Interstate 305: Salem's Cancelled Freeway
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- Опубліковано 2 лип 2024
- Oregon's capital of Salem is not crisscrossed by freeways, but in the 1960s and 70s, this was looking to be a very real possibility. This short documentary explores the failed proposal for Interstate 305, which promised to reduce the city's traffic and provide a much-needed river crossing.
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It’s awesome learning about a more obscure part of my state’s history. I loved the Portland video because now my wife and I look for the ramp-stubs when we take trips out of Portland.
Glad you two are enjoying them, Christian!
Didn’t know Salem had a canceled freeway, I knew of the Portland example and several in Seattle. A couple of those, a small stretch were built. An interchange in Interbay for one, another in Montlake for the Thompson Expressway.
I'm a bridge engineer in Oregon and I really like these videos. Thanks for making these
This is some of the best researched and produced stuff out on the internet today. Love learning more about recent Oregon history. Thanks so much for sharing, Peter!
Hello from Salem! Great video. We still need a third bridge, as long as in doesn't increase traffic near my house, of course.
Living in Salem for the past 5 years I didn't know the exact story around I-305 and it's relation to Salem Parkway and a 3rd bridge. Thanks for making this!
Born and raised in Salem... I had no idea about Salem Parkway almost being I305.. Thank you for doing all this research for all these Oregon videos.
This is very quickly becoming one of my favorite channels. Outstanding work!
Thank you!
I need more of this voice and well researched production
As always- great content and production.
Infrastructure greatly effects us all, we we work, where we live, where we recreate.
Returned from the central coast through Salem to I-5 on a non- holiday Saturday.
Surface streets were snarled up, hope it's not that bad on weekdays.
I’ve never heard of I305, this was interesting. The Salem Parkway was a nice addition; but traffic through and in Salem as a whole is a nightmare, I avoid Salem at all costs!!
Great stuff, Peter. I grew up in Salem - McKay Class of 90 - and I never realized the Salem Parkway was a remnant of a proposed freeway. And then the reminders of the construction at Chemawa and Marion St. really brought me back. Thanks again for all the work you put in to these!
Awesome video! I know Eugene had a very interesting proposed freeway that would have been a circle around the city. The Beltline is 1/4 of that proposed project.
These documentaries are fantastic! I expect this channel to hit the algorithm big soon.
As a resident of Salem Oregon I can tell you that we still do need this interstate 305 would be the perfect situation to help relieve traffic over the bridge into West Salem it's a shame they don't still consider this and make Salem Parkway as part of it and thank you for the video
Well made! Incredible production quality and research, and perfect length for film about this specific highway. I am incredibly impressed!
Peter, awesome channel!! This I-305 video found me, a Salem OR resident and history nerd, tonight in recommended, and I’ve been binging all night since! I’m especially entranced because I worked at Evergreen Wings and Waves as a lifeguard in 2014, unfortunately the year Del passed away. This video, the evergreen one, and all the others have been freaking fantastic! You’ve earned a sub for life already, and I’ll be sharing with friends. Truly, you’re doing some fantastic work here!!!
I'm glad you're enjoying them, Riley, thank you!
Your work is priceless, I truly appreciate what you do. Please keep it up!
I absolutely love your work. Please keep producing these fantastic videos!!
These videos are always so informative and well produced! Thank you so much for these videos
I sure do enjoy your Oregon specific productions. Such obscure and interesting stories - all of them.
These videos are so good! Well done, Peter!
Amazing work as always.
Love this channel. We need Good quality Oregon history. Thank you!!
The length of this video is much better than the last few, much more watchable. loving the new content
Moved to Oregon almost six years ago and love the state - and really loving your content! Thanks for making these so I can learn more about my new home and I look forward to more of your content, subbed!
I love the maps and general editing of this channel. I wonder how they do it.
Thank you for these videos. My family and I are really enjoying them. As a local it is fun to know these little unknowns.
Love your vids, peter
Another great video, Peter, keep it up!
Very well done! Great video, content and production. Keep it up!
Excellent work! Very well done.
Right on!Great video!You are creating high quality material and I thank you for that.
Very well done. You make it easy to follow and understand.
I lived in Salem for years and never knew about I - 305. Thank you for your amazing content!
Another great and professional video! Thank you
I’m way in NC learning about cancelled Oregon highways…
So am I. Something about learning about proposed infrastructure projects from yesteryear that I’ve always found fascinating
I'm in SC watching this too.
That’s cool. I’m in Oregon and just watched a documentary on a NC serial killer. It’s good to learn about our neighbors
@@caseycasey621 come again?
Been loving your content since I discovered your channel! You shed light on obscure projects in such a thoughtful way! If you're ever in need of another idea, maybe for one of these shorter format videos, perhaps consider the highway to nowhere in Baltimore? Interesting and sad story relating to redlining and segregation but a reality present in so many American cities.
Looking forward to the next video!
Absolutely fantastic! I remember seeing a huge full scale model in the lower floors of the Salem Library as a kid. And my parents had built their house on the corner of Wallace Rd & Hope Ave... which if a person drew a straight line across the Willamette River would have run directly into the Pine Street Bridge / Pine Street. Which the model I saw showed that... and it showed a branch going on down Hope Ave. which then matched up exactly with Orchard Height Road, too. It's just amazing that the 2nd biggest city in Oregon still only has two (2) bridges.
Sometimes I have to shake my head, as pretty much all the Freeways from Salem to Portland and the from South Salem to Eugene are still only three (3) and two (2) lanes. Well, I guess it's the same for 205 when I was a kid. Almost nothing has changed in 50 years. Which by the way... I think the toll this is simply ridiculous as the freeways were federally funded... seems the state government is a lil' greedy in my own humble opinion. Now maybe, and only maybe if they want to add a "Fast Pass" / extra lanes to 205 just like toll roads in TX... where those were built in addition to the freeways who wanted to pay to skip Freeways. I just don't see how anyone will be expected to get around... guess they will need to change all the "Freeway" signs, too. Get it since it's not Free even though our tax dollars had already paid for it. ha ha 🤣 That will cost them even more to change signage... just like the proposed per mile tax which when calculated with super simple math comes out to be 4X to 6X times MORE to the cost of everyone driving a Hybrid or EV (which I've had both). A per mile tax when calculated is as if every vehicle is only getting 14-16 MPG with the taxes they make on the Gas Tax. Crazy world! Well, I digress! 😇
Bro your killing it with these videos, as a life long Oregonian you answer so many questions I’ve always wondered about. Great work, top tier UA-cam content.
Thank you!
Very interesting. I hope you do more videos on forgotten Oregon topics.
Your videos are amazing!!! Keep up the Oregon history lessons
Thank you! It's good to know they're appreciated.
@@peterdibble they are!
New here....
☮️💜
Love your videos!!!
Now I'm hoping for a Roosevelt Freeway/WEP video.
I hadn't come across this but it looks like there's some interesting history there. Thanks for the recommendation!
Love these videos so much! Have you ever looked into the Bend parkway construction?
Thank you, John! I've never actually researched that but I'll look into it.
Very informative! Thank you from a lifelong Salemite.
These are some awesome videos
This is a great video...Nice to see the history of what Salem would be like if it had that Freeway system today.🙂I am sending in a proposal to resurface the I-305 designation routing it along OR 126 in Springfield.I'll see what happens.🤔Again Great Video!👏👏👍
Wha- Ho- It thought this channel had like a million subscribers until I actually see it. Really underrated!
These videos are pretty neat! I wonder if I305 will ever be a thing considering how fast Salem, Dallas andMcMinnville are growing.
Thanks! I'd say it's pretty unlikely. The third bridge project was effectively killed in 2019, and it sounds like it'll be decades before it can be seriously considered again (let alone constructed). But I imagine they could easily upgrade OR-22 and OR-99W as needed between those cities.
Great video! 👍
Random topics yet really interesting!
I drove from Portland to Salem last week. Took the Parkway into downtown and Mission Street back to the freeway :) Great video!
I found out they have cancelled both future I-92 and I-98 in the Upstate of New York, because of they could not put the money to the highway funds. I-92 supposed to connect from I-87 in Glens Falls New York to I-95 in Portsmouth New Hampshire, via US-4, I-89, and NH-101, and I-98 supposed to connect from I-87 in Watertown New York to Swanton Vermont, via US-11 and US-2. However I-81 and I-88 in New York are the first two interstate highways might change it exit numbers to a mileage based system, then follow by I-86 in New York. Vermont might change its exit numbers to a mileage based system on I-89 and I-91. Massachusetts and most of Rhode Island (except for I-95) already changed their exit numbers to a mileage based system, including I-90 (Mass Pike), I-84, I-195, I-295, and I-495. Connecticut, Delaware and New Hampshire said “no” for the exit numbers change on all interstate, US, and state highways which are freeways.
I used to be firmly in the "build the third bridge" camp, but since becoming addicted to urban planning videos I've had a bit of a rethink.
Like I still think we _definitely_ need a third bridge, but at the same it shouldn't be a wide highway-style bridge... That will just cause even more congestion, via induced demand.
Therefore, I think a hypothetical third bridge should be just two car lanes, with wider sidewalks for pedestrians and bikes, thank you for coming to my TED talk.
PS - Could you maybe please do a video about Eugene's proposed freeways next?
Eugene won't be my next video but I'm hoping to explore that topic pretty soon. :)
Great Stuff!
Interesting.... My grandmother who has now been gone for many decades once owned a home adjacent the proposed road site. Her home was condemned and purchased by highway dept due to the mentioned upcoming road construction. She was forced to sell and move elsewhere. And she did after much sell price battles. But low and behold, ultimately the Parkway was built, and decades later her once home still stands today under someone elses ownership. Good government planning 😕 wouldn't you say!
Oh wow, that's an unfortunate sequence of events. During that era the Highway Commission (now ODOT) really seemed to have carte blanche power to condemn private properties for these sort of projects.
I-505 was another abandoned project but a small part of it now survives as a connector between US-30 NW Yeon St and I-405 in NW Portland.
I trust more to you than the government! I love your videos!
This is really beautiful!
Late but your vids are great Peter! Keep it up! I would def love to see maybe a small doc about the recent history of the Newberg-Dundee bypass and all of that good stuff (the initial goal, funding, current problems etc.) Would love to see it!
Thanks! I'll do a little research into that. I don't know the history behind it, but I know they're talking about extending it at some point too.
Love these canceled freeway videos, Peter. If you ever do freeway cancellation documentaries in other states you should do the Harrisburg freeway and Alvin freeway in Houston TX.
I LIVE IN SALEM Thank you for making this I wanted to know more about it.
Solid piece of content for highway fans
Good stuff keep it up we need more of this here in Oregon .. wired is not so many highways in the state
Love your videos! Great production, information and for people who love to learn infrastructure, a place to learn of freeway history. Any chance you can talk about lost freeways in Northern California like Hwy 65?
This video should be called Keizer's canceled freeway ;-) It starts and ends in the city of Keizer.
Thank you so much for putting this together. I grew up in this town and always wondered how that road came to be
I remember when Phoenix planned and built the “Outer Loop” around the city of Phoenix, Scottsdale, and a few east and east valley cities; this was also known as the Loop 101. Phoenix and the rest of the Valley of the Sun have grown so much that the Outer Loop has been eclipsed by the 202 and now the 303. The growth is just incredible, but makes me sad for what I remember from growing up in the 1980s and 1990s there. I’ve left the state of Arizona since but still visit occasionally.
I love this road related content
I love the freeway episodes!
great video
I have really enjoyed the way you present these videos. Are there any plans on doing one on Eugene and it's various routings of U.S. Route 99, and other proposed highways. I have some of the documents in *.pdf. You can even talk about how Eugene created the first one-way couplet in the State, before Portland.
Thanks! A couple of people have recently asked me to explore this sort of history in Eugene, so I plan to research it in the future.
As an ex Oregon resident who recently left, maybe you could answer why Oregon has obnoxiously slow speed limits on freeways and highways! Analogous highways in my state have 80 mph speed limits compared to 55 back in OR.
I believe that we have voted twice to raise them and the pointy-heads in Salem have found 'reasons' not to.
I live in Salem and drive the parkway all the time. There are always people on the bridges as well with build a third bridge signs. It would be nice to have one connecting somewhere north near keizer which is building an in and out and a Chick-fil-A so traffic is going to increase.
Better that I-5 just glances Salem, where it goes through major metro areas, ie. Seattle; Portland, LA, it becomes choked. It passes the perimeter of Tacoma, but it was made to curve along the profile of Puget Sound. The concept of 'limited access' is lost where entrance merges come every couple of blocks. The 'needles eye' at the south end of Seattle where development and geography squeeze the freeway down to two lanes is a total joke. Ideally I-5 should have been sited in a more direct route, similar to how it passes through California's Central Valley, with spurs connecting to the urban areas.
Good point, although around Seattle, where would this "direct route" have been? Maybe around present-day I-405 (which is sometimes even more congested than I-5)?
please continue these videos
Great vid
As someone from Salem, I can say this idea would have only worked if they chose the bridge option. To this day, every city election is about the candidates promising to build another bridge. And yet the bridge never gets built. This has been going on for generations and it's beyond stupid. Still, the traffic is nowhere near as bad as most cities. It's really just Commercial street which is bad. And that is mostly because of the bottleneck of both ramps going onto the Center Street bridge. Hence why everyone wants another bridge. What's even more stupid is they built a pedestrian only bridge right next to the Marion Street bridge. Money that could have been used to make a vehicle bridge. It's like the politicians are just mocking the citizens.
Nice job!
This is a great video. Will you make one about the old US highway system that was used before the development of the Interstate?
Cool to remember back when Salem had both the OS (morning) and the CJ (afternoon) with independent editorial boards, before getting bought by Gannett.
I remember delivering both!
@@timothykronser1341 Me too when I subbed for my brother (OS). Our routes were in the suburban hills of West Salem. Sleds in the winter!
👍very interesting
You should do a Freeway documentary of unbuilt or cancelled freeways or LA, or even an entire documentary of the original planned LA freeway system that never came to be
Awesome video!
Could you do one on highway 217? That road always baffles me. It's short, and it has a flawed design.
Thanks! 217 is actually a topic I've wanted to do for a while. I have a feeling that there's going to be some interesting history there...
We still need the 3rd bridge desperately. Traffic is so congested downtown, and since Salem is growing so fast and surrounding towns are too, an alternative route that bypasses high volume areas would be great.
This is fantastic! As a recent Salem resident, it should be noted that the Salem Parkway has been renamed to the MLK Jr. Parkway! Keep making these great videos!
The third bridge... That same discussion has been happening in Québec City for decades. Right now, there's a very real push to make it happen, but as a tunnel.
You should do one on the West Eugene Parkway which was canceled. That was pushed back for decades then finally canceled.
I'm actually planning to cover this at some point in the future, both the original Roosevelt Freeway proposal and the later West Eugene Parkway.
I`d love more episodes about trains or bridges!
There's more on the way! :)
Sounds very similar to the cancelled Spadina Expressway in Toronto. In fact, Toronto has few of these controversially cancelled projects.
PLEASE do one on detroit, there's gotta be so many juicy cancelled plans there
As a trucker, this explains why getting through there sucks.
Somehow not mentioned: That the odd-numbered prefixes (e.g. "3 ... 05") in the Interstate system represent spurs, as opposed to even-numbered loops ("405") and bypasses ("610").
I actually considered mentioning this, but it interrupted the flow of the story too much so I left it out. This route would've been one of five auxiliary interstates in Oregon: 105 in Eugene, 205 in Portland, 305 in Salem (canceled), 405 in Portland, and 505 in Portland (canceled).
With the growth of West Salem, crazy the government hasn't realized the desperate need for a 3rd bridge.
off topic, you should do a video of the cancelled north portion of I-215 in Salt Lake county.
This was great! Just curious, is there anything you can find about I5 originally being planned with a different route through Oregon? Around Klamath Falls or US97?
I didn't know about that but that's pretty interesting! I'll look into it, thanks for the recommendation.
The route of 305 till Broadway st is the current Salem Parkway.
Instead, Salem got a road where there is no median barrier to eliminate crossover head-on crashes, and with traffic lights which wastes gas and time.
1:20 WE STILL only have two one way bridges
This should be a series called cancelled freeways
I prefer "How pointy-head leftist officials hate cars and your freedom of mobility".
At least they made a cool pedestrian bridge out of the Union st train bridge 😁
True!
It's a homeless highway
I was completely gobsmacked!!
I'd had several dreams through the years of walking across that bridge!
Now I've done it!