Another great example for Salem

Nice story on the BTA blog about Paris's "Velib" system of low-cost, widely available bikes for loan to anyone who wants to use one. A nice fit for Salem.

More bicyclists = fewer car/bike accidents

MORE CYCLISTS MEAN FEWER ACCIDENTS

Ecomodder - It may seem counterintuitive, but according to a recent report more cyclists on the road mean fewer accidents involving cyclists and motor vehicles. . . "It's a virtuous cycle," says Dr Julie Hatfield, an injury expert from University of New South Wales. "The likelihood that an individual cyclist will be struck by a motorist falls with increasing rate of bicycling in a community. And the safer cycling is perceived to be, the more people are prepared to cycle." Also, even more encouragingly, it doesn't seem that cycling infrastructure is responsible for the change:

Experts say the effect is independent of improvements in cycling-friendly laws such as lower speed limits and better infrastructure, such as bike paths. Research has revealed the safety-in-numbers impact for cyclists in Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, 14 European countries and 68 Californian cities.

The Occult in Salem

One of the (sometimes dubious) perks of living in our fair city is that our biggest industry is government. This is one reason that Salem struggles economically: an inordinate fraction of prime city land sits under government (i.e., non-property-tax-paying) ownership.

Funny, Oregon's state government, which loves timber payments to compensate for all that federally owned (non-property-tax-paying) land, hasn't quite seen how that same idea applies to cities such as Salem.

Of course there is an real upside to living in a town where government is the main thing: a constant source of amusement.

Did you know that a little-known office within state government (called "The Real Estate Agency") claims that it can copyright information that appears to have once been compiled, published, and distributed at public expense?

If anyone has a copy of this magical "yellow book" that has gone occult (hidden from view, concealed), please speak up in the comments section. Everyone in Salem deserves to know what vital information was once -- but is no more -- contained within it.

Questions and Answer Book Discontinued

The Real Estate Agency is no longer selling the publication "Questions and Answers in Real Estate" (also known as the "yellow book").

The Agency also wishes to remind interested parties that the questions in the "Questions and Answers in Real Estate" are copyrighted. Making copies of the book without permission of the Agency is not allowed.

Please contact the Agency if you have any questions.

Moments of the past -- and the future?

This appeared in the Statesman-Journal on November 9, 2007, reprinting a piece from the Capital Journal that ran on May 27, 1890:

The electric street cars made their first trip this morning. Mr. Knight invited the Board of Trade, the City Council and the representatives of the press to make the trial trip with them. A Journal reporter was on hand. Everything moved off smoothly and all were pleased with the workings of the machinery. The cars move off rapidly and with a steady motion and there is no danger of having your next on jointed by the sudden jerks in starting or stopping.

The cars are single motor of 15 hp, and are capable of a speed of 25 miles an hour, though a usual run, including stops, they will make about 10 miles an hour. The manipulation is so perfected that only a moment is required to stop and reverse the power, and before it is thought, the car will be moving in the opposite direction.

Those speeds compare quite favorably to the average speed attained by automobiles on city streets here in Salem. But are we wise enough to recognize how much our abandonment of what would today be called light rail has cost us?

And are we wise enough to reverse course as smoothly as those cars did in 1890, and rebuild an electric-based transit system option before it is too late and the financial shenanigans of Wall Street and the relentless upward pressure on energy and food prices uses up all the available money and reduced driving depletes the Highway Trust Fund?

Not obviously.

Consider this editorial from the business descendant of the Capital Journal, just a month after the flashback story (December 6, 2007)--it displays the usual preoccupation with pouring more and more resources into trying to maintain automobility, which is, at bottom, the underlying root cause of our economic collapse.

Don't let Salem be site of traffic bottleneck
Third bridge vital to Salem regional transportation

This week's storms brought home the fragility of the transportation network on which Northwest Oregon depends.

A few hour's of lashing by Sundays and Mondays rains were all it took to close the highways from the Willamette Valley to the coast. Deliveries of groceries, newspapers and fuel came to a halt. Tourists bound for casinos and hotels turned back. Coastal residents canceled plans for medical appointments inland. . . .

If today's harsh storms can have such an effect on East-West transportation, just think of the consequences of failing to build a third bridge across the Willamette River at Salem.

This project has been talked about since the 1960s. Without some agreement on where to build the bridge and how to raise the ever-increasing local share of funds, the bridge to get put on the back burner yet again.

That would doom Salem to be a bottleneck for regional transportation, just as surely as Portland's I-5 bridge or Oregon's mud-covered highways have been this week.

Christian Science Monitor covers Transition Towns

A very good paper covers a very important subject: transitioning to be ready for a low-energy future.

Great News -- Community Radio coming to Salem!

Kudos to Karen Holman for all her work!

Salem area receives clearance for FM radio station

Salem is on the way to having a nonprofit, community FM radio station, with the issuance of a construction license to Radio Free Salem.

Karen Holman, a board member of nonprofit Salem Folklore Community and chairwoman of its radio project committee, received the Federal Communication Commission permit last week, the preliminary to the issuance of a license. . . . Radio Free Salem will lease a tower on Wipper Hill in Turner for its antenna, with a signal expected to reach most of Salem, Stayton, Sublimity, Aumsville and Turner. . . . The programming will be 50 percent music, with the rest community-driven programming, such as news and talk, similar to Portland's KBOO. . . . The official city of license will be Turner; being based in a small community helped Radio Free Salem get a license.

Letter of the Month

Return airport funds, protect quality of life

Why on Earth would we want to expand and intensify the use of the
Salem airport? It will benefit a few and will adversely impact the
quality of life for many people who live in the core area of Salem,
some who have lived here for decades.

We already tolerate increasing train noise and traffic congestion.
Increasing air traffic noise and pollution will detract from efforts
to promote the livability of the core area of Salem and discourage
new residents.

I would vote to return the $8 million in federal funds to forgo
improving the existing airport and to protect livability in Salem.

I place a high value on quality of life. I don't like the community
being forced to accept a noisy helicopter school that we don't want
in order to keep money for airport expansion. The expansion is sure
to result in more unwanted air traffic, noise and pollution.

If Salem needs a bigger airport, and I am not sure it does, maybe it
should be relocated — before we invest $10 million of our hard-earned
tax dollars on "improvements."

— Tracy White, Salem

Perhaps the most important transportation idea yet to penetrate our thick skulls

Slow down.

Read all about it.

Reimagining Energy

Susan Hockfield

Reimagining Energy

By Susan Hockfield

. . .

Today, the United States is tangled in a triple knot: a shaky economy, battered by volatile energy prices; world politics weighed down by issues of energy consumption and security; and mounting evidence of global climate change. . . . I believe we can address all three problems at once with dramatic new federal investment in energy research and development.

If one advance could transform America's prospects, it would be ready access, at scale, to a range of affordable, renewable, low-carbon energy technologies -- from large-scale solar and wind energy to safe nuclear power. [Good luck with the affordable part on that one.] Only one path will lead to such transformative technologies: research. Yet federal funding for energy research has dwindled to irrelevance. In 1980, 10 percent of federal research dollars went to energy. Today, the share is 2 percent.

Research investment by U.S. energy companies has mirrored this drop. In 2004, it stood at $1.2 billion in today's dollars. This might suit a cost-efficient, technologically mature, fossil-fuel-based energy sector, but it is insufficient for any industry that depends on innovation. Pharmaceutical companies invest 18 percent of revenue in R&D. Semiconductor firms invest 16 percent. Energy companies invest less than one-quarter of 1 percent. With this pattern of investment, we cannot expect an energy technology revolution. . . .

How much should we invest? In 2006 the government spent between $2.4 billion and $3.4 billion (less than half of the annual R&D budget of our largest pharmaceutical company). Many experts, including the Council on Competitiveness, recommend that federal energy research spending climb to twice or even 10 times current levels. In my view, the nation should move promptly to triple current rates, then increase funding further as the Energy Department builds its capacity to convert basic research into marketable technologies.

Seen around: Good advice

Let's live on the planet as

if we intend to stay.