Salem Political Snark

Salem Fire Department is woefully inefficient, fighting few fires

Probably you've noticed that even though structure fires are rare in Salem, huge fire trucks are still frequently seen racing around the city. What the heck are they doing, since they're not fighting fires?

They're doing what government bureaucracies almost always do. If your original reason for being no longer applies, then redefine your mission to avoid becoming irrelevant or having your budget reduced.

So now "fire" departments actually are wasteful ways of responding to medical calls, both emergencies and non-emergencies. Oregon's Phil Keisling wrote about this in his 2015 piece, Why we need to take the 'fire' out of 'fire department.'

It's must reading for those concerned about improving the efficiency of Salem's fire and police departments, which suck up the majority of general fund dollars. Here's how it starts out.

It's arguably the best known, least acknowledged and most inconvenient truth in local government: "Fire departments" -- in the precise meaning of that label -- no longer exist anywhere in America.

Thousands of official entities bear this or a similar moniker. But given what they and their employees actually do, "Emergency Medical, Incident Response and Every-Once-in-a-While-an-Actual-Fire Department" would be far more accurate.

In 1980, according to the National Fire Protection Association, the nation's 30,000 fire departments responded to 10.8 million emergency calls. About 3 million were classified as fires. By 2013, total calls had nearly tripled to 31.6 million, while fire calls had plummeted to 1.24 million, of which just 500,000 of were actual structure fires. For America's 1.14 million career and volunteer firefighters, that works out to an average of just one structure fire every other year.

The parallel with Salem's Police Department is obvious.

With crime rates dropping, most of what police do in Salem doesn't require a cop car or armed uniformed officer. Yet the City Council just authorized six additional police officers, even though solid evidence shows that a mobile crisis response team made up of civilians would provide better services for a high percentage of calls at a much lower cost.

Fellow citizen activist Jim Scheppke shared with me his research about a similar objective in the 2018-2023 strategic plan of the Salem Fire Department. 
Download Salem Fire Department Strategic Plan

Now, I'm not sure what non-emergency means here. Regardless, it's clear that this objective in the Fire Department's Strategic Plan, which was supposed to be completed by July 2020, two years ago, has to do with finding alternative ways to handle medical calls by the department.

Keisling talks about this in his piece.

In 2012, the city of Toronto, over the Fire Department’s objections, changed protocols to deploy ambulances (from a separate government unit) instead of EMT-staffed fire trucks for more than 50 types of medical emergencies. The next year, after city staff recommended a budget that would close four fire stations and cut 84 firefighting jobs--while adding 56 paramedics--firefighter-funded TV ads alleged that the cuts would "put lives at risk."

This isn't just a big-city problem. In 2013, a faculty-led research team for Portland State University's Center for Public Service (which I direct) analyzed two years of 911 calls for three small cities collectively contracting with a nearby city's fire/EMS department. Known medical calls comprised 75 percent of these incidents.

Our team identified a number of lower-cost operating alternatives, such as adding many more ambulances or specially-designed Rapid Response Vehicles (RRVs) to produce faster response times. We learned of one jurisdiction that had strategically purchased a three-bedroom house in a high 911-call generating area near a nursing home for an ambulance and its crew.

Given how strongly fire departments defend their bureaucratic turf, you're not going to be surprised to learn that the progress the Salem Fire Department has made on Objective 1-G above is essentially zero.

When Scheppke asked about progress, he got this response from the department.

Objective 1-G has not been completed and no final report documentation or recommendations have been created.  Some superficial investigation was done initially, however no reports or final recommendations were produced as a result.

But the Salem Fire Department was very successful at getting $26 million for new fire trucks and other equipment put into the $300 million community improvement bond measure to be voted on this November -- because their current trucks supposedly are worn out from all that driving around to non-fire medical calls.

When Scheppke followed up with a question about whether the Salem Fire Department ever intends to pursue alternative ways of handling medical calls, he was told:

The Department does not foresee this objective moving forward given the current budgetary climate.  The objective will be re-evaluated during the next planning cycle in 2024.

"Current budgetary climate" apparently means We're planning to get from the bond measure not only the $26 million for new equipment, but also $14 million for new fire stations, even though we rarely fight fires these days, so we've got no interest in identifying more efficient ways to run the department until we get voters to approve the $40 million that's based on our business-as-usual approach.

OK, but assuming the bond measure passes, city officials should ask some tough questions of the Salem Fire Department before allowing the department to open any additional fire stations or purchase new fire trucks.

Citizens need to know about alternatives to the current wasteful practice of sending fire trucks out on medical calls, and why the department hasn't embraced those alternatives. In other words, the Salem Fire Department should be forced to complete the objective above that was supposed to have been accomplished two years ago.

Better late than never, since probably a large chunk of the $40 million could be spent more wisely than doing the Business-As-Usual thing that the Salem Fire Department prefers, but is a disservice to taxpayers. 

City Council approves protected bike lane from Harritt Drive NW to 17th Street NE

It isn't everything that Salem Bike Vision proposed for a network of protected bike lanes in Salem, but it's a good start.

After all, politics is the art of the doable. Idealism is fine. In the end, though, getting part of what you want is a heck of a lot better than falling on a idealistic sword and not getting anything.

A protected bike lane

So even though I'd hoped for more protected bike lanes to be included in the $300 million community improvement bond measure Salem voters will be asked to approve this November, it was pleasing to watch a video of the June 27 City Council meeting and see that this project was added to the bond measure.

Union Street NE: Summer Street NE to 12th Street NE Buffered Bike Lanes. Extend bicycle facilites on Union Street NE between Summer Street NE and the 12th Street Pedestrian Promenade. This project will link with the currently funded CIP Project - Union Street Family Friendly Bikeway (Commercial Street NE - Summer Street NE).

Councilor Virginia Stapleton championed protected bike lanes on the City Council. She deserves a lot of credit for persevering through the ups and downs of what it took to get a protected bike lane all the way from Harritt Street NW in West Salem to 12th Street in NE Salem.

Here's a transcript I made of two sets of remarks Stapleton made during the council's discussion of this topic. Since she's pleased with how bike lanes fared in the bond measure, I am too.

I would like to move to restore $700,000 to the Peace Plaza improvement by reducing the State Street project by an additional $700,000, and that will then restore the Union Street family friendly bikeway project to its entirety, and also the Peace Plaza.

As many of you guys know, I ran for office, and one of the top priorities that I had was connecting our bike infrastructure.

And this motion here, coupled with the motion Councilor Hoy made at our steering committee task force meeting we had about two weeks ago now, and that really will complete the Union Street connection.

And this is really vital to the bike infrastructure we have here in the city of Salem. If we get this bond passed, and we have the completion of Marine Drive and the State Street project, we will then have a fully protected and connected bike infrastructure from Harritt Drive NW all the way to 17th Street NE. 

This is really critical, I feel, especially for climate change, where in the next thirteen years is when we're going to meet our first benchmark for our climate action goal of a 50% reduction in emissions. Providing these options for alternative transportation is going to be key for us to reach that goal. 

I also want to say thank you to all the people who wrote in and talked about how important bike infrastructure was to them and the goals they have for the future, sharing their personal stories. Some of them were horrific. Some of them were just delightful. It was wonderful to see the breadth and width of the folks who are writing about bikes here in Salem.

Thank you to all of those people. I know that this doesn't complete the task, but it does give us a really great start on what I hope will be a really great future of fully protected and connected bike lane infrastructure in the city of Salem. 

So I hope you all will support me in this motion.

After Mayor Bennett and others offered remarks about the Union Street project, Stapleton said this.

I just want to say thanks to you for your kind words and for the work you have done in the past, and those who went before me on this Union Street project. I think it will be a critical piece of infrastructure for our city. 

And thank you to all of the fellow councilors here tonight who are so supportive. For those of you who are excited about bike infrastructure in this bond, just remember that this project is over $5 million for bike infrastructure. Couple that with all the other projects that we're doing, the bicycle infrastructure within the bond is equalling $15 million in total. 

So this is really a game changer for folks, and I can't wait to see it [the bond measure] hopefully pass, that we can see all this good work come to fruition. 

More evidence that City of Salem staff hate protected bike lanes

Totally predictable. But disturbing all the same.

City staff played games with a survey intended to gauge public support for an upcoming $300 million bond measure by slanting the survey to make it less likely that those responding would say Yes! to the Salem Bike Vision proposal to build a network of protected bike lanes.

City councilor and Mayor-to-be Chris Hoy recognized this game a month ago, as I noted in a May 24 blog post, "Mayor and city staff try to keep Salem from having protected bike lanes." 

Discussion then turned to the public opinion research mentioned in the Next Steps above. This led to more evidence that city staff are trying to prevent Salem residents from enjoying protected bike lanes, even though the authority to decide what projects are included in the bond measure is in the hands of the City Council.

Councilor Stapleton asked Courtney Knox Busch, a City of Salem staff person working on the public opinion research, to describe the question being asked about protected bike lanes. Busch said that she didn't have the exact language before her, but it said something about how people would feel about the bond measure if a change was made to add the protected bike lane project.

Councilor Chris Hoy, who was recently elected Mayor (takes office in 2023), immediately realized how loaded that question would be. After all, Busch and Bennett had just taken pains to emphasize to Stapleton that there was time for her to try to get the Salem Bike Vision proposal added to the project list, since the bond measure didn't need to be finalized until August 8.

So currently there is nothing to be changed in the bond measure, since it hasn't been approved by the City Council yet. Hoy correctly said that the survey question should say something like, "How would you feel if the bond measure includes protected bike lanes."

Busch waffled around in her response to Hoy, offering up a rather lame statement that the survey research company being paid to do the public opinion research knows that they're doing. She assured Hoy and the rest of the council that this wasn't a "push poll" intended to get a certain answer.

OK, but it sure looks to me like Mayor Bennett and City of Salem staff are doing what they can to kill the popular protected bike lanes proposal. Hard to say why. My suspicion is that they've heavily bought into traditional road projects and don't want $10-15 million going to bicycle infrastructure.

Since there's supposed to be a vote on what to include in the bond measure at the June 27 City Council meeting, that agenda item contains pertinent background information. 

Such as, bike lanes were by far the most popular item in a list of projects that could be included in the bond measure, based on public comments/feedback. Councilor Stapleton asked for this information.

But the public opinion survey mistakenly led respondents to believe that the projects to be included in the bond measure already had been decided on -- the exact thing that Councilor Hoy said shouldn't be done in regard to protected bike lanes.

An honest approach to the survey would have been what Hoy suggested. Ask people if they would be more or less likely to support the bond measure if it included protected bike lanes separated from traffic. Instead, games were played, because the question asked was this:

This is infuriating to those of us who strongly favor protected bike lanes. Again, the projects for the bond measure haven't been finalized. That's supposed to happen at next Monday's meeting. So until the bond measure is finalized, obviously it isn't possible to make changes to the measure, because there's no measure to change.

Yet city staff turned the public opinion survey into one of those notorious "push polls" designed to get the answer you want from people by framing the protected bike lanes question as stated above. 

They didn't even phrase the question as "If the City made this change, would you be more likely to vote 'yes' to support the measure, or 'no' to oppose it?" After all, this is just $10 million in a $300 billion bond measure.

Instead, those responding to the survey were asked if they'd vote yes or no on the entire measure, just because protected bike lanes were included.

Again, it's maddening to see city staff putting their thumb on the scale of something as important as protected bike lanes, just because they want to see the Salem Bike Vision proposal rejected for reasons I find difficult to fathom. 

As I said in the previous blog post:

City staff kept saying they don't want the bond measure to be controversial. Well, here's some news for them. If you keep on playing games with Councilor Stapleton and other advocates for protected bike lanes, you're going to end up with a controversial bond measure. 

Which is unfortunate. Given the current rate of inflation, and people being generally downbeat about the state of our economy, convincing voters to approve the $300 million bond measure will be tough enough. 

Not including the popular Salem Bike Vision proposal for a network of protected bike lanes will make the bond measure sales job tougher.

Hopefully the City Council will do the right thing and add protected bike lanes to the bond measure. An online petition I started to support Salem Bike Vision currently has 279 supporters. The comments explaining why they want Salem to have protected bike lanes should convince wavering city councilors. I shared the comments as of June 7 in a blog post that went to city officials.

Here's the comments that were submitted after June 7.

When people want to bike in Minto-Brown park, they often have to carry their bikes in a car or truck to get there. Wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense if they could just bike there safely? Wouldn't it be great if people who want to bike to work -- or have to bike to work -- could do so without taking their lives into their hands? Imagine lightening the load on downtown traffic if more people who want to bike there could do so.

I come from Eugene where the bike paths and lanes make it so much easier for us to get from A to B. In Salem it’s a lot harder and people aren’t as aware of you.

I am a cyclist and often feel very uncomfortable on roads due to the number of cars and lack of cyling infrastructure.

I'd like to be able to ride my bike in Salem without getting killed. I think adding to the already existing running/walking trail system is an excellent boon for Salem. Now that more and more people are emerging from their houses as a result of the pandemic, a bike trail system is just the thing we need to foster camaraderie and promote mental health healing. It's also a great way to safely exercise in the fresh air.

Salem's future looks much brighter with usable bike lanes. I hope city council can make this happen.

I would like to be able to ride my bicycle without constant fear of death. I would like my wife to have opportunities to use her bicycle and feel safe. I would like to be able to commute to work and stores without feeling like I'm navigating a maze. I would like to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. I would like friendlier and healthier communities. I would like Salem's infrastructure to look toward the future rather than the past. I would like bicycles to be considered a transportation tool rather than a recreational toy. These aren't big or novel asks.

I ride regularly around Salem, but I would love to have a place where my children can ride on the road as well, without having to travel to Corvallis.

Salem is overly dependent on old fashioned, outdated modes of urban development. The bike lanes would enhance the city's reputation for quality of life, encourage alternative transportation use, while also making bike travel safer in this area.

I use my bike to commute to/from work as well as ride for fun almost every day. If the project isn't possible, maybe send out or buy a street sweeper or two for the tons of debris in the existing bike lanes.

I'm tired of riding on the sidewalk because of no bike lane.

My wife rides her bike to work and we like to ride our bikes downtown and would ride so much more if there were safe bike lanes.

I want to feel safe when riding my bike. Bike friendly commuting promotes activity in a city which boosts overall economy.

More bikes in Salem will result in a healthier, happier community. Riding bikes is FUN!!

Salem is not very bike friendly or safe, which minimizes the green initiative for those who would choose to bike instead of driving. My sister has personally nearly been hit by a car multiple times because of the lack of safe places for bikes on the road.

I want to feel safe when riding in my city. Salem has a number of very dangerous locations. Infrastructure and education could go a long ways. Liberty Rd S where it splits from commercial is particularly dangerous. The bike lane ends abruptly forcing cyclist into four lane traffic with cars doing 50+ mph with a steep climb and blind hills.

My daughter rides her bike to work. I want her to be safe, and I don’t want to have to worry about her and the traffic lanes.

All city’s should be going as green as possible. This is a step in the right direction. Plus bikers deserve to be safe for choosing not to drive.

Paint is not protection! The current "good" bike lanes in Salem leave riders inches from passenger cars and trucks - these make riding somewhat more safe than shared streets, but make it difficult to ride with kids or a wider bike trailer. By implementing truly protected lanes, and expanding the network, Salem residents would be able to travel across town safely. This would allow more kids and young people to transport themselves, allow us to start bike bus groups in neighborhoods, and reduce total road traffic.

With infrastructure improvements for bike safety, more people would feel comfortable riding around town. That would help people stay healthy, and there would be less cars on the roads thereby alleviating congestion. Also, e-bike usage is increasing, so more people are willing to ride bikes, but they want to feel safe.

Protected bike lanes will make for a more livable city and improve visiting downtown to support downtown businesses

I want to live in a city that is improving the lives of it's people. Salem will be more functional and our citizens happier if transportation alternatives to the private auto allow more people to feel safe outside their car.

Salem could be a wonderful city for bike transport if there were safe corridors and protected bike lanes. As it is, the city is totally oriented towards car transportation and safe biking is not possible. I felt much safer on my bike when I lived in Chicago than I do here, and it shouldn’t be that way.

I commute by bike to work downtown every day and would love to be able to bike more places with better and safer routes

I bike around town and my son would like to bike around more. This would make it safe to do so. So many trucks are so jacked up they can’t even see a biker in front of or next to them and are likely to run us over unless we have our own lane.

Making the city more bike friendly would encourage people to get out of their cars.

I, as many others in this city, ride bikes. I have been riding bikes for nearly my whole life. For many, riding bikes is a luxury, a past time, an extracurricular. For some, a bike is a primary mode of transportation. Those who utilize a bicycle as transportation on a daily basis know about the uncertainty of safety, the close calls, and the unmanaged roads making the morning/afternoon commute an existential crisis. The roads of this great city should be shared by all utilizing them properly, regardless of the mode of transportation. Chances are, bike infrastructure will not change because most have the warped understanding that bikes are just extra. Not necessary. But I ask you to look again. Consider the safety of your fellow man who has no other option but to bike. When you see that man covered head to toe in fluorescent colors, soaked from the rains, and being taunted by drivers to “get out of the way”, consider making his life just that bit easier. Please provide every biker the peace of mind, so they may once again enjoy their commute, their ride, their leisure. Thank you.

Bike cities make for safe and healthy cities!

It would drastically improve the quality of life for the public, bring more business downtown and lighten the auto traffic saving everyone time and lessen pollution.

I ride my bike around town all the time. I would rather not be killed. Cars are dangerous, a major contributor to climate change, and make cities worse places to live. Cars need to be de-centered in our urban planning. Creating safe bike lanes is an easy, obvious step with nothing but upsides.

Both my children work downtown and they have to pay to park. Having safe biking lands would make biking to work more of an option

I like not dying

I'd love to have a better reason to ride downtown! It's the perfect place to bop around on a bike, and parking is a pain and so cramped.

(1) Bike travel shrinks your carbon footprint (2) Biking is great exercise (3) A safe bike path/lane would encourage bike travel (4) A bike friendly town brings bike tourism (5) Profit

Increased accessibility for anyone who doesn't own a car, can't own a car, and/or doesn't want to spend money on gas or parking. Also, can decrease congestion downtown.

I would like Salem to be more accessible for biking as I currently feel pretty unsafe biking anywhere in the city without proper bike lanes. This would cut down on traffic for those using cars while improving the quality of life for people who choose to bike around.

The absolute worse thing about downtown Salem is cars. Everything we can do to get people out of their cars would only improve the downtown.

I bike and have been hit by folks not paying attention to bicyclists.

Salem isn't really one of the best-run cities in America

The City of Salem Facebook page was all proud about Salem supposedly being one of the best-run cities in America. Not surprisingly, Mayor Bennett said it showed how wonderfully the folks at City Hall are doing.

I'm not nearly as excited, for reasons I'll describe below.

First, this isn't a scholarly bit of research conducted by an organization with impeccable credentials. It's a report by WalletHub designed to drive clicks to their web site, where I assume they do something involving being a hub for people with wallets.

Second, it might make sense to speak of the "best-run city government," but the idea of a "best-run city" is absurd, since a city is too complex for any single entity to run it.

The methodology used in the report makes this clear.

But I bet nobody at the City of Salem paid much attention to the methodology. Instead, they rushed to get some P.R. benefit from the report. I'm geeky enough to enjoy looking at methodologies, though. Here it is.

Of the six key categories, two are completely, or almost entirely, outside of the control of city government: Education and Health.

Each category is weighted equally, 16.67 of the total, so one-third of the criteria for determining a well-run city has virtually nothing to do with what the City of Salem and City Council are doing.

In fact, Financial Stability is the only category that is entirely under the control of city government, since it has to do with the Moody's City Credit Rating and Long-Term Debt Per Capita.

What about the other three categories?

Well, the most important scores in the Safety category have to do with crime rates, which are only loosely connected with how policing is done in a city, and motor vehicle fatalities per capita, which also has little to do with city government.

Economy has more to do with what transpires at the City of Salem, but not a whole lot, being primarily a private sector matter.

Infrastructure and Pollution involves roads, public transit, walking/biking, parks, air and water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions per capita, and traffic congestion. I'd say roughly half of this category is under the control of city government. 

So my rough estimate is that only about a third of the scores that gave Salem a ranking of 18 out of 150 cities actually had to do with how well city government is performing. Thus this report is pretty much meaningless when it comes to assessing how well the folks at City Hall are doing.

A last methodological problem is that the overall ranking of a city was calculated by dividing the Quality of City Services (which we've seen mostly has nothing to do with city government) by the Total Budget Per Capita (which has everything to do with city government).

Thus the ranking was basically, an apples divided by oranges thing -- essentially meaningless. 

A middle-aged white guy will be the next Salem City Manager

So after four months of searching the country for candidates to be Salem's next City Manager, the folks at City Hall came up with three middle-aged white guys. 

My intuitive reaction when I saw the image below on Facebook was, Oh, no! And this is coming from an old white guy.

Look, I have nothing against middle-aged white guys. I can remember being one myself a mere couple of dozen years ago. It just seems wrong for city officials to conduct a nationwide search and end up with three candidates who don't reflect the vast majority of people in Salem.

Women and people of color, including a large and growing Latino population.

The broader issue here is whether the City Manager should be viewed as merely a bureaucrat who keeps the machinery of city government humming along as smoothly as possible, or that plus a dynamic leader committed to making Salem a vibrant cutting-edge 21st century city -- not just a backwater between the more rapidly flowing cities of Portland and Eugene.

I definitely favor the latter option, but I strongly suspect that city officials are looking for more of a beancounter City Manager than a shake-things-up City Manager. 

They should keep in mind that the City Manager is by far the most powerful person in city government.

The unpaid Mayor is primarily a figurehead. The eight unpaid councilors, along with the Mayor, supposedly set policies via their City Council votes, but in practice they're powerless to do anything without the support of city staff, who are under the control of the City Manager. The Mayor and councilors have no staff of their own.

So it's ridiculous when I hear people say, "The City Manager is a non-partisan position." Not true.

If the new City Manager disagrees with a policy of the City Council he (it won't be a she) has many options to slow walk that policy into a semi-death, even while outwardly proclaiming to the Mayor and councilors that he's totally on board with the policy.

City staff are adept at manipulating the City Council to act in ways favored by staff. The City Manager is #1 in the city staff pecking order. So he is the #1 manipulator. Again, in a sneaky fashion, because no one becomes the Salem City Manager unless they've mastered the art of getting their way from elected officials while acting like a humble servant of those officials.

This is one reason I think an important criterion for selecting the next City Manager should be their personal political perspective. 

Salem is a left-leaning city.

Currently there are seven progressives and two conservatives on the City Council. Salem has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in the past three elections. We have a Salem Climate Action Plan. Diversity and inclusivity are core values expressed by the progressive City Council majority.

When a president of the United States is elected, we take it for granted that the president will choose cabinet heads and other top officials who share their political perspective. It would make no sense for a conservative president to have a cabinet full of liberal department heads, or for a liberal president to have a cabinet full of conservative department heads.

Likewise, Salem's liberal-leaning City Council should choose a City Manager who is comfortable with progressive policies, rather than a conservative City Manager who isn't big on reducing carbon emissions, building safe bike lanes, having many police calls handled by a mobile crisis unit, and other actions that appeal more to the left side of the political spectrum.

Let's stop pretending that the City Manager isn't a political position. It is, masquerading as a bureaucratic position.

Read why people want Salem to have protected bike lanes

Ten days ago I started a petition in support of the Salem Bike Vision proposal to spend $10 million of an upcoming $300 million community improvement bond on building a network of protected bike lanes.

Please sign the petition, if you haven't already.

So far 228 people have signed the petition. Over half, 130 people, left comments explaining why they support the protected bike lanes proposal. 

I've copied in those comments below, which total 3,876 words. Yes, that's a lot.

But the people who wrote those words spoke well, and sometimes eloquently, about how protected bike lanes are a big improvement over either no lanes at all or white lines painted on the edge of busy streets, which are a poor substitute for much safer protected bike lanes.

If you want to know why protected bike lanes are needed in Salem, here's the answers from 126 people.

I ride regularly in Salem, and soon will hope my daughter can do the same. There are parts of Salem that are unsafe to ride a bike in because of traffic. This is needed.

With gas prices skyrocketing I’ve seen more people walking and riding their bikes then ever before. I am considering buying an electric bike and kid trailer to take to the grocery store instead of driving because of the costs of gas. Of prices of gas aren’t going to go down any time soon, if they are going to continue to reach for the sky, you will see more bicyclists on the road. There will be an uptick with car/bicycle crashes unless better bicycle paths are in place. There are many many roads in Salem that do not offer a bicycle path at all, and many more roads that have poorly maintained bike paths full of gravel and litter.

Biking is better for the environment, climate change, land use policy, & personal health so it should be prioritized to make it safe and therefore more accessible. It is irresponsible not to encourage biking & make it as safe as possible.

With Salem's bike infrastructure as it stands, most trips either require a car or put you in the middle of car traffic. Protected bike lanes would allow me to ride my bike for most errands, and would allow my children to ride to the park or the library

This is important because we need to do everything we can to stop human caused climate change, make it easier for all people to move around Salem and make Salem a great place.

We are a single-car family and I rely on my bike to get from work to home (vice versa). I live in south Salem and getting to Lancaster could be easier if just a couple roads were safely connected. The fear of being hit by a car is real and lack of safe routes increases to that risk. Furthermore, providing low income families alternative and safe options to transport themselves to/from work would help put additional funds back into their pockets, and reduce the strain on government support systems.

Paint is not protection. Try something new.

To safely commute , to ride for fun with family and friends, for quality of life

Protected bike lanes appeal to so many more people than regular bike lanes. Imagine riding a bike in comfort, separated from cars, with your kids, with your grandmother who is wearing high heels, collecting miles of smiles. That's what I see when Salem gets protected bike lanes.

I want to be able to bike to reduce my carbon footprint, but don't feel safe on the roads.

Biking should be accessible to all of Salem, not just rich neighborhoods.

Safer commute to work and school (8-year old), protect the environment

A safe network for biking is important for me and my family with little kids to reach school, work, the library, parks, and businesses downtown. We balance life with two school-age kids with one car. A safe network of separated bike lanes to reach all major parts of the city would open more opportunities for us to patronize business and access services in the city. It also would make it easier for us to do our part to reduce traffic congestion and pollution in the city we love! For example, my 8-year-old son currently bikes with me on the buffered bike lanes on Church/High, but we need to hop off and walk on State Street to go to Isaac’s coffee, The Book Bin, Dolce Mama’s, Fork Forty, and Riverfront/Minto Island parks. We walk because it isn’t safe to ride east/west through downtown with kids. And this is only because we can safely access the Church/High buffered bike lanes. If we lived further from downtown, it wouldn’t be possible to reach those businesses/parks. Please support Salem Bike Vision’s plan for better transportation in Salem!

To protect and promote safe and efficient transportation.

I would ride my bike more often if there were a protected network of bike lanes throughout the city. Motorized vehicles should not be the only option to get downtown!

To promote cycling safety and to reduce our city’s carbon foot print.

This is SO long overdue!!!

Being in a low-income household, a safe bike lane ensures I can get around town more freely and more importantly safely.

I would use them frequently!

As an active cyclist in my younger years, I never felt safe cycling on narrow bike lanes, separated from semis by just a painted line. We need safety and separation of bikes from vehicles.

I'm a lifelong bicycle rider that has been struck by vehicles three different times. I don't feel safe riding on Salem's narrow streets, but would forgo most car travel if safe bike lanes were implemented.

Our children deserve protection

As a long time bicycle commuter, I can say from experience that riding in Salem is scary. Despite meticulously following traffic laws, I've been struck by cars twice, and nearly hit on multiple other occasions. I've had drivers curse me out and run me off the road just for legally using a lane. I'd love for my kids to be able to develop some autonomy by riding around by themselves, to the park or the library, but with the current state of the roads in Salem, it just isn't safe. Protected bike lanes would go a long way toward making this town more livable.

I’m a cyclist

Cleaner air, healthier planet is good for people and other living things.

We need healthier ways to commute that are safe and away from cars. Sharing the road is too dangerous.

I would like to see bike lanes to be able to bike through the downtown, as opposed to having to go "around the downtown crowded streets." As is current, a downtown lane does not have room for a car a bicycle at the same time. The bicycle rider will be the one to get squeezed or hit by the car.

Because My sister and her husband loves riding bikes in Salem and I want to keep them safe from cars.

I bike everywhere, no vehicle because owning a vehicle is a thing of the past with a quality electric bike and self driving vehicles you can pay for a ride when needed. Also I have been hit by cars not paying attention and had to replace tires several times due to glass, also the side walks in Salem are so busted it's not even funny

Because people I love, ride bikes!

My husband has a rare blood cancer and daily bike riding is what saves him. It’s important to feel safe and comfortable out riding and protected. Thank you for this initiative

For future generations of Salemites

Biking is an essential way for everyone, especially lower income individuals to get around. Cater to them!

I'm a full time bike commuter in Salem

As someone who cycles down Sunnyview road as a commute and been hit three times, I'd like to not die for trying to save money on gas plz and thank you.

She was my Aunt’s close friend, no one should be hit riding their bike.

Because this could potentially save lives and I know others have gotten seriously injured or died from related accidents

I would love to be able to bike to work safely, with a clear designated bike lane on commercial, Liberty, 12th.

My husband was struck by a car while riding his bicycle in Salem this year. Thankfully he has recovered, but I fear for my family's safety when we bike, especially for that of my children.

People need alternative ways to get around. I just watched an incredible video on another country that had tree lined bike lanes and walking paths down the middle of their roads. It was amazing!

We need safe bike lanes for human and the environment.

Making sure that pedestrians have a safe place where they know they won’t get hit.

This would be great for families and to reduce our carbon footprint!

My best friend was killed on Cherry Ave in Keizer, I ride bikes as well and safety is essential

We need to ride bikes

As a country we need to get into the habit of exercising more and we all need to be able to do so safely. As more people choose to bike for more errands as well as for fun due to the high cost of gas, there will be more demand. Lets make it safe for all concerned in all our cities

I need to feel safer as a bike rider plus it will help Salem's livability

Bicycles are good for our community and safer biking means more biking and stronger communities.

For safety, health of our community and long term appeal for our city.

It will make it safer to bike in Salem.

I want to reduce pollution by giving people the safe opportunity to ride their bike.

I bike for exercise and transportation around town.

Our future generations depend on us decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels. This is one small step towards that.

Safety using public facilities

If bicycles are to be options for transportation, they need more protection than they have. Take a look at corners where bike lanes continue around a turn to the right -- the lane markings disappear completely. I've seen cars carefully pass a bike only to nearly wipe them out at the corner!

Bike friendly city streets are necessary with the current population growth of Salem.

Safe bike routes add value throughout our community. Please include bike infrastructure to our bond projects.

I bike often in Salem for the health of the planet and the health of my body through exercise. Unfortunately, this often times leaves me and my son in an extremely vulnerable position with the limited bike protection infrastructure in Salem. We need to protect the most vulnerable from distracted and uneducated drivers re: bike safety and laws.

Oregon should be a leader in cycling both nationally and world wide. IN Salem we can make this happen now with a relatively small investment and show others how it's done. It's important for our green goals, lifestyle, health, and equity of transportation.

I want my family to be safe riding bikes in Salem!

I am an active Salem bike commuter and would like to feel more safe when riding my bike around town. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to have a voice!

Safety, safety, safety

The original design of Salem's roads didn't consider walking or biking as a mode of transportation, and now is a good time to improve that design.

My husband has been hit by cars twice while riding his bike. We are looking for a place to live that has protected bike lanes. I hope Salem can be that place.

I’m A bicyclist and safety is always top of mind.

Visiting and passing through Salem on a bike is much more cumbersome than it should be. After visiting cities where quality of life is put above quality of car-life, I’m sure Salem is capable of a better vision that encourages pedestrian and cycling as a hand-in hand part of a quality city lifestyle..

I want and care about the safety of those who choose to ride bikes here in Salem OR.

Safe biking helps the environment and promotes community activity!

Salem needs more diversity in transportation and as an avid cyclist I’d love to have safer options as I ride. My business was downtown for years and riding to work was dicey once entering downtown and surrounding area due to no bike lanes. I feel more people would consider bike commuting it they felt safer. As an avid cyclist I also would just to live in a more bike friendly town.

As someone who commutes via protected bike lanes I can assure you the daily journey I make is far more safer & much less stressful. Protected bike infrastructure has proven to be a quality benefit to my neighborhood leading into major business districts. And with the soaring price of gas and high cost of parking, having a bike option helps a tight budget so you can free up funds to support local businesses. Build a protected bike lane in Salem, and I will happily come visit, test ride your routes, & support your local businesses. My friends and I love to visit cities and explore via a great bike route designs & culture.

Once I moved to Salem I essentially stopped riding my bike because of the lack of safe travel routes. I would love to see this become a priority here.

How better to manage the increasing flow of traffic than to add bike lanes that make people feel SAFE enough to even try commuting to work. Especially in this time of e-bikes becoming much more accessible. Also I have almost been hit three times on commercial st this year because people don’t look for cyclists. In all three instances, a protected bike lane would have removed the problem. Salem doesn’t provide good public transit options and gas prices have skyrocketed. Help us please! My downtown business (Resonance Yoga Collective) has built a spot for people to park their bikes inside our space and we provide incentives for people to bike to class. Time for the city to do its part too.

We need safer bike infrastructure.

I want to be able to safely ride to work.

My family rides bikes, and bike lanes are great safety features!

I have been an avid cyclist and often wished that I felt safer riding down town for chores,shopping etc. Safe cycling could lead to a large reduction in greenhouse gases

Safety matters and many of my friends Bicycle in Salem!!

I want to feel safe traveling across the city on my bike, and for my husband and 2 year old son to be safer when they go on my husbands cargo e-bike to my son’s daycare 3 miles from West to NE Salem.

Connect the patchwork of bike lanes…. Liberty from browning to commercial is needed urgently. Protect riders with protected lanes!

Salem's bike infrastructure needs to be good enough to support everyday bike commuters like me.

keeping bikers safe in the roads is very important and encourages biking as a mode of transportation creating more opportunities for a healthier lifestyle and a positive impact for our environment.

This is important to make the streets safer for bike transportation.

Would definitely be taking less car trips if there were more protected bike lanes around town! Commercial & liberty split near Panera especially needs to be made safer for bikes!

Bike safety and a sustainable city!

It will promote riding bikes and reduce cars on the road. Better for the end and less traffic too

I commuted on bike for 3 years. Now my brother bike commutes

I work at the hospital and live in West Salem. The commute is only 4 miles and I would love to be able to ride my bike to and from work daily. But as it is right now, Wallace and Front St. are way too dangerous for cyclists and I am not comfortable riding to work. Having protected bike lanes would allow me to commute which is not only good for my own health but reduce my carbon footprint as well!

Liberty is extremely dangerous for bikes, especially during commuter hours. With the amount of new homes and apartments under construction in this area, we NEED a safe path for all the added traffic.

As a cyclist and a person who would like to use bicycles more for basic transportation I’d greatly appreciate feeling safer and more able to do so.

I would like to be abe to ride a bike in Salem without risking life and limbs!

Salem residents deserve a safe, accessible city and this proposal helps to achieve that.

Riding a bike in Salem should be safer and students should be able to safely bike to school.

Studies have shown that protected bike lanes exponentially increase safety (for both cyclists, pedestrians, and cars), retail traffic, and property values. I want to live in a community that values people and healthy lifestyles. I don\'t think that is too much to ask for. For more stats on protected bike lanes, be sure to take a look at People for Bikes data page at https://www.peopleforbikes.org/statistics/economic-benefits

Because I commute to work on my bike and riding my bike downtown is frightening. Would love to have better biking lanes downtown to make those on bikes feel safer.

I think it would be safer and more people would ride bikes, including me- age 13

Less than 5% of this $300 mil grant would contribute to lowering the city's carbon footprint as well as providing more safety for current bikers and encouraging reluctants to get on their bikes for transport to work and school as well as good healthy exercise.

Safe bike infrastructure helps to improve safe transportation options for many people who can't, or don't want to, drive around town for many daily tasks.

I envision Salem as a family-friendly bike town. I dream of any Salem resident feeling comfortable with the option of commuting around town, for work or play. For this to happen, we need not only more bike lanes, but protected ones. People need to feel safe on their bicycles.

To feel safe riding my bike instead of driving everywhere.

I would love to ride my bike around town to run errands and enjoy the city

Because people should be safe biking in Salem and right now it isn’t safe.

Bike friendly cities are better for the environment. I enjoy riding for exercise and would ride more places for errands and shopping if there were more protected bike lanes.

Public health reasons.

We need safe bike lanes for a less car dependent city.

Adding protected bike lanes throughout the city of Salem will make it safer for recreating families, offer a healthy and safe alternative to cars for commuters, and enhance the overall liveability of this beautiful community.

Bikes are the future of local transportation

This proposal will help save lives from motor vehicles and reduce our carbon emissions. It\'s an important first step towards our carbon goals and equity.

I've been injured rather badly from getting hit by a car from behind while riding on a roadside shoulder. Completely not my fault, but an Inattentive driver. Drivers speed and run red lights, and cut in front of you far too often in Salem. I would ride to work, go shopping, and ride for exercise if there were safe protected lanes for me on my bicycle. I now have a great fear of getting hit by a car. I was just visited Victoria BC. There is a city that shares the road with bikes and even has a well maintained bike trail called the Galloping Goose that allows one to ride without fear to many parts of the city and out to many sites outside the city. Salem should have a well connected infrastructure to get more people out of cars. We don\'t need a new bridge we need better ways to get around without being in or battling with 3-ton SUVs.

As gas prices remain high more people are likely switching to other forms of transportation like bikes. Also a good shift for climate change. More safer bike lanes would accommodate this shift.

I live downtown and would love to ride to work, but I feel unsafe

A protected bicycle network will provide a safer means to access opportunity for all Salem residents. This will reduce congestion and air pollution, increase physical and mental health and well-being, and create a more equitable transportation network for all road users. Salem has so much potential but we need to take this first bold step to really make bicycling feasible for everyone. This is an investment in our future.

I want the streets of Salem to feel safe so that everyone can use public thoroughfares regardless of their chosen mode of transportation.

Make our city more livable.

Safety, community, increasing alternative transportation Thorofare’s is important.

Economic vitality of the city. Positive health outcomes.

As a rider myself, I often stick to protected bike paths and lanes because of safety. Adding protected bike lanes will allow riders like myself access to more areas.

Safety

Because the drivers in Salem and in the PNW are super scary. I don’t ride my bike anywhere in town. I drove out of town and ride on trails because, no cars. Which means I also spend my money outside of Salem while driving to the safer bike trails

My family are in Salem. Creating lanes that a small child, elderly person or unconfident person can use easily is a key support to making cycling more inclusive.

I use a bike to go into town every weekday. Having safe bike lanes would be a real plus.

Because I wish for my children and I to have a safe place to bike.

I never biked downtown or back home without my heart in my mouth. And now I won’t risk it.

I prefer using my bike when running errands about town. Knowing that there would be protected lanes would give me a greater sense of security.

I ride my bike to meetings and shopping errands but safe routes to get places are limited .

I would use my ebike instead of my car to run local errands if the streets were safer. We need protected bike lanes. Painted lines are insufficient.

Making people feel safe to ride to work will encourage more people to get out of their cars, which will lead to reduced congestion, better health outcomes, better mental health outcomes, more satisfied citizens, and safer roads. In addition, most bicycle infrastructure gets used by other \"wheeled\" users, such as wheelchair and mobility scooter users, so this helps them be safer, too. Lastly, every city that has made the effort to become more \"bicycle friendly\" has shown that it brings a substantial positive economic impact along with it. EVERY ONE.

A life long cyclist and advocate for bike/ped and transit practical transportation options. 8 years a member on OBPAC - Oregon Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee.

To meet Salem's Climate Action Plan goal of net zero emissions by 2050 we need to get people out of their cars. There's no other way. This will help.

Alternative forms of transportation are critical to reduction in carbon emissions. In addition I want safe and equal access to our city streets for bikes.

Connected, protected, and direct bike lanes are needed if we are going to get folks comfortable riding their bikes and leaving their cars at home. To me, this is the number one thing we can do to fight climate change here locally.

I love to ride a bike. But not on Salem streets, because mostly it isn't safe.

Weird reasons against protected bike lanes in Salem

Any user of Facebook knows that while there is a lot to like about this social media platform, there's also a lot not to like -- such as damn crazy ideas being spread around.

About a week ago I started a petition in support of the Salem Bike Vision proposal to build a network of protected bike lanes in Salem. At the moment it has 190 signatures. Please sign it!

To publicize the petition, I shared a post on three Facebook pages that I administer: Salem Can Do Better, Strange Up Salem, Salem Political Snark.

The 591 reactions to date have been mostly positive: 71% liked or loved the post, while 29% deemed it worthy of a "haha."

Most comments in favor of protected bike lanes were predictably reasonable. Bicyclists don't feel comfortable or safe using the current bike lanes, which often don't exist on busy streets and when they do, almost always consist of painted lines on the side of the street.

Comments opposed to protected bike lanes were hugely more likely to be crazily weird. They came in a bunch of different flavors. Here's some examples of central themes put forward by the "haha" folks. I'm going to rebut the themes with a single sentence, since they make so little sense.

Absurd logic. A flawed premise plus faulty facts equals nonsense.

Anti-green conspiracy theory. A road diet is indeed planned when an unneeded car lane is better put to a bike lane purpose, but whoever "they" is, they're not going to ban all gas/diesel vehicles.

Want school armed security. The school district is funded in a separate fashion from how the City of Salem is funded, so the community improvement bond isn't taking any money away that could have gone to schools.


No one on disconnected bike lanes. Aside from the fact that the commenter can't be watching the bike lane 24/7/365, few people using a protected bike lane that goes for just a few blocks says nothing about how much a citywide network of protected bike lanes would be used.

Misinformed. Bicycles aren't supposed to be ridden on sidewalks in the downtown core, though some cyclists do, because it isn't safe to ride in the street; elsewhere it can be difficult for cyclists to ride on sidewalks, so fixing sidewalks is a poor option compared to building protected bike lanes.

Bicycle riders should be taxed. Actually most people who ride a bicycle also own a car, so they are paying a gas tax which funds both roads/streets and bike lanes.

Hardly anyone rides bikes in Salem. Just plain wrong.

Simply anti-bicycle. Hey, if you hate bicycles, that's your right, but come on -- banning bicycles from roads... are cyclists supposed to levitate above the pavement?


Against Governor Brown. The $300 million bond measure has nothing to do with state government, nor with Kate Brown.

Anti-homeless. OK, let's build the network of protected bike lanes and see if this prediction comes true, which of course it won't.

Bicycles should be licensed and insured. In my opinion this would be a great idea, if we were talking about assault weapons, but if bicycles are made too expensive for regular people to afford, only rich people will have bicycles.

Humor. After all the crazy comments I had to read in order to write this blog post, I really appreciated coming across a bit of humor.

Medlock now leads Gwyn by two votes in Ward 4 council race

If this was a fast-moving sporting event, rather than a slow-motion counting of all the votes, the contest between Dynee Medlock and Deanna Gywn to become the next Salem City Councilor in Ward 4 (a seat currently held by Jackie Leung, who didn't seek re-election) would have fans on the edge of their seats, waiting to see who ends up on top when time runs out.

Here's how the contest stands as of today. Yesterday Gwyn led Medlock by two votes. Now Medlock leads Gwyn by two votes.

We're not done yet with the May 17 election. A Salem Reporter story about the Ward 4 race said:

Election results must be certified by June 13. All ballots returned in Marion County have been counted, but voters whose signature didn’t match the signature on file with their voter registration, or who forgot to sign their ballot envelope, have until June 7 to correct the issue.

Burgess said there are 74 ballots outstanding in ward 4 with signature issues. Whether voters correct those could determine the outcome of the race.

All voters with a signature issue have been mailed a letter to the address on file with their voter registration.

In order to win outright, either Medlock or Gwyn would need to get 50% of the vote plus one more vote. With the current number of total votes, 5,100, this means 2,550 plus one, or 2,551 votes, which neither candidate has.

The twelve write-in votes are making it a distinct possibility that Medlock and Gwyn will have to redo their contest in the November election, assuming neither is able to win outright in the May election. Without those twelve votes, there would be 5,088 total votes. Then 2,544 votes plus one more vote would produce a winner, which happens to be the exact number of votes Medlock has now, 2,545.

Yeah, it's a cliche, but a true one: every vote counts. It isn't possible to tell when an election will come down to just a handful of votes, or even a single vote, as could happen in this race. So the simple lesson is... vote!

Why are progressives on Salem City Council so uninterested in protected bike lanes?

I'm a confused progressive. Along with many others, I've spent a lot of time, money, and energy working to get progressives elected to the Salem City Council.

Now they have a 7-2 majority on the council.

I put councilors Virginia Stapleton, Tom Andersen, Trevor Phillips, Jackie Leung, Chris Hoy, Vanessa Nordyke, and Micki Varney in the progressive camp, with Mayor Chuck Bennett and Jose Gonzalez in the conservative camp.

So it's perplexing why the highly appealing Salem Bike Vision proposal to build a network of protected bike lanes in Salem appears to be getting such little love from the progressives -- aside from Stapleton, who is championing the proposal in the City Council. 

"Protected" means cyclists would be separated from traffic by some sort of physical barrier, not just white lines painted on the side of a road. The photo above shows an example in Portland, given the photo credit.

A few days ago I wrote about the May 23 City Council meeting where Stapleton tried to get approval for $10-15 million to construct a network of protected bike lanes included in the $300 million bond measure planned for the November ballot.

I called the blog post, "Mayor and city staff try to keep Salem from having protected bike lanes." But that was only part of what disturbed me when I watched a video of the council meeting. 

Equally disturbing was how little support Stapleton got from her fellow progressive councilors.

Sure, there were murmurs of support here and there, but in general it seemed that while the other six progressives on the City Council have talked a lot about their commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Salem, when it comes to taking a stand for much improved bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure in Salem, so far they have remained seated in regard to this proposal.

I say this because Stapleton noted at the meeting that she's been trying for quite a while to add the Salem Bike Vision proposal to the projects in the bond measure. But she keeps being told that the time isn't right, so she should wait for a future meeting where the bond measure is discussed.

Now time is getting short to add projects before an August deadline to finalize the bond measure.

Since progressives have such a clear majority on the City Council, I have to assume that if Stapleton's colleagues cared about protected bike lanes, they would have acted by now to get this in the bond measure.

Again, I'm perplexed why this is. It'd be great if the other six progressive councilors spoke clearly and frankly about how they view the Salem Bike Vision proposal. What do they object to in this excerpt from the preceding link?

To quickly build out a bike network that is safe for riders of all ages, our plan minimize the need for costly land acquisition and instead focuses on right-sizing existing streets. Such projects are not only cost-effective, but also improve safety for all road users, even those in cars.

A project in Vancouver, WA, which right-sized travel lanes and added bike lanes, reduced crashes by 52 percent on a major road with average daily traffic of 17,000 vehicles. Traffic speeds went down 18 percent, traffic spillover into nearby roads did not occur, and an overwhelming majority (67 percent) of users surveyed felt safer.

Further, Salem's Climate Action Plan, a progressive priority, says that in order to meet carbon emission reduction goals set by the City Council: 

Further, scenarios in the plan that show whether Salem can attain the numerical carbon emission reduction targets assume that the rate of residents walking and biking has doubled. 

This isn't going to happen with a mostly business-as-usual approach to transportation in Salem which, sadly, is what the Community Improvement Bond currently consists of. 

So here's the Salem Bike Vision proposal for a network of protected bike lanes, which can be paid for by allocating 5%, or even less, of the $300 million bond measure amount to the proposal, and currently it's being met with a big fat yawn from the City Council.

Now, I admit that I don't know which councilors support protected bike lanes, and which don't, aside from Councilor Stapleton, who is an obvious supporter, since a vote hasn't been taken yet.

All I know is what I observed at last Monday's council meeting, combined with the fact that even though Stapleton has been trying for a long time to add protected bike lanes to the bond measure list of projects, so far she hasn't gotten enough support from her fellow progressives to do this.

Hopefully that will change.

The Salem Bike Vision proposal is transformative and has a great many benefits for Salem residents and visitors, notably including how much more fun it is to ride a bicycle in a protected bike lane where you don't have to worry nearly as much about safety.

Mayor and city staff try to keep Salem from having protected bike lanes

Given how pleasurable and safe it is for all ages to ride a bicycle on protected bike lanes, rather than dangerous white lines painted on the side of busy streets, it was irritating to watch a video of last night's City Council meeting and see Mayor Bennett, along with city staff, do their best to shoot down the popular proposal put forward by Salem Bike Vision. 

One way among several to create a protected bike lane

Councilor Virginia Stapleton handled the falsehoods with more patience and calm than I would have been capable of. Stapleton is taking the lead in championing the protected bike lane proposal on the City Council, though it seems clear that the idea also is supported by other councilors.

Yesterday I wrote about the upcoming council meeting in "Tell the Salem City Council you want protected bike lanes." I noted that Salem Bike Vision had sent out an email saying that the project list for a $300 million bond measure to be voted on in November was expected to be finalized at the meeting.

But the $15 million budget to build a network of protected bike lanes in Salem hadn't been added to the project list yet.

Councilor Stapleton came to the council meeting with a motion to do just that. She said that she'd spent a lot of time on the phone last week talking with constituents and others about how to find a way to pare down road/bridge construction projects planned for the bond so 5% of the $300 million bond could be used to build protected bike lanes. 

Or if not $15 million, I believe Stapleton said $10 million could be acceptable. Everything seemed normal up to this point of the protected bike lane discussion. Then things got disturbingly weird. 

Several councilors said they hadn't seen Stapleton's motion prior to the meeting. She said this was a surprise to her, since she'd given the motion and supporting documents to the City Attorney, Dan Atchison, figuring that he would share the motion with councilors and staff.

That didn't happen -- the first sign that City of Salem staff were doing their best to make sure money for protected bike lanes didn't make it into the bond measure.

Another sign came when Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director who has never showed any real commitment to improving Salem's bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure, jumped in and began spreading some highly annoying B.S.

In the course of talking about the need for center turn lanes on certain streets -- somehow that subject got mixed into the discussion of protected bike lanes -- Fernandez said unconvincingly he was a strong supporter of Salem's Climate Action Plan which calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, of which the transportation sector contributes the most in Salem.

Echoing the absurd argument used by proponents of a Third Bridge across the Willamette, Fernandez said that idling vehicles waiting a while to turn left increase carbon emissions, so building more roads with left turn lanes is a Green thing to do.

Like I said, total bullshit.

If Fernandez had wanted to demonstrate how committed he is to combatting global warming, all he had to do was say, "I'm in favor of protected bike lanes, since the more people get around town by bicycle or on foot, the closer we'll come to meeting the goals of the Climate Action Plan. I'll work with Councilor Stapleton on finding a way to fund the Salem Bike Vision project by reducing the road construction budget in the bond measure."

But he didn't say that. Neither did Mayor Bennett, who appeared astoundingly clueless about the process being used to come up with a list of bond measure projects.

After Stapleton made her motion to add protected bike lanes to the bond measure, which was seconded by Councilor Andersen (an avid cyclist), Bennett criticized Stapleton for her motion, telling her that he couldn't understand why she was trying to change the bond measure projects "at 8 pm" of the council meeting.

Councilor Stapleton replied that she had been bringing up the Salem Bike Vision proposal at every opportunity during previous council meetings devoted to the bond measure, yet kept being told that wasn't the right time yet. Stapleton said it was her understanding following the council work session the previous week, that the projects for the bond measure could be finalized at this May 23 council meeting.

Stapleton was right. Bennett was wrong. Here's a screenshot of part of the memo from the acting City Manager regarding the work session. 

"As early as May 23, 2022, Council may adjust the package..." Exactly what Stapleton tried to do, until she got so much unjustified resistance from Mayor Bennett, combined with the failure of City Attorney Atchison to forward her motion to the City Council prior to the meeting, Stapleton decided to table her motion, which can be voted on the next council meeting.

Discussion then turned to the public opinion research mentioned in the Next Steps above. This led to more evidence that city staff are trying to prevent Salem residents from enjoying protected bike lanes, even though the authority to decide what projects are included in the bond measure is in the hands of the City Council.

Councilor Stapleton asked Courtney Knox Busch, a City of Salem staff person working on the public opinion research, to describe the question being asked about protected bike lanes. Busch said that she didn't have the exact language before her, but it said something about how people would feel about the bond measure if a change was made to add the protected bike lane project.

Councilor Chris Hoy, who was recently elected Mayor (takes office in 2023), immediately realized how loaded that question would be. After all, Busch and Bennett had just taken pains to emphasize to Stapleton that there was time for her to try to get the Salem Bike Vision proposal added to the project list, since the bond measure didn't need to be finalized until August 8.

So currently there is nothing to be changed in the bond measure, since it hasn't been approved by the City Council yet. Hoy correctly said that the survey question should say something like, "How would you feel if the bond measure includes protected bike lanes."

Busch waffled around in her response to Hoy, offering up a rather lame statement that the survey research company being paid to do the public opinion research knows that they're doing. She assured Hoy and the rest of the council that this wasn't a "push poll" intended to get a certain answer.

OK, but it sure looks to me like Mayor Bennett and City of Salem staff are doing what they can to kill the popular protected bike lanes proposal. Hard to say why. My suspicion is that they've heavily bought into traditional road projects and don't want $10-15 million going to bicycle infrastructure.

City staff kept saying they don't want the bond measure to be controversial. Well, here's some news for them. If you keep on playing games with Councilor Stapleton and other advocates for protected bike lanes, you're going to end up with a controversial bond measure. 

Stapleton smartly asked Busch to bring a tally of the public comments in favor of various bond measure projects to the next council meeting. Stapleton said she suspects protected bike lanes is one of the most popular projects, if not the most popular. 

I think she's right. There's a lot of people in Salem who want be able to get around on a bicycle without risking life and limb. Ignore them, and you're diminishing the chance of the bond measure passing.