Eugene Tax Cartography Project Shows Industrial Park Inefficiency

You might remember in August a note in passing about Eugene's Greenhill Technology Park.

According to the Register-Guard,

[it] has struggled­ to attract companies since it was planned in the 1990s by former Eugene mayor and lumber executive Ed Cone.

Lots for Sale at Greenhill Technology Park

Overbuilt!

Greenhill Technology Park
Fern Ridge path in blue,
West 11th Ave/OR-126 borders on the south edge

It turns out the City of Eugene has recently shared a Strong Towns/Urban3 analysis of property tax value!* Even when lots in Greenhill have been developed for high-tech or other industry, the property tax/acre they yield is basically the same as what single-family housing yields - the same coarse buckets anyway. Big boxes on large parking lots are inefficient!

Here's approximately the same area (tilted a little)
Even where it is built out,
the value/acre is like single-family housing

Cherrots Finalizes new West Salem Routes

The Cherriots Board meets on Thursday and they look to adopt replacement routes for the Connector, the on-demand "flexible transit" project in West Salem that did not thrive. (Full agenda and meeting packet here.)

The final proposal

The final recommendation is in outline the same as the preliminary recommendation. There are the same three new routes and the same frequency on them.

Some of the details are different. There are a few new zigs and zags on the routes, added in response to user requests.

At the MPO: Public Participation Plan, Safety Targets

The Policy Committee for our Metropolitan Planning Organization meets tomorrow, and the topics are mostly pretty wonky. But they seem worth some passing mention. There's also what may be the first public glance at the schedule for the Commercial Street Bridge retrofit.

Public Participation Plan

Today Salem City Council is looking at three projects to pitch SKATS for Federal funding in 2019-2021. The announcement was public, there is opportunity at Council for Public Comment, and then those project applications will undergo more vetting and opportunity for Public Comment at SKATS.

So from a bureaucratic standpoint centered on following process, there looks to be a robust procedure for public involvement here.

But if you asked members of "the public" how many would say that they felt like there was real public participation in this process?

Probably not very many.

And it is true that a "tier 3" sidewalk project got bumped up to "do it now," and that this leap-frogging is a little mysterious.

(Part of the matter is that SKATS mainly compiles and does not originate projects, and so many problems in public process will stem from the ways that the member governments themselves conduct public process.)

Even more, there is a vast body of substantive criticism on the Salem River Crossing, and yet that process has continued barely impeded, impervious and insensate to critique and adjustment.

So how meaningful is it to talk about "public participation" in this context? Several of the MPO processes seem autonomous, governed by their own internal logic and reasons, and deliberately isolated from real, authentic public process.

SKATS is about ready to release a draft of the formal Public Participation Plan, and it's just interesting to see how it is shaped for the appearance of public participation and for bureaucratic processes more than what citizens might affirm was actual public participation.

City Council, September 25th - Brown Road and Proclamations

Council meets on Monday and while the proposal for a Sit-Lie Ordinance rightly gets headlines, there are some other transportation matters on the agenda.

The City has assembled a trio of project applications for Federal funding:

SKATS is soliciting for transportation projects that will be ready for contract in fiscal years 2019, 2020, and 2021. The total federal funds available for this solicitation is $5 million....

[the three projects are] for Brown Road NE Complete Streets, McGilchrist Street SE Complete Streets, and Orchard Heights Road NW Pedestrian and Pavement Improvement.

I think this is a result of extra funding from the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program. From back in July at SKATS:

The addition of CMAQ funds for SKATS in FY 2019 to FY 2021 provides an opportunity to review projects in the FY 2018-2021 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and add projects using federal STBGP-U funds that were not programmed in the TIP. Approximately $5 million will be available for projects for obligation in FY 2019 through 2021. Staff and TAC members need to discuss the project identification and application process that should start this summer.

One of the projects was already funded and needs completion funding. It is identified as the highest priority.

The project will construct sidewalks and bike lanes on Brown Road NE between San Francisco Drive NE and Sunnyview Road NE and add a turn lane at the intersection with Sunnyview Road NE. Brown Road NE is a collector street that provides access to Scott Elementary School, is located on a bus route, and is adjacent to a future park site.

Additional costs were identified during project design. In particular, right-of-way costs are approximately three times greater than originally estimated and hazardous material has been identified that will require special disposal. Because this project already has federal funds, staff recommends that this be the City’s highest priority for additional federal funds. [italics added]

The other two are new:

• [A project on Orchard Heights] will fill in two missing segments of sidewalk....The first segment is approximately 340 feet long and is adjacent to the Glen Creek Village Housing Authority Apartment Complex. The second segment is approximately 500 feet long and is along the frontage of a City water reservoir. The project will also construct a median at the entrance to the park opposite Parkway Drive to facilitate pedestrian access to the park.
• In 2016, the City was awarded federal funds for right-of-way acquisition for the additional width needed along McGilchrist Street SE and at intersections, with the exception of the intersection at 22nd Street SE. The intersection of 22nd Street SE and McGilchrist Street SE is an off-set intersection that will be realigned as part of the project. The right-of-way for this intersection was not included in the previous application because of higher costs associated with the realignment. Staff recommends that the City apply for the additional right-of-way needed to realign 22nd Street SE at McGilchrist Street SE.

These are small, incremental projects, and two are explicitly small parts of larger projects. (The whole McGilchrist project at the moment is conceived as a much larger TIGER recipient, and the future of that Federal grant program remains in doubt.)

From the TSP with inset detail from Staff Report,
and added comment on tier 3 prioirty

Interestingly, the segment on Orchard Heights was identified in the "Bike and Walk Salem" update to the Transportation System Plan as only a "tier 3" priority. Maybe there are reasons it should have a higher priority. Adjacency to the public housing is certainly a worthy reason, and part of any argument. But the Staff Report should discuss this and develop the argument in more detail. On the surface it looks like a project that's sliding in above other more urgent needs. If we are serious about our Strategic Planning effort, it should be easy to see how we prioritize projects. Here it looks more like an ad hoc selection process; it is not in fact easy to see how we rank and prioritize these and how they fit into a larger vision of mobility for the city.

Mostly Sunny for Open Streets Salem on Saturday!

The weather pivoted yesterday and it looks like the weekend will have lovely early fall weather.

Open Streets Salem - Sunday Streets v2.0 - lands on Saturday, from 11am to 3pm. It'll run from the Saturday Market at Union and Winter up to Highland School.

It's a car-free event for walking, biking, and other rolling.

Map and schedule via Facebook

There are a couple of notable rides on the schedule. It'll open with Ride with the Mayor:

This traveling event will roll out at 11:15 am from the corner of Union and Winter near the Salem Saturday Market Activity Hub and will travel to Grant Community School. Mayor Bennett, Councilor Cara Kaser, and several others will join the fun. This is a great way to show the Mayor your interest in safe and comfortable cycling for Salem!

A ride from the Market to Grant seems a little short, however, and hopefully they'll extend it out to the full length of the route. (There might be an opportunity, too, to point out to the Mayor that the Salem River Crossing cancels many bike boulevard benefits and threatens to suck up discretionary funding that might instead be allocated to bike boulevard projects. It's a bull in the china shop for sure. We need more bike boulevards and less giant bridge and highway. The Mayor's advocacy for both is incoherent and counter-productive. To put it baldly: It's more important to kill the SRC than to fund and construct a single bike boulevard.)

A second ride offers more commentary and explanation along the full length:

Meet at 2:15pm at the SE corner of the main playground at Highland School Activity Hub and travel to Salem Saturday Market. Your tour leader will be City of Salem Transportation Planner Anthony Gamallo. Come, enjoy the ride, and learn about the proposed design changes that will bring comfortable walking and biking to the neighborhood

See Open Streets Salem and Salem Bike Boulevard Advocates for the latest. (There will be food carts, watermelon drops, and other fun! Here's the latest.)

History Notes: A Wine Bar for Downtown, Letters to Asahel Bush

The Historic Landmarks Commission meets tonight, Thursday the 21st, and their agenda brings news about a new wine bar proposed for downtown.

They have another interesting item. The Mill's "History in the News" as well as a major project on the letters of Asahel Bush are also worth noting. (All of them grapple in one way or another with the question of how best to retrieve and make lively the past.)

Starkey McCully Block

Proposal for a new wine bar and apartments

At the HLC is a proposal with a varied package of changes for the northmost third of the Starkey-McCully Block, one of the very oldest intact commercial buildings downtown.

Starkey-McCully Block and First National Bank
(The tower and Gerlinger Block on the corner are long gone,
but you can still read Lamport in the sidewalk!)
Image circa 1887, Salem Library Historic Photos

You may remember that the Salem-Keizer Education Foundation bought part of it, the southmost two-thirds, a couple years ago and there was a debate about whether Urban Renewal subsidy should be going to a non-profit that would not be paying property taxes for the "tax increment." (Here, here, and here.)

The ownership of that northern third was separate and was not in the sale to the SKEF, and now either through a different sale or merely that the current owners wish to upgrade, the HLC is looking at a

Major Historic Design Review of a proposal to add new signage, replace the front storefront, and construct a new addition on the rear of the Starkey/McCully Building (1867), a historic contributing resource within the Salem Downtown National Register Historic District...

On the whole, Staff Recommendation is for approval.

Hops are More Important than you Might Think!

Have you seen today's long front-page article on hops?

It's hop harvest time

It's glorious to see more mainstream attention to hops in culture, in history, and in our agricultural economy.

The article's focus is more on the development and late 20th century influence of the Cascade hop, developed at OSU and featured in what some have said is the most influential modern beer: Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale first released in the late 70s, a few years before Oregon's pioneering brewers were starting in the mid-80s.

The pre-history before the Cascade doesn't get much ink, though:

Early Oregon farmers rarely grew hops for beer.

In the 1800s, before Goschies began growing hops, fresh cones were stuffed into pillowcases to lull children to sleep, used as an antibacterial agent in soap, and served as a homegrown antidepressant.

But as beer popularized, so did hops, and harvests became larger and larger. The Goschie family started growing hops commercially in 1904. By then, brewers were the customers.

That understates the local significance of hops and the scope of hop ranching and hop harvests!

It was featured on the now-demolished First National Bank as for a reason.

Hop Harvest on the now-demolished Belluschi Bank,
relief by Frederic Littman