I don't know how to describe my relationship with the city I've lived in or near for over 37 years.
Me and Salem, Oregon — we've never split up, but I've come damn close many times, when this town's aggravating shortcomings make me think "I've got to get out of this place."
Obviously something is keeping me here. And something is pushing me away. The Keep power just has been stronger than the Away power. So far.
But when I try to look through the eyes of people and businesses who aren't already here, who don't have the attachments of long-time residents, I realize how tough a sell relocating to Salem can be, especially when more attractive alternatives are nearby to the north and south of us.
Portland. Corvallis. Eugene.
My current What's wrong musings are reflected in a book I'm reading, "The End of the Suburbs." It persuasively argues that, for many reasons, the lure of living or working in car-centered development far from a city center is rapidly diminishing for Americans.
Youngish millennials and aging baby boomers like me, we're both looking for something different than a subdivision full of single-family homes where you have to drive just about everywhere you want to go.
Leaders in many other cities across the United States have realized this clear fact: mixed-use urban neighborhoods where you can walk or bike to stores, entertainment, night spots, restaurants, and such are rapidly increasing in popularity, while strip-mall and traditional subdivision-filled places like Salem are viewed as blah places to avoid.
Unfortunately, the current leadership at Salem's City Hall is still stuck in a Back to the 1950's mentality. I wrote about this in one of my Strange Up Salem columns, "Up to the present, Salem."
Imagine you’re a business owner, family, or individual thinking about relocating to Oregon. You’re looking for a with-it city that’s committed to creative, cutting-edge policies, a town focused on improving quality of life and promoting vitality by embracing positive trends instead of resisting them.
These days standing still isn’t an option.
The times always have been a’changing, but now changes are accelerating. Anyone — city, corporation, citizen — who doesn’t recognize how important it is to adjust to new realities will be left behind.
Unfortunately, living in Salem feels like being stuck in quicksand while watching everyone around you run happily by. This town makes a habit of being the last in western Oregon to get the memo about where the world is heading.
Ordering a folding bike from Eugene's Bike Friday store has made me more aware of how this is sadly true when it comes to getting around Salem on two non-motorized wheels.
Bike Friday is on busy West 11th Street. But right behind it is one of Eugene's dedicated multi-use paths, which can be used by bikers, walkers, skateboarders, skaters, and others who choose to get out of a car and use alternative ways of moving.
I did my bike test-riding on Bike Friday's expansive parking area that's shared with several other businesses. But when our dog bugged me to go for a walk, I took a break from looking at folding bikes. Here we are on the bike path behind the Bike Friday store.
Smooth concrete. Nicely wide. Nothing like this in Salem, so far as I know. And this is just one of several dedicated multi-use paths in Eugene. I was told that heading in the direction Zu Zu is looking takes one to downtown.
Heading in this direction, my Bike Friday sales guy said, leads six miles or so to a nature/wildlife refuge, with more trails. Again, nothing like this in Salem proper, in the middle of the city. Even at Salem's Minto Brown Island Park, where I bike several times a week, the asphalt trails are much inferior to this.
One of the reasons I'm getting a folding bike is so I can throw it into my Mini Cooper, park somewhere near downtown, and explore Salem by bicycle — something I haven't done much of, living as we do in rural south Salem since 1990.
I've started to imagine riding into and through downtown from south Liberty Road and Commercial Street. As I drive along now, I've been paying attention to how many people bike and walk. Very few, even on the rainless warm (for winter) days we've been having recently.
A big part of the reason is Salem's sucky bicycle path infrastructure. Liberty and Commercial are main "collector" streets heading to downtown. But they clearly weren't designed to collect bicyclists. At least, not those who want to bike pleasantly and safely to or from Salem's urban core.
In some places there isn't even a marked bike lane, just a sidewalk. Then, on the edge of downtown a sign declaring the area to be a pedestrian safety zone pops up. No mention about it being a bicycling safety zone.
For good reason, because downtown Salem is a nightmarish place to ride a bike. And I haven't even attempted that yet, just imagined doing it.
No bike lanes. Very little room between parked cars and three lanes of rapidly moving traffic. A prohibition against riding on the sidewalk.
I rarely see bicyclists in downtown Salem. Just occasional brave riders, lycra-clad, young, fit, mostly male, the 1% or less of the population in the "strong and fearless" bicycling group that much of Salem's street system is (poorly) designed for.
I've heard a story about an avid highly-experienced cyclist who sold her bike after she moved to Salem because she discovered that it was too dangerous to ride here.
This isn't only a problem for bicyclists of all ages.
It is a problem for the quality of life that can be enjoyed by Salemians of all ages. Nobody's idea of a good time is to drive along crowded streets bordered by sterile strip malls where few people are out and about, walking or biking, because the only practical way to get around is by car.
When my wife and I look into possible places to live after our ten non-easy-care acres get to be too much for our senior citizen-selves to maintain, the ready availability of multi-use paths for walking/biking to shopping and stores is high on our list of "must have's."
And Salem doesn't have it. If we stay here, it won't be for that reason.
Something needs to change, or Salem is going to be left even further behind in the competition for people and businesses who don't want to be in a town with an archaic autocentric suburban sprawl approach to urban planning.
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I used to bike in my 40s three times a week for 30 miles in Pendleton, Oregon. I used the freeway. I don’t think I could find an insurance company who’d insure me for my life if they knew I was riding in Salem. The drivers for pedestrians are dangerous enough, not to mention for those who become invisible the moment they are on two wheels.
I’ve lived and rode 2-wheels in Salem for 30 years now is safer than it ever has been really. Lots more bike lanes and some sharrows here and there (remember when Lancaster didn’t even have a bike lane?). If you drive a lot it always looks dangerous but Salems core downtown is so tiny it’s easly avoided with the nice use of alleys. Traffic downtown is actually quite slow for a bicycle with moderate gearing, a few touchy spots but nothing compared to the drag strips in Portland or 1st street and other areas of Eugene. Corvallis is quite nice.
I don’t where Lycra. I don’t own a car and I’m sure you have seen me at some point in the last 30 yrs. I delivered food by bike for the 3 years at Cafe Today in 1995-98. Delivered by bike for 3 years at Dash Delivery 1998-2001
I am invisible I guess.
One reason for not leaving Salem might be: we can make it a lot better if we try. As the cover article in the Salem Weekly pointed out a few weeks ago, voters in Salem are not that more conservative than those in Portland, Corvallis and Eugene. Progressive folks in Salem have let the Chamber/Realtors/Homebuilders cabal take over for the past decade. Our bad. We have to undo that. It’s very doable and it might even be fun. There is a new organization in town that is dedicated to this: http://progressivesalem.com Check them out.
Unfortunately, I think people in Salem just don’t care. If you said, hey let’s have this nice walkable area it’s really cool, even if it didn’t cost anything, they just wouldn’t care. They have free parking downtown, wide streets, easy to get around in car, but they choose to go to the strip malls. I think most of Salem *likes* being a suburban, car-centered place. I think most Salemians (Salemites?) think people who bike are idiots and wouldn’t be caught dead doing it. I think most of them actively hate cyclists. Salem has some really beautiful parks and cool common spaces, but they are often sparsely populated. I just don’t think most of Salem cares. Look at the Kroc center, put in the middle of an industrial area where no one goes, no signs to get there (I’ve gotten lost trying to find it), financially struggles. It’s a gorgeous facility, but very few people care to use it. The library struggles, the YMCA struggles, the pools struggle. Salem just doesn’t care about community. (I lived in Salem as a child/teenager, and got out, but my family still lives there and I visit often).
Phantasteek,
Salem cares, just not in the way you think they should.
The issues with Salem cross over several bureaucracies. One is that Salem schools don’t have the reputation that Corvallis, south Eugene, and parts of Portland metro do. As a result, highly educated mobile families tend to pick one of those cities over Salem. These are important families because they have disposable income and Salem has a wealth imbalance. We don’t have enough wealthy/middle class people to offset our low income families. Many people consult and work from home nowadays. They can live anywhere, and chose places with better schools. Salem loses on that disposable income filtering into our city and local businesses.
I totally agree that Salem actively works hard to keep the city a car centered city. I don’t think motorists think cyclists are idiots. They just aren’t used to them because the city is designed in a way to discourage anything but cars.
The location of the Kroc center is a bit off, being set so far back, but it was a requirement of the donation dollars that it be in a low-income area. For the families that can afford the cost of membership/daily rates, the Courthouse Athletic Clubs offer a much closer option out west, south, and in Keizer. Other than going to the splash pad or rock wall, it doesn’t really offer anything else that these families can’t get closer to home. I don’t think it is fair to say Salemites don’t care about their community because they don’t go there. It just isn’t special enough to make the trek worth it for families that have other options. The problem is that the Kroc center needs these families memberships monies to offset the scholarships for low income families. Hence it struggles.
Every speaker I’ve been to at the library has been packed. When the parrot guy came they had to turn people away. Storytimes were always well attended. I think families use the library well. I think e-books is changing the dynamics of libraries everywhere. Not just in Salem.
Parking at the YMCA stinks. Why would anyone drive downtown for that? Again, they don’t offer things that people can’t get through the Courthouse clubs. Now as they add more housing downtown, the Y might be able to gain some members there, but I don’t get how the Y struggling means that Salem doesn’t care about its community. They just don’t care for that facility.
I have lived in Salem for 40 of my 42 years and have always rode my bike, even to dallas and other surrounding areas and have never had a problem. The key is to be assertive and agressive in your riding and realize that you can’t have everything given to you or assume that you have right of way. Common sense dictates to me that a confrontation between you on bike and someone in a car is going to draw you as the loser everytime, regardless of what any law says. Even if your in the right you can still be dead and right. I love this city. and as long as your not a whiner (no smooth concrete paths only asphalt?…please!!!) there is plenty to do and places to ride. Yah. It may not be for everyone but thats fine because we natives and long term residents don’t want just any or everyone moving here. Thats what Eugene and Portland are for. In addition everyone always has the option to move or move on if considering habitation here.