Ian Davidson

Medford removing controversial bike lanes on Main Street The Medford City Council voted this week to abandon its controversial bike lanes on Main Street, just three years after installing them.

"Counts of bicycle traffic since the bike lanes were installed showed that traffic increased sixfold. Engineers also didn’t find any major congestion issues with automobiles after the revamp."

Medford traffic flows faster but also kills more people than in Bend. Lots of strip malls, too.

@aortarail.org, can you send a letter to Santa for me?

Alas, there are no existing rail lines that go to Lincoln City. The closet one ends in Toledo. A robust intercity bus network overlaid on top of the passenger rail network would/should serve Lincoln City though.

A map of proposed and existing passenger rail routes in Oregon. Routes: Cascades (existing) - Eugene to Vancouver, BC Coast Starlight (existing) - Seattle to Los Angeles through Portland and Klamath Falls Lewis and Clark (new) - Astoria to Portland Bay to Valley (new) - Coos Bay to Portland Umpqua Rogue (new) - Medford to Eugene High Desert (new) - Redmond to Eugene Pioneer (new) - Portland to Boise/Salt Lake City via Hood River, Pendleton, and Ontario Oregon Daylight (new) - Klamath Falls to Eugene

All I want for Christmas is this.

It was great to talk with @wilsonxcassie.bsky.social about the importance of transit in Salem, Keizer, and beyond.

Now, more than ever, public transit is a ready-made solution for so many of Oregon's problems, whether that is slowing economic growth or low school attendance rates. Let's fund it!

I unironically love the proposed name University of the Northwest

A new study reports that almost half of all urban and suburban US car owners are open to living car free.

We need to significantly increase the level of transit service across the US to enable people make that *choice*.

Without adequate service, we force people into $$ depreciating assets (cars).

It's Vote at Home, folks.

The place I feel safest is my *home*. Voting in my *home* affords me the luxury of time to consider the issues and candidates on the ballot.

Stop focusing on how the vote gets there and focus on where the vote happens.

#orpol #orleg #Oregon

A wayfinding sign directing riders to "Federal Way Downtown" and "Downtown Redmond"

For the life of me I do not understand Sound Transit station naming convention.

At Cherriots, our mission is "creating community connections." Sometimes that means connecting you from Point A to Point B, and sometimes it means connecting you to the resources you need at no cost to you because it’s what’s needed.

Of those 90,000 in Marion and Polk Counties who will not receive their SNAP benefits, almost 30,000 are children, about 9,000 are seniors and about 17,000 are disabled.

Just tell the driver where you are going when you board the bus and your ride is free.

Cherriots is offering free rides to and from food banks and pantries starting Nov. 1 through the end of the government shutdown, the transit agency announced Thursday. The agency said it mirrors their free rides to warming shelters. With those rides, passengers just need to tell the driver where they’re going for a free trip. “With many families facing uncertainty and added stress, we want to ensure that accessing food is never a barrier,” said Allan Pollock, general manager, in a statement. “Our community depends on us, and we are proud to step up for those who need support right now.”

90,000 in Marion and Polk County depend on SNAP. In two days, because of failures at the highest level of our federal government, our neighbors will not receive SNAP food assistance.

In response, beginning November 1, 2025, Cherriots riders traveling to and from food banks may ride at no cost.

I can and will celebrate in my heart! I don't have to travel to Bend to celebrate Blockbuster.

I thought I would only spend two hours responding to questions, but I ultimately spent four and a half hours fielding questions.

Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful questions!

Of course!

Tomorrow, I will be answering your questions about the service enhancements Cherriots is proposing over at r/SALEM.

Our proposed service enhancements are decades overdue and would *finally* begin to provide the level of service we need.

You can post your questions now: bit.ly/IanDavidsonAMA

Long story short, the line was operated by Tillamook County Transportation District, but they had to suspend service on the route suddenly. PCBL is now operating the line on an interim basis, but the funding for it and the history (and likely future) of it is a local transit route.

Salem to Albany Corridor Feasibility Study Project | Cherriots Providing public transportation services in Salem, Oregon and the surrounding region.

FWIW I agree that POINT is not local transit. I think the Salem to Albany gap is the only remaining local transit gap in the Willamette Valley.

We've studied closing the gap, but presently do not have funding to start running this much needed route.

www.cherriots.org/salemtoalbany/

Of course!

You must be riding up the coast then 🤔. Either way, excited to watch your trip unfold here and on YouTube. Safe travels!

@milesintransit.com @64streetcar.bsky.social if you pass through Salem, OR (which is another way of saying do you count the POINT bus as local transit?), depending when you come through, I can hook you two up with a Cherriots transit card to both pay your fare and to then keep if you collect them!

Imagine you were at the blue dot and wanted to go to the red dot. You'd have to ride almost the whole loop. Combine that with a low frequency and you could reallocate transit resources system wide much more efficiently to better serve people.

I'm so sorry and I don't blame you one bit. We fail to serve our community when the transit we provide is not useful to our community. We've made a whole lot of progress in recent years, but we still have more work to do to provide the level of service Salem really needs.

Oh, and 13 other people boarded the bus so it's not just this tired transit board member needing later weekday service.

We have more work to do to provide the service our community needs, but I'm so encouraged by the progress we're making.

Tonight's Cherriots board meeting ran late so I caught the 10 pm bus home. That would not have been possible when I first joined the board since our buses stopped running at 9 pm. Now, thanks to state investment, our buses run until 11 pm.

Transit investments change lives and communities. #orleg

3rd Place 🥉
• Ridership Change from 2023 to 2024
• Personal Value in 2024
• Overall Customer Satisfaction Change from 2023 to 2024
• Population Near Transit in Jan-Mar 2025

Please join me in congratulating everyone at Cherriots for a job well done!

3/3

#SalemOR #KeizerOR

Image of all the first place award winners in the different categories.

1st Place 🥇
• Ridership Change from 2021 to 2024
• Cost per Customer Trip Change from 2021 to 2023 - 1st
• Job Access by Transit in Jan-Mar 2025

2nd Place 🥈
• Customer Net Promoter Score in 2024

2/3

Image of medals hanging from rear view mirror of Cherriots bus.

It's always very gratifying to see the incredible work of #TeamCherriots recognized, especially when benchmarked among some of the best transit agencies in the United States.

This time, Cherriots took home gold, silver, and bronze medals from the latest TransDash Performance Summit Awards

🧵 1/3

I'm in Bend for work and just spotted one of the many bus stop improvement that @ericlint.com helped make a reality in Central Oregon.

I'm very excited to see a similar work kick off in the mid-valley.

Congratulations and job well done!