[liff] Sightlines Of Salem, Oregon

3470.

Yesterday we were in Salem for a momentous life event. More on that anon.

One of the interesting things about Salem is that the layout of the town gives these wonderful sight lines to the Capitol building which is the city's focal point. The really interesting thing is that the geography makes it look like at least a couple of major streets in town terminate at the Capitol while the geography actually deflects them before they get there.

This is the view from Center Street westbound in the neighborhood between 17th St NE and the Oregon State Hospital area:

And the next two are from a POV near the top of the hill on 12th St SE, just north of Madrona Avenue.

That's 12th St receding into the distance. It's a great, pretty view, really. Salem should really sell this sort of thing. It's the kind of thing that goes on posters. Or should.

This is from slightly farther down the hill, and would have been better if I could have held the camera steadier. The angle on the street is much more enticing. 

Salem is just as photogenic as Portland is, but it's a lit shier. You have to go looking for it. 

[logo] A New Logo And Type Look for Salem's Transit

3466.

I follow the news with the mass transit agency serving the greater Salem area, Cherriots. Mostly it's in the 'how much of it they got' department; having grown up in the Salem area, it was my ride around town for a great deal of my high school experience. It connected me with high-school and a good many things around my erstwhile and doughty home town, and it seemed to be more vulnerable to the vicissitudes of funding than the other two major systems I was then familiar with, the Lane Transit District and TriMet, whose service I always envied because in Eugene and Portland the buses ran later and they had transit on Sundays. I survived hour-long waits on Saturdays, buses that quit running around 7 PM, and at least one major service cutback (during the late 70s the service, which was then a function of the City of Salem, was curtailed back to within the city limits only, where formerly it had gone just beyond. We Salem fringers living along Lancaster Driver and in the Four Corners area missed it mightily until the Hamman jitneys came along, but that's all a story for another time).

Then Salem-Keizer Transit established its district, service returned to the Salem urban fringe, and I left town to see the greater world, in more or less that order. Latterly, Cherriots has had to cut Saturday service because revenue but has been extremely clever in using what they had to best effect, constantly rethinking service and how to deliver it. It's been an impressive story so far, and if Salem-Keizer Transit ever gets the funding I think they deserve, with the agency's creativity, Salem could someday have world-class mass transit for a city its size.

Since the 80s, the agency has had an informally-styled script logo with a visual pun on the name, which looked like this:

The o being styled into an abstract cherry and the name itself are all puns on a somewhat forgotten-by-now nickname for the capital, the Cherry City, Salem's cherry orchards once having been a great draw to the area in the spring. The Oregon Statesman and, for a short time, its successor, the Statesman-Journal, published suggested driving tour routes when those trees were in bloom.

Slowly infiltrating the agency's public presence and by now its printed and PDF collateral, has been this new look:

Featuring a hip, bold sans-serif font with some weight to it (which reminds me of the font used by C-Tran in Vancouver), the logo expresses a very mission-driven agency which is visualized by the sweeping curves both concentric on and emanating from the enlarged initial capital, which quite obviously evoke a high-speed highway.

The brand has been simplified; gone is the tagline Salem-Keizer Transit, it's simply CHERRIOTS now, and the simplicity combined with the sturdy, bold type gives a real visual strength and presence. The sweeping abstract highway provides dynamic tension in the way it emerges from above the C and in the way it ends on a cut-off angle. Gone also is the bright dash of red filling an o stylized into a cherry, a feature of the system's logo since its inception.

The brand is also going region-wide. Up until now, the division of Cherriots that provided rural transit service to Marion and Polk counties has been known as CARTS, an initialism that stood for Chemeketa Area Regional Transit System, whose logo wasn't much to speak of. CARTS is being rebranded as Cherriots Regional and being brought under the brand's banner.

The new graphic look hasn't emerged on the website but it appears to be on all digital and PDF collateral, including service advisory graphics as well as schedules, and presumably printed matter as well.

Bottom line here for me is that this is a fairly cool, modern look for a transit agency that hasn't changed much graphically in long time and stands comfortably alongside the other major transit agencies in the Willamette Valley; it's a refined, poised, and serious presence. As I read the current news about Cherriots, I get the impression that they are, at least in spirit, trying to lay the foundation for a fully-grown up transit system to serve Salem, maybe one that will at last have buses on Sunday. The logo fits an agency who is trying to level itself up into the next-generation system for Oregon's state capital city.

Those who liked the splash of red in a stylize cherry will have to make their own peace with that.

[liff] Salem's Courthouse Square Transit Station, Feb 2008

3210.

I was born, as I've said before, in Silverton, and some assembly was required there; in about 1976, my family moved to Salem, where a lot of the preliminary finishing happened.

The years in Salem were mostly happy, at least as far as those of a kid of no obvious talents except hangin' on could be. Found my first passions, my first group of permanent friends, did some healing at the same time some other wounds were being inflicted. Life is such a mixed bag, even tho' it beats the alternative.

I spent a great deal of time with my first real freedom other than my bicycle; Cherriots. I've mentioned Salem's bus system before, in other contexts; in this one, it was my car. They let you attend any high school in Salem you could haul yourself to, just as long as you showed up; my endless quest to move off Square One led me to Sprague High, and Sprague High is where I spent my secondary school career. I don't regret it.

Throughout my mid-late teenagehood in Salem, though, Cherriots was the way to go, as far as it went. Service was only hourly, coverage was pitiful when the money wasn't there to run it, and Salem, as long as I've been alive, has never had Sunday service (now, it has even less, but they appear to be working on that).  Also, the form of the facilities has changed over time. As long as anyone's known, the central transfer point for all radiating routes has been the corner of Court and High Streets. Before the early 80s, the buses lined up along the south side of Court Street between High and Liberty and the west side of High between State and Court. Following this, the transit center moved to an island comprising the entire block of High Street between Court and State, now in front of the Marion County Courthouse; a one-block (Salem's downtown blocks are verrrry long, to a Portlander) transit mall of sorts which occupied the eastern 2 lanes of High. North and west-bound buses departed from the east side of the island; south and east from the west.

They called that Cherriot Station.

In 2000, the downtown Salem transit station finally grew up. The buildings on the north side of Court between High and Church were pulled down … including the venerable old Senator Hotel … the block was cleared, and, bingo, there was Courthouse Square and the downtown Salem 'transit mall' … the south half of the block surrounded by Chemeketa, High, Court, and Church Streets was a new, brick-covered, five-story building, and the north half was now a four-lane transit center with spacious walkways, angled turnouts. Very polished, and very nice. Well, it was until 2010, when it was discovered that the construction wasn't as sound as it should have been, and it was declared a potentially dangerous place to be.

Now, in 2015, after a flurry of legal action and a monumental and commendable repair program, as of 2014, Courthouse Square is now safe and sound and in regular use as Salem's transit hub again. Good on them for getting the job done, and more power to them.

Cherriots is in what they'd call a rebuilding year; the agency is getting set to implement a major route realignment and increase service during the days it does run (Currently Monday through Friday only), and they're beginning to plow the PR field to cultivate the idea that Salem's voters should not only re-inaugurate Saturday service (cut a few years back because the voters said 'no') but also, finally, expand to Sunday service. I hope they make it happen; Salem isn't as easy to get across on ones own as it should be. So I sincerely wish them luck here.

But I digress a bit. Let's set the time machine back to February, 2008, more than five years ago. This is long enough ago that not only did Cherriots have different routes, evolved from the original routes of the 70s that I knew so well, they still have the classic names. Routes like South Commercial, State and Fairview, 12th and Sunnyside, and Lansing and Claxtar. They still have a certain ring, even today.

The following were taken in February, 2008, with a ViviCam 3705, the old plastic fantastic.

This green banner welcomes you with a promise of service in Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer.

The simplicity … and somewhat aggravating lack … of service at the time is aptly represented by this display on an informational kiosk. These are all departure times, on all routes, for all days of operation. Notice the red times? Those are the runs that only happened on Saturday. All times in black departed all five weekdays, Monday through Friday, but not on Saturday.

There was no Service.

A closeup of the schedule for Route 1 - Commercial Street, a major trunk route serving the commercial corridor extending south from downtown along Commerical St SE, with about 30 departures over the service day. Most AM runs didn't operate on Saturdays.

This photo is one of a diagram of the bus bays and where the routes dock. Very nice and ordered. I noted at the time that the font used in the bus symbols was pretty much the same as the old route-number-name font that Tri Met used at the time. I liked it. It gave it a big-city feel. As did the whole production.

This next diagram is the route network in effect as of February 2008. It's notable that Cherriots had grown from around 14 routes when I was in high school to nearly 25 routes by then. Interesting topology there, I always thought … the Salem street network is visually interesting, and the way the transit route net minimized it is a pattern I still find interesting today.

… all this on one of two informational kiosks, one at each end of the transit mall area, such as:

The 16-Four Corners bus held special nostalgia for me. When I moved into Salem from Silverton, it was the Four Corners neighborhood that I found myself in.

… and here is a long shot of the then 9-Kaiser Central bus. The color scheme of the Cherriots is simple and practical … hardworking yet unique in its way.

There were to be more pictures, but a sudden end to my photo safari, which was just to document this place for my own nostalgia and satisfaction and maybe artistic inspiration, but …

Well, it was interrupted. More on that at a later time, though.

[Address_Nerd] In Passing: Two Interesting Salem Street Names

3175.

While I've not called Salem home for many a year (and at this point feel myself more of a Portlander than I've ever been of anywhere else), I'd be lying to myself if I said I didn't still feel somewhat at home there.

You can take the boy out of Marion County (or he can), but you really can't take Marion County out of the boy. The strawberry patch has set its stamp upon me, aye.

Since I don't get back to Salem as often as I ought, Google Street View is my friend betimes. And since the street level photography has gotten so damn good over the last few years, I indulge my urge to see what the street names and blades look like and how they have changed over time. There are two interesting bits of nomenclature that have stuck with me. I delved and found, and I'd like to share them now.

1. The Cutoff at the end of 12th Street.

12th Street, SE, is a major access backbone to the area of southeast Salem east of Commerical Street but west of the Salem Airport. For over 2 and a half miles south of State Street it distributes traffic and commerce to those inner south-east side neighborhood areas, climbing the hill south of Vista Avenue, and then swerving southwestward to merge with Commercial Street at about the 3800 block, just north of where Sunnyside Road SE peels off.

What is easily missed, though, is that the road stops being 12th Street SE at that point. There is a 12th Street SE south of this point … but it lines up with the main stem of 12th and goes from Duffield Heights St SE south to Hilfiker Lane SE, in the small neighborhood just east of Commerical, south of the 12th St light. That diagonal section connecting 12th at Oakhill Avenue SE to the big traffic signal plenum at Commerical Street is actually known as …

12th STREET CUT-OFF SE. A real mouthful of a name. But it lends itself to, perhaps, the most intriguing looking street blades Salem can boast. The above blade blends the signage for Ibsen St SE and 12th Street Cut-off due to the interesting angle of the intersection, and the extension across the main road that allows southbound 12th Street traffic to access Commercial Street northbound … a dendritic ramp affair that also connects to Promotory Place SE.

Another interesting thing is that the signage is not consistent. There are two other cross streets to 12th Street Cut-off, Doris Ave SE and Oakhill Ave SE, and both the signs shift the "ST" generic to above the block index, leaving the "CUT OFF" kind of dangling there.

The street name is most prosaic, as the cut-off does provide a shortcut to Commercial Street. Giving it a variant name also prevents a duplicated street name, as the southern third of 12th Street Cut-Off is somewhat parallel to the southernmost extensions of 12th Street SE, just a few blocks to the east.

2. The One And Only Link You Need.

The other interesting blade happens in West Salem. I lived near this place for a very short time. There is a street that links Kingwood Dr NW and the place where Hillcrest Dr NW and Riverview Dr NW come together. This is a very short street, on the order of only about 180 feet in length, and in honor of its functional position of being very near three streets but not actually being part of any of them, it's simply (and also prosaically) called …

THE LINK ST NW. 

The "ST" generic seems to be a later addition; when I lived in that neighborhood, maps and the street sign simply called it The Link, NW. Latterly, I've noticed, post offices and city planners abhor a vacuum in the generic spot (Witness here in Portland where SE Reedway (a per se street name sans generic) is increasingly posted as SE Reedway St, a misnomer. So, the awkwardish The Link Street NW it is for them. I'll always see it a little different.

At least the word THE has been retained, giving a memorable presentation. 

[OR_liff] The Bridges Of Marion County

2770.Well, not all of them. Actually, life in the Willamette Valley outside of Portland is a very east-side/west-side thing; the side of the river you live on divides us from them. In Marion County,  which to me has always been the heartland of the valley (as well as where I first stepped into this world we share) there are amazingly few places to cross the river, in fixed form: two of the marvellous river ferries, the Wheatland (at the north end) and the Buena Vista (at the south end) connect Marion and its sister Polk counties, and other than that, there are just three other bridges into Polk: Two in Salem and one coming back in the other way, from Independence, leading back into Salem along River Road S.

Therefore, most of the cross-regional traffic, east from the coast to the mountains, west from the Cascades to the sea, is going to go over one crossing-point. Oregon State Hwy 22, which crosses westbound over the Willamette in downtown Salem as the Marion Street Bridge, and eastbound into downtown from West Salem as the Center Street Bridge.

Now, as anyone who knows Salem will tell you, Salem doesn't have much of a reputation as a bridge town or a river town ... memorable river traffic ended with the all-too-brief riverboat era on the Willamette. Lying rather passively along the Willamette, and with a river crossing designed to get you over it without much notice, the Cherry City's cool with being associated with Oregon's signature river, but they're just acquaintances, really. There's no river orientation with downtown, really, at least no strong one. There's a Salem Riverfront Park at long last, but for Salem, when I was growing up there, the river was something back behind the railroads that then choked Front Street and the Boise Cascade paper mill (now being pulled down, I understand).

It's with some joy, then, that I see the author of the blog Cyclotram, another one of us underrated Portland Blogs who get no notice or press but deserve some, is apparently on a project to record Willamette bridges, and in these two slide shows, he shines a rather affectionate light on Salem's two queens of the river:

This is the Marion Street Bridge:



And here's a link to the entire Flickr album for this: http://www.flickr.com//photos/atul666/sets/72157628985687099/show/

And this is the Center Street Bridge:



And here's a link to the Flickr album for that: http://www.flickr.com//photos/atul666/sets/72157628985687099/show/

The history of bridges in Salem is that we'll do fine with what we have, and maybe we'll build another one, someday, maybe. Perhaps. When I was in high school in Salem, they were talking about it then, and that was … well, long enough ago. They've been batting around the idea of a third Willamette bridge in Salem for the last few decades like a bored cat. There's a proposal to do that still. This one's been under study since … 2002. Yep. 10 Years. That's how they roll down in Snailem. Or, as brx0 aptly put it:

Based on past history, the most likely candidate would be the city deciding it's time to build the fifth Center Street Bridge, and start demolishing the current one while you're still on it. It's not a city that does anything quickly, though. There's a current proposal out there to build an additional bridge in the greater Salem area, and it'll be years before they'll even break ground on it, if they ever do. So chances are you'll have had plenty of warning -- months or years, probably -- plus I just told you there was a miniscule but nonzero chance it might happen. So can't say you weren't warned.

Salem. Just accept it.