Cooke's goes back to 1870s, not just 1930s

Oof! In unsurprising but still painful news, it looks like Cooke Stationery is closing. 21st century retailing and digital modes finally caught up with the distinctly analog and old-school stationery store.

Though the headline focuses on 88 years, the lineage of Cooke's is even older than that.

July 1st, 1936

It was a surprise to learn that Cooke's is a direct successor to the Patton book and stationery store. Perhaps that has been minimized or even erased in family and business lore. But measured that way, its roots go back to the 1870s, not merely to 1936 (or 1935 as the current news and family lore reports).

The Boon/Patton store in 1880s
(Salem Library Historic Photos)

The Patton Block of 1869 was right next to Ladd & Bush bank on State Street. You can see the older section of the bank on the right, a portion of the Patton Block on the left, and after cutting away part of the Patton block a Belluschi addition to Ladd & Bush, now lost, in between. Eventually it was all demolished for the rebuilt Ladd & Bush. (The cast iron facade is historic, but the building structure underneath is more modern, see here and here.)

Patton Block, Belluschi addition, Ladd & Bush, 1959
(University of Oregon)

There seemed to be two stationery stores in the building in the 1870s. One was associated with H. D. Boon, son of John Boon, whose building is now our great pub, and one with Walter Jackson. (This is a little obscure, but not necessary to untangle just now.)

Transportation Safety Action Plan Launches with Survey: At the MPO

The MPO is cranking up a new Transportation Safety Action Plan. Though it looks like it is open already with a soft launch, formally they will hold an online Open House and survey starting March 13th.

A crash at Ferry and High

Summarizing data from 2015-2019 they write:

There is an average of 3,700 crashes per year within the Salem-Keizer area. Each year, these crashes resulted in 3,000 injuries, 100 serious injuries, and 18 fatalities. On average, 150 of these crashes involve a bicyclist or pedestrian, resulting in 6 fatalities and 12 serious injuries each year.

And introduce the focus areas:

• Safety while walking/rolling (i.e., using a wheelchair or other mobility device)
• Safety while riding a bike
• Safety while driving a motorcycle or other motor vehicles
• Safety at intersections
• People who are distracted while travelling
• People who are under the influence of alcohol or other drugs while travelling
• Speeding
• Safety of aging adults

It is annoying that the "distracted" focus area is framed with false egalitarianism to embrace the canard of distracted walking, and that there is not enough focus on speed generally, including the frequent lethality of lawful posted speeds.

There is also research on the effectiveness of various strategies, and it does not seem very useful to ask non-experts for an opinion on effectiveness. People will call for education, even when education campaigns have shown to be of limited utility.

Mayor Giesy attends Klan Dinner in 1923

100 years ago the afternoon paper published news that Salem's Mayor attended a Klan dinner honoring Fred Gifford.

March 6th, 1923

Clear links between Salemites and the second Klan have been scarce, and this was very interesting to see. In Salem Klan activity had been furtive, masked, and not much discussed the newspapers.

A day earlier, the first coverage of the dinner in the afternoon paper, and featured on the front page, had focused on Governor Pierce's attendance. Pierce had practiced a kind of "plausible deniability" in his relation to the Klan, and this was an undeniable sign.

March 5th, 1923

The afternoon paper also published an editorial in the same edition.

Draft Oregon Transportation Plan Shows new Themes, Still Biased for Driving: At the OTC

This month's meeting on Thursday the 9th of the Oregon Transportation Commission is jam-packed with interesting things on climate and non-auto mobility. There is too much, in fact, for a single preview. I'm sure others will have interesting things to say.

Climate and non-auto mobility

We'll start here with a high-level document, the draft of new Oregon Transportation Plan.

Early in it, in a discussion of "key drivers of change," the way the authors handle two "conflicting trends" does encapsulate a bias that still infects the whole.

Encourage reduction vs. driving demand

They write

climate change implications are encouraging a reduction in single occupancy vehicle use. On the other hand, emerging technologies...are driving demand for single occupancy vehicles.

"Encouraging a reduction" strikes a very optional, aspirational, discretionary tone: We'll try, but maybe not very hard. It's the soft science of social psychology. "Driving demand" strikes a different tone of realism and accommodation. It's the hard science of economics and the market. 

In this pair and framed in this way, the second is clearly the one to honor.

Throughout the new draft plan, there is not enough on actual policy to reduce driving and VMT. It's still stuck in the theoretical and discretionary realm of "transportation options" and not enough attention given to policies that actually reduce driving, that induce people actually to make the choice not to drive.

Questions for Traffic Modeling: Climate Action Plan Committee meets Monday

The Climate Action Plan subcommittee meets on Monday the 6th for their bi-monthly session. The change in transportation analysis remains interesting.

March agenda

In yesterday's paper

Transportation Modeling

In the packet is final report on the new emissions inventory on 2021 data, and as we noted in January on the video presentation, it has some important analytical changes. One of them is on transportation.

Revised pie chart on transportation
(yellow highlighting added)

About the change, which purports to use empirical data rather than computer modeling, they say:

The 2021 data used in this report were based on...Google's proprietary location history data....The source for local VMT data in 2016 was the Salem-Keizer Metropolitan Area Travel Demand Model. This model provides a computer-generated estimation of vehicle trips and does not use on-the-ground measured data.

From Corpses to Cars: Mid-Century Redevelopment at the former Withnell Dodge Site

The mid-century history of the just-shuttered Withnell Dodge dealership site is quite interesting. On the edge of the city at that time, it cycled through several types of business before settling on the car dealership for a half century. It may be only coincidental, but that history has an amusing echo of the Ike Box and Starbucks on Ferry and Church, both of them also on the sites of former mortuaries. It also is another instance of a mid-century move of a car dealership from downtown farther out.

The redevelopment started with Ladd Funeral Home in 1940. In 1938 Thomas W. Ladd had proposed to open one on Cottage and Marion, but the school board opposed it so near to Garfield School. He was able to secure a different site, apparently just far enough from McKinley that proximity to a school was no longer a problem.

April 14th, 1940

The mortuary lasted only a few years at that site, and immediately after the war the building became a nightclub, the Normandy Manor. 

December 23rd, 1945

That didn't last long either.

Remedy on Mildred Lane Misses Real Cause of Problem

The City posted a note yesterday about a new stop sign with flashing lights around its rim on Mildred Lane at south Liberty Road.

A new flashing stop sign on Mildred Lane at Liberty
via FB

The intersection has had its problems. About the new sign the City says:

New stop signs are in place at Liberty Rd S and Mildred Ln S. The new 30-inch edge-lit solar-powered stop signs will flash 8 bright LED lights continuously to warn drivers on Mildred Ln to stop and look both ways for oncoming traffic on Liberty Rd S.

The LED flashing system is designed to draw attention to the intersection and reduce running through the intersection.

Remember to drive carefully and obey all traffic signals, especially during times of extreme weather and low visibility.

August 2022

Speed is the real problem, however. Though a recent lawsuit about a death at this site focused on signage and messaging, a more fundamental problem is the road design itself.