Traffic inches up to the Ellsworth Street Bridge at 5:51 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024.
There are no problems with traffic in Albany, no current issues, no long-term concerns, nothing to keep track of, no topics worthy of an update.
That, anyway, is the situation suggested by news from City Hall, which came this week: “The Transportation Advisory Commission members have decided to cancel the October 24 meeting due to lack of agenda. The next TrAC meeting will be held on November 26, 2024.”
If this advisory commission is looking for things to put on its agenda, it might ask for suggestions from people who try to get around town in their cars, or who labor to get into town from the north, across the river, most weekday afternoons.
Sure, a lot of issues have been discussed before, at length. But nothing much has happened. And nothing much will happen, experience says, without continued harping, and even an occasional harangue.
It was last January that the city got the report from consultants who recommended several actions to ease congestion on Highway 20, including the bottleneck of getting into town from the north during peak hours. Nothing has changed. Everybody just accepted that nothing would happen for years, even though a couple of the recommendations required mostly paint and new signs.
Other issues? Last year ODOT completed upgrades along the Santiam Highway near Fred Meyer. Is it just me, or has traffic congestion on this stretch gotten worse since then? Maybe the upgrades need an adjustment in the signals here and there.
It has been more than a year since the Albany Transit System changed its routes and its schedules. How’s that working out? Are the buses any fuller now? Has ridership jumped? If not, what should be tried next?
What about the change that had buses from different routes converging on Clay Street near 14th Avenue? Waiting there on the sidewalk to make a connection has to be less convenient than it was under the shelters at Albany Station.
Highway 99E to and from LBCC remains a four-lane racetrack with skimpy bike lanes that seem designed for cyclists tired of life. Where is the discussion about how to reduce the risk? (The council abolished the former bike/pedestrian commission a couple of years ago, which was no great loss because that panel didn’t do much. But the transportation advisory committee does even less.)
In northeast Albany, property owners recently complained to the council about a couple of alleys being a nuisance. If it hasn’t already done so, the city is likely to close at least one of these walkways, even though it might be useful to people on foot. Is this something the transportation committee should take up?
Albany is about to spend thousands of dollars on new speed cameras — at intersections where reason says the average speed of cars and trucks in traffic has to be something between zero and 35 miles an hour. I don’t know if the transportation advisers ever wondered, or discussed, whether this made sense. But if they did, the council didn’t hear about it.
In any case, the members of this group had nothing to take up this month, nothing worth meeting about. Where transportation is concerned, Albany must be in pretty good shape. (hh)
How is it they want more money from our paychecks build more homes only the rich could afford bringing in more people that own two to three cars.
Cameras that will cost tax payers, police that are not around to protect to keep violations in check.
Albany will be another Salem, Portland
In a year or two.
I suggest you take the next step beyond harping and haranguing.
Insert some curse words in your blog once in a while to describe incompetence at City Hall.
After reading your article I thought of a few words related to bodily excretions that fit.
Thank you for reminding us of one of the important roles that journalists can perform:
Digging the spurs into local government.
Very fine writing.
“….harping and even an occasional Harangue”!! Love that writing, Hasso!! Thanks for your blog so we can harp and harangue!! Good to know there are no transportation issues in Albany worth meeting about!! God!! Who is on that Transportation committee? They need to all be replaced. Probably made up of buddies of the Council members. They are probably waiting to meet until the election is over so that they know who the Councilors will be and whose backsides they need to kiss!!
It seems to me that one idea would be to first stop building apartment buildings to fit more people into our once nice sized town – especially the ones in North Albany that will put more and more people trying to get onto hwy 20!
As for the traffic, it doesn’t really matter what time of day you travel in Albany – traffic is crazy!
I cannot believe how ignorant the committee must be to say there’s no problem, nothing to discuss!
There should be something to discuss at these meetings. At the very least discuss how the changes that have been made , are they working? Sounds like they may not care. I wish my job was this easy.
And this is why I follow you instead of the DH, Hasso. I learn more from just one of your stories than I ever did from the DH after you left. Plus, yours is graciously free.
I agree 100%
Hasso – what a great article! And I loved the statement about bike lanes for cyclists tired of life – and a big LOL there. I think I will see if there are any vacancies on the transportation advisory commission. I would have a lot of comments due to my extensive walking around town and North Albany. Again thanks for the AM laugh!
Hasso – there is an upcoming vacancy in the Transportation Advisory Commission.
Lol guess the city is so confident in totally ignoring our needs that we finally just got a “talk to the hand” gesture by not even having meetings. Maybe it is a ploy to get us to agree to pay any fees they ask for. A “time out” stuck in traffic will make us rethink our dogged efforts and we will do as we are told. It has worked for them before with other issues.
Well said. I was wondering today where all of the construction we have now was when we had summer? With Old Salem Road and Queen Ave both blocked, it puts much more strain in Pacific and Hwy 20. Good thing that there is nothing to be discussed by the Advisory Commission.
Once again a City Council selected cmte is dysfunctional. Written suggestions regarding asking MGR push interim traffic guy to push State for improvements wrt traffic flow thru Albany. Seen nothing in this blog that was done.
Yet another example. Perhaps the definition of …… Failing Local Leadership.
Maybe the mayor should step in. Disband this group. Can’t hurt anymore.
Oh wait, he’ll just reach into our wallets some more.
How about some traffic enforcement for the red light runners. This seems to be epidemic. Maybe use the new “ speed” cameras for red light enforcement. It seems like virtually nothing in Albany for traffic control. Is our police department that short of officers?
The speed cameras are to be installed in conjunction with new red-light cameras at 4 intersections. But so far none have been installed or activated.
re enforcement of traffic laws – the City population is somewhere between 50,000 – 60,000.
There is ONE officer designated for “traffic” enforcement!!!! One officer for that many people and there are 24 hours in a day? How many sworn officers, both from Sgts and above vs patrol officers? How often do you see any patrol units while driving to and from work/shopping, etc?
I was in the mess on October 16th. It took me 40 mins to get from Gibson Hill Park to 3rd and Madison.
More homes, more people, more cars and less concern for infastructure.
Years ago when a developer had plans of building off Dover, the project manager said at a public hearing at the old Oak Grove school: “you have such a nice area that people want to come here to live.” After that Pheasant Run was developed. 140 homes on 40 acres of pristine farmland. Averaging 2 vehicles per household. Yet the planning commission was told by that PM that the quality of life was not to be considered. The commission denied the permit only to be overturned by the city council.
Can we also talk about this one consultant company DKS seems to be getting all the contracts to do these assessments and reports? What’s going on here? I’ve read several of them and many are just poor quality.
And don’t get me started on the complete lack of evidence behind the city’s decisions, and their total disinterest in evaluating their projects before making new asinine investments.
Albany is the only city I ever remember that they didn’t have enough money one year to plow the roads at least there’s I 5, you can just pass Albany, and go somewhere else.
Well folks, it is called “follow the money”, that is campaign finance dollars. This tsunami has been coming for years and yet I was always labeled as anti-growth from the pro-growth Chamber of Commerce, realtors and developers. They control our local campaigns and I wouldn’t be another one of their puppets. The Oregon Realtors spend millions on campaigns. Your ballots are in the mail and look to see who has endorsed and funded local candidates. We basically have no local zoning and regulations anymore from the state leaders demanding we keep building more homes and with more density. Our governor wants 30,000 homes a year built for ten years. That equates to about one million more people and you can bet they won’t be building on sagebrush land where they are limited on water. It will be in our valley which has prime soils and surface water. So voters read your voters pamphlet closely and see who endorses those candidates. If it is pro-growth political action committees then you have no room to complain anymore about more traffic. I warned people for years this would happen.
Campaign donations can be tracked at: https://secure.sos.state.or.us/orestar/GotoSearchByName.do
What Sharon refuses to acknowledge is that city government requires everyone to get their permission before any private development is accomplished.
She tries to frame the issue as a campaign issue. Nonsense.
Nobody, I repeat, nobody, gets around local zoning and development requirements that require permission of city hall.
And somehow traffic issues are problems created by real estate agents, developers, and the Chamber of Commerce? Again, nonsense.
City Hall policies/regulations (and the policies/regulations of their commanders in Salem) are the primary cause of traffic problems.
We need to recognize that the human use of land, including streets, is dictated by government, not individuals or corporations who contribute to local campaigns.
Gordon you have been living away from Oregon for many years now and Oregon’s land use laws have changed. The state took away voter approved annexations, single family zoning, parking requirements and only want more and more density. Yes an applicant must get approval to build, but pretty much anything is permissible anymore. Someday there won’t be any need for a planning department.
The female candidate for Albany Council is a realtor who wants more high density housing in North Albany. I vote against that.
What’s your unbiased opinion between Michael Thomson and Trevor Lee? Michael is saying a lot of good things in his mailers regarding N. Albany, Trevor has positives also especially in regards to looking out for the taxpayer. Don’t know anything about Courtney Stubbs (no mailers) other than what you mention. What does a Thomas Cordier recommendation look like? I really don’t know who is best for my N. Albany neighborhood, the one person that advocated for us is no longer going to be on council.
Does anyone know when queen st railroad tracks will finally be open? This is a shortcut for a lot of people and has been closed for months.
Just moved back to Oregon from Washington last year. These are the exact same issues all over the PNW. Unless you change the laws about density and building codes and keep no-growth folks on the city council, there will continue to be development, cars, traffic, and yes… PEOPLE!
Regarding the traffic between Albany and Corvallis:
Imagine a passenger train between the two cities using the track that already exists.
It could start at the Albany train station, then make another pick-up stop by North Albany Road. It would then stop at HP, in downtown Corvallis and finally on the OSU campus.
Maybe one round trip in the morning and one in the afternoon.
It would have to be coordinated so as to not interfere with the cargo trains.
I have no idea what it would take to propose this and to whom.
But I think it could alleviate some traffic and it would be a lovely ride.
Imagine a bus route called the Linn-Benton loop.
It has existed for many years.
I used to use it on occasion.
It is lovely, and lots of taxpayer bucks less than the cost of creating a passenger train.
I’m with Penny, on Queen st, from Marion to Pacific. Am wondering why it has been closed for months, although it looks like they’re finally repaving it and may open it. But what have they been doing to it, in the months its been closed?
The congestion on I5 is unbelievable at times. I take local cats to be fixed and because we have no options anywhere local, I take them clear to a nonprofit clinic in Portland. And its miserable, with the congestion on I5, going and returning. Even Lebanon traffic is bad now. Its not hard to know why—new developments everywhere, more and more people with more and more cars.
Maybe the issue is cars, and not people. Most office workers would love to work from home if allowed. Or maybe we don’t need so many cars in a household, or even huge trucks that destroy the roads.
One must never forget: North Albany does not exist in the eyes of the city of Albany! Hence the traffic, the Gibson Hill Rd. housing fiasco, the dangerous traffic circle, and more!
They sure like our high property tax revenues though…