2B
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2022
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
Is Kenwood Avenue the worst road in Oregon?
Bill Poehler
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Kenwood Avenue is an unforgettable
street, and not in a good way.
It’s more pothole than road at this
point.
Located off State Street between
Lancaster Avenue and Cordon Road in
East Salem, the asphalt on Kenwood
looks like it’s been shelled by bombs.
The potholes are so big – as large as
10 feet wide – that they are impassable
by mortal souls. There are potholes in-
side potholes. The few feet of asphalt
that remain are decent only because
they are not potholes.
The people who live on Kenwood are
nurses and retirees, mechanics and
school children. They’re also the most
resilient people around; they have to be
to live there.
Residents carefully navigate the pot-
holes at about 5 miles per hour like a
ship’s captain navigating a barge
through a reef. They know they can’t
avoid the potholes, so they drive
through the least destructive path.
School buses won’t come down the
street. On winter mornings, groups of
children huddle together at the intersec-
tion with State Street to stay warm
while waiting to get picked up to go to
school.
Residents of Kenwood have been cre-
ative in filling the potholes. They’ve
dumped rocks, dirt, bark dust and bags
of concrete. At best those fixes last a
short time. Inevitably the patches break
up and the road becomes worse.
“There’s a couple of bricks in a few of
them,” said Matt Fipps, who has lived on
the street about six years.
Anyone who drives down Kenwood
Avenue has the same questions: Why is
the road this bad? Will it ever be fixed?
Is this the worst road in Oregon?
“Everybody that comes here says
something. Anybody. A guy comes for
the washer and we have to have a dis-
cussion about the street,” said Christine
Davis, who has lived on the road since
the early 2000s.
Where is Kenwood Avenue?
Kenwood Avenue starts at State
Street and runs about a quarter-mile
north. Over 30 homes line the street in
that span. It is most easily located by
the scary tree at the junction with State
Street. The street dead-ends at an un-
developed field.
Vast swaths of East Salem between
Interstate 5 and Cordon Road − like Ken-
wood − are in unincorporated Marion
County. Other sections are in Salem’s
city limits. Kenwood falls under the gov-
ernance of Marion County.
The benefit to living in an unincorpo-
rated street like Kenwood is property
taxes are lower than in Salem city limits.
Because the residents are not under Sa-
lem’s jurisdiction, homes on Kenwood
are in special districts for services like
Matt Phipps’ children stand in a pothole on Kenwood Avenue Northeast on March 9 in Salem.
ABIGAIL DOLLINS/STATESMAN JOURNAL
water, sewer, police and firefighters.
Homes on Kenwood were built be-
tween the 1940s and the 1950s, resi-
dents say.
“My theory is they built the road in
segments,” said resident Andrew Davis,
Christine’s husband. “When they built
the first few houses, they built the road.
And then they added 10 more houses
and built some more road. So that part
of the road (toward State Street), I’m
guessing, is 20 years older than that
part of the road.”
The asphalt would be just wide
enough for two cars, if somehow two
cars could pass on it.
There are no curbs or sidewalks on
Kenwood. Somehow there’s some sort
of storm drain, though no one knows if
it’s hooked up or does anything.
What makes Kenwood so bad?
The street was “pretty good” when
Darrell Sharp bought his house in Sep-
tember 1978.
For decades, he and a neighbor would
purchase bags of “cold patch” – an as-
phalt filler – and patch their street like a
quilt.
“He moved away, and I just kept get-
ting angrier,” Sharp said.
It’s the only way their street could be
fixed.
When the homes on the street were
built, Marion County allowed develop-
ers to opt to not pay to include their
street in the county’s roads system. It
allowed the developers to sell the
houses for lower prices. But it also re-
quired homeowners to maintain the
road.
“The problem is now you’re 50, 60, 70
years later, most of the people living in
the neighborhood, you aren’t privy to
that deal,” Marion County Commission-
er Colm Willis said.
The people who live there now aren’t
happy that decision was made. They’re
paying for it with headaches, car repairs
and explanations about how bad their
road is.
Marion County Public Works director
Brian Nicholas said there are four types
of roads in Marion County: private
roads, non-county roads, county roads
and state highways.
Kenwood Avenue is a non-county
road.
That means residents have the re-
sponsibility to maintain it. Many don’t
find that out until after they move in.
In the two years Sean Smith has lived
on Kenwood, he’s replaced CV joints,
boots, wheel bearings and steering
knuckles on his cars. One of his cars is
sitting in his driveway because he’s
afraid it will break if he drives it.
“The developer cut corners by not
paying the county to incorporate it with
the county, but why can’t we fix a wrong
from 70 years ago,?” Sean Smith said.
How did the street get this bad?
The street was designed to fail.
The current Marion County standard
for building a road is to put in a 12 inch
base of aggregate (rock) and four inches
See POTHOLES, Page 3B
Miller
Continued from Page 1B
In the interests of full disclosure, so
have I in the distant past.
Access, not ambiance, is the big
draw.
The backdrop is urban industrial, the
most striking feature being a massive
cell phone tower on the east side and the
sign on the veteran’s clinic to the south
across McGilchrist.
The unpaved parking area off 16th is a
muddy labyrinth of potholes of indeter-
minate depth when they fill with rain-
water during the winter and into spring.
But, ah, the trout.
“The truck came this morning,” West
said with a smile Monday about the ar-
rival of a tanker from the state’s Roaring
River Hatchery delivering 1,300 keeper-
size (8 inches and slightly larger) rain-
bow trout to Walling in front about a
dozen surprised and delighted anglers.
West already had two on his stringer
and was getting fairly steady bites with
a soft drizzle falling at midmorning.
He fished with limited success until
he got the inside scoop from a fellow
dedicated Walling angler several years
ago.
“I think it was like until 2016. I caught
a catfish and a carp; I never caught a
trout. It wasn’t like until like two years
ago when I started catching them,” West
said, then chuckled, “by looking at the
(trout-stocking) schedules.”
His new-found mentor filled in the
rest.
“There’s a guy here who comes just as
much as I do, and I got a lot of advice
from him. And he would be the only one
catching them even when they’re not
stocking,” West said. “Like green Power-
Bait. He doesn’t use anything else.”
The putty-like florescent lime green
artificial bait is the bomb, he said.
West stopped talking, nudging the
rod he was holding as the slack went out
of the line. He missed the fish, though,
probably distracted by a columnist.
Walling Pond is just off McGilchrist Street on 16th Street a short drive from almost anywhere in Salem.
After the brief interlude, West picked
up the thread again.
“He said just get your green Power-
Bait and your bullet weight (a conical
slip sinker), add about a foot, a foot and
a half of leader, and just cast it out as far
as you can. And just don’t touch it; just
leave it.”
So now you know.
And there are another 1,400 rainbow
trout scheduled to arrive at Walling the
week of March 21 through 25, if you
want to give it a shot.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: A few
fish make an urban fishing hole a lot
prettier.
Contact Henry via email at Henry-
MillerSJ@gmail.com