a transportation package in the 2017 Legsislative session.

Mostly it's summary and inoffensive boilerplate, and yet there do appear to be some priorities or values instantiated in it.

It leads with "Preservation," with a statement for "Fix it First."

The package, many said, must focus on preserving the investments Oregonians have already made in highways, roads and bridges. Our state faces an annual $324 million shortfall just when it comes to adequately maintaining bridges and pavement. Local leaders have told us repeatedly that they, too, are faced with the prospect of roads returning to gravel because they don’t have enough resources to maintain them.

Then "Safety."

In every region of the state, we saw examples of the dangers facing drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians. We heard fervent requests for improvements to ensure all kids have safe routes to their schools. We learned about the grave risks posed by the looming Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, and the need for seismic upgrades to key roads and bridges to ensure we can quickly move toward recovering and rebuilding after a seismic event. We also heard about the need for more and better climbing lanes on our interstates to improve freight mobility and safety for everyone on the road.

Safe Routes to Schools and the prospect of earthquake came before freight mobility and highway safety.

This isn't a formal program or anything, so it's not wise to put to much weight on this, but the ordering here is nice to see.

Then comes "Transit." Of course we have great needs for better transit funding.

And in last place comes "Congestion." And when it is mentioned, it is "Portland" congestion, not statewide congestion. In the statewide perspective, Salem doesn't have very bad congestion!

Adding lanes doesn't work (CalDOT)

And in fact, when we make investments in things like Safe Routes to Schools and better bike lanes and sidewalks and in better transit service, we are able to reduce congestion more effectively and more cheaply than when we try - and ultimately fail - to build our way out of congestion by more road widening or new roads.

So as far as these things go, the opinion piece seems like a reasonable statement of priorities. Interpreted literally - which, you know, may not be a safe thing to do - it doesn't leave room for follies like the Salem River Crossing. And hopefully that will remain true.