Cherriots to Reconsider SRC; Notes on Lansing-NESCA, OR-22-Mission Street

N3B reported last week that Cherriots' Board voted unanimously to

oppose the City of Salem’s current land use action to expand the city’s Urban Growth Boundary and amend the Transportation System Plan and to authorize Director [Kathy] Lincoln at the October 12th Joint Public Hearing on behalf of the Board of Directors.

Apparently they are being urged (or pressured) to reconsider.

Bolted onto a Work Session for Monday the 10th is a Special Meeting to reconsider the position. (Agenda and meeting packet here.)

From the GM's Staff Report:

This action was taken based, in part, for the following reasons:

• The City was rushing the action when technical reports are not complete to review on the Salem Alternative;
• Jurisdiction of the bridge has not been determined;
• The Salem River Crossing (SRC) Oversight Committee should have been reconvened to discuss the proposed action. This resulted in the Transit District not being included in the conversation.

Since the Board’s action, the City of Salem published the October 12th public hearing notice on September 22; and on September 29, twelve (12) report addenda and summaries were posted on the City’s website.

In addition , the Board received feedback from other members of the SRC and the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce requesting they reconsider their action. As a result, President Krebs called for a special meeting of the Board to discuss this situation and consider whether or not the action should be rescinded, modified, or left as is.

The three bullet points seem pretty well founded, so there's no real reason for Cherriots to back down. The rushing is even worse than what is portrayed in the Staff Report: The set of memos from September 29th were all deleted, replaced, shuffled, and augmented in the blizzard.

Something they might consider also is that they do have leverage at SKATS-PC, which requires a unanimous vote "by consensus." One of the members of SKATS-PC routinely complains about walking, biking, and transit projects, and frequently enough leaves the room in order to avoid an abstention or a vote against. While this is a kind of "playing along" it's also a power move and represents a threat: Fellow SKATS-PC members as well as staff are on notice that there might come a time when the negative vote will actually be cast, halting a project, and so this has a chilling effect. This promotes reduced ambition for walking, biking, and transit projects. Cherriots could be more assertive about potentially voting against projects that are excessively autoist. Autoist interests may be taking advantage of the politeness of others.

Cherriots' position on the proposed Urban Growth Boundary is one such moment when they might usefully speak out against excessive autoism.

Moreover, since the Chamber has done them no favors, it is an open question what favors they owe the Chamber. (Update - See below for great news on their testimony!)

Memo on Alternate Modes Study, Pt 2 - TDM Badly Underfunded

For the full introduction and part 1, see here.

Moving over to the "Transportation Demand Management" side of the Alternate Modes Study, the overwhelming impression is a set of projects marginalized and underfunded. Most of the programming is solidly "alternate," secondary in most every way, and rarely represents a serious attempt to accomplish something substantial. It's fiddling on the edges in a way that is mostly for show; institutionally as expressed in budgets and FTE there is not enough care whether something actually succeeds. Programming is not actually being positioned for success.

Transportation Demand Management (TDM)

The TDM recommendations are divided into two broad groups, TDM Implementation Strategies and TDM Concepts. The TDM Concepts are further divided into five categories, with some overlap: (1) Multi-Modal Concepts, (2) Bicycle/Pedestrian Specific Concepts, (3) Transit Specific Concepts, (4) Parking Specific Concepts, and (5) Carpool/Vanpool Specific Concepts. Cherriots Rideshare serves as the lead organization for TDM in the Salem area.

TDM Implementation Strategies

There has been some progress on advancing three of the four implementation strategies identified in the Alternate Modes Study.

• Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator: The City added an additional transportation planner position in 2011, thereby doubling the staff devoted to transportation planning. Both transportation planners cover all aspects of transportation planning. The new transportation planner has taken the lead on managing bike parking and implementing bicycle destination signing, among other responsibilities.

"Both transportation planners cover all aspects of transportation planning." This is not a dedicated Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator yet. The FTE added in 2011 is nice and all, but there is not a dedicated advocate inside the City for walking and biking. We try not to get personal here, but it should be noted that one of the City's planners who "covers all aspects" is the City's lead on the SRC and the author of this memo. A charitable construction on that is there are divided loyalties, and walking and biking consequently suffer. "When everyone is in charge no one in charge" etc. This is an institutional and organizational problem, a City problem with job descriptions and funded priorities, and not any personal failure, of course.

• Transit Funding: As discussed earlier in this memo, transit district funding continues to be limited. However, the Transit District has proactively worked to improve the effectiveness of their service and this is reflected in the coming changes identified in the Moving Forward plan. In addition, the Transit District has laid the groundwork for expanding service to evenings and weekends when funding allows. This work provides a strong foundation for future funding opportunities.

For last November's ballot measure, the Chamber of Commerce mounted a massive anti-transit campaign and Salem Hospital took $50,000 they received from Cherriots and turned around and donated $50,000 to the anti-transit campaign.

Memo on Alternate Modes Study Shows How Little has been Done

One of the blizzard of documents the City and SRC project team posted to the City's UGB Hearing website is interesting for a couple of reasons.

First off, the "Salem River Crossing Alternate Modes Study Implementation Overview" is addressed to the "Salem River Crossing Project File." It didn't go to City Council or SKATS or any other public body. It was never posted to the SRC's own website as part of the Oversight Team's materials. Instead it was private and internal, and it points to the existence of a trove of non-public memos and analyses. It would be interesting to see what else has not been made public.

Second, the memo is disproportionately lengthy relative to the actual scope of accomplishments. It says "The purpose of this memo is to document actions identified in this study [the Salem River Crossing Alternate Modes Study] that have occurred or otherwise advanced towards implementation in the last five years."

This will be tedious, but we'll go through all of the "actions" and assess them. The pattern that emerges is a consistent ratcheting up of small things in an attempt to make them seem like big things. There is a scattershot pattern of fragmentary actions. Individually they are real things, but together they remain too small, too disconnected, and too partial to make for effective change. They are window dressing more than substance. Until they participate in fully connected networks, they remain weak measures, sometimes more for show than substance.

Some sections of the memo also discuss measures not called for in the Alternate Modes Study. So while it may be true that the City did something with this measure or that, they do not fulfill or complete recommendations in the Alternate Modes Study itself, and to cite them as such is to lard the memo with extras or a bit of a bait-and-switch.

Finally some paragraphs repeat material and might give the impression of more action than is warranted.

(Throughout, memo language will be in italics and mostly indented. Commentary will be in roman type and non-intended. Hopefully this will be clear. For convenience we'll also abbreviate as the "Alt Modes Study" from time to time.)

The Blizzard and the Shifting Sands: City Fails on Statewide Planning Goal 1

Between the massiveness of the document dump and the compressed time lines, the SRC team has failed to observe Statewide Planning Goal 1 on "Citizen Involvement."

The Schedule was Orchestrated

Minutes from July 26th SKATS-PC Meeting

You might remember from the July SKATS-PC meeting:

Due to public and agency involvement requirements, a joint jurisdiction/agency/Interested Party public hearing will likely be scheduled in mid-October. The purpose of involving multiple participants is to ensure that all parties receive the same information along with everyone hearing public testimony at the same time. Confusion is likely to be less if all parties are provided with the same material, information, testimony at the same time.

Minutes from August 23rd Cherriots Work Session

And from the August 23rd Cherriots work session:

Director Lincoln asked how the Board can review the Technical Reports. Ms. Warncke said the reports will be available seven days before the public hearing on the City’s website for land use records.

The schedule was compressed on purpose and information was withheld from other Public Agencies in addition to the general public.

The Document Dump was a Blizzard

Part of the plan was clearly to overwhelm critics and other citizens with an impossibly large burden of reading material.

Here are the total document lists late on Friday the 7th.

26 documents under "staff reports"

SRC Energy Report: Net Increase in Energy, Petroleum Consumption

You probably heard about Kendall-Jackson/Jackson Family Wines purchase of WillaKenzie Estate. In addition to wanting to add Oregon wines to their portfolio, California firms are hedging against climate change: In a generation or two our cool-climate vineyards will be grafted over to warmer-climate grapes, and it is likely that what we think of as Napa and Sonoma will have moved north to the Willamette Valley. Big Wine recognizes this and is executing on long-term moves to keep their businesses going for generations from now.

Climate change in wine: 2003 was really hot,
and was our hottest vintage until 2014 and 2015 eclipsed it.
via Linfield Wine History Archive

Hurricane Matthew promises a huge storm surge in Florida, and between rising sea levels and increased energy for the hurricane's winds and rains, its impact is exacerbated by climate change.

I don't know that there needs to be a whole lot of introduction to the Energy Technical Report Addendum on the Salem River Crossing. The report is clear that the Preferred Alternative does not lessen greenhouse gas emissions by reducing congestion and idling. On the contrary, it "would provide a net increase in energy consumption."

Our greenhouse gases are supposed to go down,
but the SRC causes a 16% increase in energy use
(Notional comment in red added*;
DLCD Greenhouse Gas Target Rule Presentation)

Those who say that the SRC would reduce greenhouse gas emissions because of improved traffic flow are wrong according to the SRC's own analysis.

Any greenhouse gas reduction on SRC-related travel would come from fuel shifts in the composition of the aggregate motor fleet, not from improved free-flowing auto traffic. Because of induced demand, "the increase in traffic volume," the SRC will make things worse.

If our goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we should seek to make driving trips shorter, and to make it easy not to make driving trips at all. The SRC does not contribute to either. In this, the SRC is inconsistent with HB3543, which calls for us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 75% below 1990 levels by 2050.

It is also inconsistent with Statewide Planning Goal 13 "to conserve energy," OAR 660-015-0000(13):

Land and uses developed on the land shall be managed and controlled so as to maximize the conservation of all forms of energy, based upon sound economic principles.

This may be relevant in the approval criteria for the proposed UGB expansion.

From the Technical Addendum, Section 4.2.1 "Impact Analysis, Direct Impacts":

[V]ehicles traveling along the routes identified in the study area would consume approximately 475,132 MBtus of energy per year by 2040. This is the equivalent of approximately 3.91 million gallons of fuel. The preferred alternative would result in a 16.1 percent increase in operational energy consumption in 2040 compared to the No Build Alternative....

The preferred alternative is expected to have more vehicular demand compared to No Build Alternative because of expanded roadway capacity from the new north bridges and extension of Marine Drive to connect Riverbend Road to the north and OR 22 to the south. Despite the increase in traffic volume, the preferred alternative has slightly higher speeds (less delay) compared to the No Build Alternative. This results in higher fuel efficiency but does not offset the increase in traffic volume, so energy consumption will increase between scenarios. Also, the distance of all the segments for the preferred alternative are longer than the distances in No Build Alternative due to the extension of Marine Drive. Since the preferred alternative has more segments and more mileage than the No Build Alternative, it will result in higher energy consumption. [italics added]

City Council, October 10th - The Big Jump

Council meets on Monday, and between the water rates Public Hearing and the SRC Public Hearing on the 12th, there's not a lot of room for other things.

But one item is particularly interesting. The City is going to make formal application for the People for Bikes "Big Jump" project.

The Big Jump Project is a three-year effort to help 10 places achieve a big jump in biking – a doubling or tripling of people riding – by building a network of safe and comfortable places to ride and engaging the community. The goal is also to validate a core concept: that if a city does all the right things, more people will ride and the community will be a better place to live, work and play. The Big Jump team is looking for 10 places that will achieve great things for biking between now and 2020.

The City proposes to focus on

the area generally bounded by Salem Parkway to the north, 12th Street to the east, Bush’s Pasture Park to the south, and the Willamette River to the west. This focus area meets many of the interest areas prioritized by the Big Jump Project, including safety, access to jobs in neighborhoods with concentrations of low income residents, connecting to paths and parks to encourage physical activity, and growing tourism.

Wildlife Addendum Dismisses Heron Rookery: McLane Island Needs more Study

A while back N3B observed that there was a significant Heron rookery on McLane Island and that the bridge and its construction activity would disturb it.

Nesting Herons - via Eastside Audubon of King County

As with the Geology Technical Addendum, the Wildlife report is cavalier and shallow. Other agencies and organizations also echo the notion that the level of study and communication to this point is shallow and incomplete. From multiple sources and angles, not just transportation advocates, there is an accumulating body of evidence that the SRC is being rushed at this moment.

(Which is ironic since it has been going on for a decade! It is likely that elements of rushing and superficial analysis are a product of a bad project: If the SRC was such an obvious good thing, we would see more concise reports with greater clarity in conclusions and more frictionless communication, with longer lead-times, between agencies. It wouldn't all come to this last-minute rush. The lurching and clogging and uncertainty is a kind of epiphenomenon arising out of a dumb idea and poorly designed project. A sound project would be so much easier to process and there would be something closer to a positive consensus.)

Here's what the SRC has to say in the Wildlife Technical Report Addendum*:

Impacts to birds would stem from habitat loss and from increased noise levels. Bald eagles potentially use areas within the API, but nesting bald eagles have not been observed within 1 mile of the ROW footprint since 2006 (ORBIC, 2016). Operation of the preferred alternative could disturb resting or foraging eagles and other raptors. However, raptors using this area are habituated to traffic and anthropogenic noise, and adverse effects are unlikely.

ESA-listed species, such as northern spotted owl, marbled murrelet, streaked horned lark, and yellow-billed cuckoo, are not known to occur in the API, although potentially suitable habitat exists for lark and cuckoo. Consequently, adverse effects on these species are not expected.

Other migratory birds most likely will be displaced from lost or modified habitats, or acclimate to traffic-related disturbances. Among those likely to be displaced are great blue herons reported to nest in a rookery on McLane Island. The MBTA ensures that tree clearing will not interfere with nesting behavior.

The new elevated bridge and viaduct structures over water and adjacent to tree canopies might cause potential bird-strike impacts. Birds typically fly in evasive trajectories during daylight hours with high visibility, but may not be able to see fencing, netting, railing, lighting, or other features of the elevated structures, or vehicles, as well during periods of low visibility and at night, particularly during migration, when their flight trajectories may be more haphazard, and collisions may be more likely (Dirksen et al., 2000). In addition, birds are known to fly at lower elevations during migration when weather is unfavorable, increasing collision risk (Richardson, 2000). Birds tend to be attracted by, and disoriented by, bright white lights, especially during migration, at night, and during poor weather or fog (Avery et al., 1976; Longcore et al., 2008). Disorientation during flight will be minimized by dark-sky lighting techniques.

Some birds may use the new transportation structures for nesting or perching sites. For example, swallows may nest in the bridge and viaduct, and birds of prey may benefit from the nesting swallows. [italics added]

It seems pretty clear that this was an "arm chair" investigation, conducted by desk, and that no actual wildlife survey or other field investigation for birds was conducted!