12th Street Sidewalk Improvements Come into Focus

Construction is now far enough along that you can see some of the changes to 12th Street between Fairview and Hoyt.

No more continuous driveway:
Greatly reduced right- and left-hook threats

One very welcome change is the elimination of what had been more or less a continuous curb cut at the market on the corner with Fairview. Even where the curb cut "ended," the curb was so low that you could drive over it easily.

Before: via Streetview

Now there's a full curb between the parking lot and the sidewalk, and one single curb cut for the driveway at the north end of the lot (in the top photo you can see a silver SUV using it).

This looks to be a great improvement for what had been a rather anarchic parking lot and access. There were definitely more dangerous places in Salem, but the drivers trying to whip into the lot through a gap in traffic constituted a real right- and left-hook hazard, requiring heightened attention when walking or biking here.

Some other parts of the project might be worth noticing.

Disparities in Expected LIfespan Deserve Closer Look

In no small part because we are in the midst of an historical moment, this piece on different life expectancies in Salem may not get the attention it deserves. But dynamics about power and status and wealth are also in play.

"Very low income" areas from
Salem River Crossing Project Environmental Justice
Technical Report Addendum (October 2016)

The SJ article cites "Tract 51, the area between Senate Street NW and Wallace Road NW in West Salem has a life expectancy of 72.1 years" as the lowest life expectancy in Polk County. You can see that area in lime green as the gridded portion of the West Salem flats with 33% "very low income."

Public Transit and Third Bridge Equally Popular; Biking Satisfation Suspect in City Survey

The City published results from an annual survey this week, and the readings of it seem a little odd, misunderstanding greater precision than the survey actually offered.

In the report the City published, the survey consultant writes

Taken together, 18% are concerned with transportation issues such as roads, potholes, infrastructure, an additional bridge, public transportation, and traffic.

The framing on transportation may serve advertisers most

The paper echoed this:

The survey found residents consider homelessness and poverty to be the top issues they think Salem's elected officials should address (33 percent), followed by transportation issues such as roads, infrastructure, potholes and adding an additional bridge across the Willamette River (18 percent).

Both formulas are misleading, and the SJ's especially so.

Creeping Doom: The First Influenza Headlines of 1918

As best as I can tell, a small news piece on September 17th, 1918, was the first local mention of the 1918 flu pandemic.

September 17th, 1918

Relative to the headlines for World War I, the notice on the 17th was tiny.

Front Page, September 23rd, 1918

But a week later, on September 23rd, there were other mentions, and it became nearly a daily thing. They did not know of course how it would unfold, the horror and the vast scale of its lethality. The Center for Disease Control notes that it "was so severe that from 1917 to 1918, life expectancy in the United States fell by about 12 years, to 36.6 years for men and 42.2 years for women."

September 23, 1918

Notes on Diversity: The Exclusionary City in 1926

Inner cover page to the 1926 Polk Directory

The front page article in the Sunday paper about diversity at City Hall* is very much focused on the present, but of course Salem and Oregon have a long history of bias. Any problems today are not merely the product of currently existing systems and people. They are also a deposit and partial legacy of deeply entrenched historical patterns. We've talked some here about statehood and the debate over slavery, and also about racist elements of our State Constitution.

From a couple of generations later, here's a moment from the interwar period shaped by the second KKK, when bias suddenly flowered into an overt expression. Just before this interwar period, in 1903 we condemned our Chinatown. You may recall the popularity of "Birth of a Nation" here in 1916, and in the same period the rise of deed and building restrictions in new housing developments. The expanding surveillance state, with the fear of Wobblies and Enemy Aliens, also were ingredients.

There are surely other early 20th century elements to this. There are also mid- and late-20th century elements, some of which may differ in important ways from the earlier ones.

Altogether, however, the specific modes and instruments of bias here in Salem do not seem well understood or discussed. As far as I know, there's no detailed history of bias in Salem. We talk about bias generally sometimes, about the national currents, but not with names and dates and institutions as bias was specifically instantiated here by Salemites.  I don't know where this moment fits exactly in the full context and sweep of Salem history. Maybe you will know more about it. It's a complicated thing. This will be just a long footnote on the article.

The Polk Directories issued every few years are a great resource for history, and they show a curious eruption in 1926.

Bike Commuting Remained Flat in 2017

BikePortland has a good survey of the recently released census numbers on bike commuting. They write

American bike commuting rates seem to have entered a post-recession skid in 2017. Here in Portland, meanwhile, they once again stayed about the same, according to Census estimates released this month.

That's a good reminder to check on Salem's numbers.

Last year, the 2016 numbers were flat, and within the margin of error, there's nothing new in 2017. It's still flat.

Unfortunately, I can't navigate my way to the exact same dataset I used in that post, so here's a new set. (There's at least three ways to slice it: Salem City; the Salem Metro area, the three-county area; and the principal city in the metro area. This group is Salem City only. Not being a census jockey, it is a little confusing.)

From 2010

At the MPO: DLCD Postpones Rulemaking on Greenhouse Gases

The Policy Committee for our local Metropolitan Planning Organization meets today, Tuesday the 25th, at noon, and while there's no important decision on the agenda, some of the information items as well as last month's minutes might deserve a few comments.

Probably the most interesting is the announcement from the Department of Land Conservation and Development that the current "rulemaking should wait until after the 2019 legislative session, which we anticipate will include greenhouse gas-related legislation."

Part of letter from DLCD announcing postponement
on rulemaking involving greenhouse gas emissions

In the supporting materials there is much longer letter from the Portland area MPO, METRO, in which they say the proposed rulemaking was heading in the wrong direction, weakening efforts on greenhouse gas emissions.

By contrast, Marion County sent a short and cranky letter in opposition to anything that involved greenhouse gases.