A Safer Commercial St SE
For those of you who attended our June Bikes and Brews event, you may recall us mentioning a city project we were working on improving at the intersection of Ratcliff and Commercial. Ben Fryback, an SBV supporter who has a degree in civil engineering, came to us with a proposal on how to make this project even better for biking and we set out to make it so.
We met with city staff repeatedly over many months to discuss possible ways to improve the projects for those of us who bike. City staff ultimately presented three design options to the Community Advisory Transportation Commission (CATC) this month and CATC selected an option Salem Bike Vision endorsed. We are thrilled with this outcome! Because of this vote, Salem will now have a quarter mile of protected bike lanes on one of the busiest roads in the City.
Thank you in particular to Cheryl Hummon, a CATC member, who led the effort at CATC to support safer bike designs for the project. Because of Cheryl’s support and the support of others in the community, a significant segment of the southern end of the North-South Bike Backbone will be protected from vehicular traffic! We are steadily making progress in building out a network of bike infrastructure where people of all ages and abilities can safely bike across their own city.