The Portland Police Bureau is investigating a collision that happened just after midnight this morning at SE Stark and 148th. A driver hit and killed a person crossing the street on foot; then the driver fled the scene.
Just three months ago a 40-year-old man walking on Stark was hit and killed by someone using a car. And last March — also at 148th and Stark — another auto user killed someone walking and then fled the scene.
According to the police statement, “Officers believe the woman utilized the cross-walk on the east side of Southeast 148th Avenue. The woman was reportedly crossing northbound and had a walk signal when she was struck by a vehicle. The driver and vehicle that struck the women left the crash location. Officers searched for the vehicle, but have not located the vehicle or driver at this time.”
It happened just before 1:00 am. If you know anything about this collision, please contact the Traffic Division at (503) 823-2103.
SE Stark is well-known as a dangerous place for anyone outside of a motor vehicle. Just three months ago a 40-year-old man walking on Stark was hit and killed by someone using a car. And last March — also at 148th and Stark — another auto user killed someone walking and then fled the scene.
Kem Marks, the director of transportation equity at the Rosewood Initiative says his community is “very saddened” by this incident. “Unfortunately, this happens in our neighborhood far too often,” he shared with us via email today. “It is clear from the numbers on PBOT’s Vision Zero map that deaths and serious injuries of pedestrians on SE Stark are on the rise.” Marks’ organization is lobbying for more lighting at all signalized crossings on Stark. “We need community driven solutions that meet the community’s needs,” he says.
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Despite the clear and present threats to public safety posed by streets like Stark, people are still able to — and very frequently do — drive dangerously on them. And Portlanders pay dearly for the consequences.
“Unfortunately, this happens in our neighborhood far too often.”
— Kem Marks, Rosewood Initiative
The intersection of 148th and Stark is ranked 10th overall for drivers, bikers, and walkers on the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s High Crash Network. Because of its dubious safety record, the street is also a designated High Crash Corridor. As such it’s in a prioritized queue to receive safety upgrades. The City’s Vision Zero Project List (as well as our Transportation System Plan and Regional Transportation Plan) currently includes a project named, “Outer Stark Ped/Bike Improvements” that will cost between $5 and $10 million. It will build new sidewalks, crossing upgrades and cycling facilities from 108th to 162nd. However, the project is currently “unfunded.”
PBOT does have a large project funded in the short-term that will include safety upgrades on Stark. We asked spokesman John Brady about it today. “As part of the project, we are also considering a significant paving element and signal upgrades. This spring we will be doing initial scoping work to examine what safety upgrades would support a safer Stark.” Brady added that Stark is a high priority for the city’s Vision Zero efforts and, “It’s a corridor that needs significant street design changes and investment to improve safety for all users.”
As we reported yesterday, PBOT has plans to build safer crossings on SE Stark at 130th and 155th. It makes us wonder if “spot fixes” will ever be enough when this entire corridor presents deadly choices to road users on a daily basis. It’s no wonder that a recent survey of east Portland residents found that the number one transportation priority is safer walking conditions.
The woman killed this morning is the second person to die in a traffic crash in Portland so far this year.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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disgusting and angered
It is inconceivable to me that anyone could hit someone else and leave the scene. We need SEVERE penalties for that action.
I believe – no proof, though – that many hit and runs involve an intoxicated driver.
With DUI penalties more severe than that for hit and run, leaving the scene if you’re intoxicated is pretty much incentivized. Couple that with the standard “didn’t see” defense and a wrist slap is the maximum our courts will tolerate.
Slap BOTH wrists
At least you have an accurate headline. Here’s a recent one from the Portland Tribune: “Car crashes into Boring store, steals ATM”
That’s a terrible name for a business.
Boring is a city in Oregon, literally.
Their sister city is Dull, Scotland.
East Portland is an auto-oriented suburb. The grim reality is that it would take billions to make it safe for pedestrians and bikes. Spot-fixes are just a excuse to pretend like something is being done to fix the problem, when in reality the problem is unfixible given our zoning laws and funding mechanisms. I don’t foresee PBOT ever desiring – let alone actually being able to re-engineer every arterial east of 82nd to reduce auto lanes, widen sidewalks, and add cycle facilities. Can you even imagine the backlash of removing half of all car capacity plus most of the parking?
Given political, physical, and financial realities, what do you think is the best way to proceed?
Honestly, I don’t believe this to be a solvable problem. Converting a vast auto-oriented environment where massive setbacks and huge swaths of parking lots are the norm into an urban walkable one is damn near impossible, and especially in an area that never had an urban history to begin with. The reality is that the only option is to get the cars to somehow slow down, but PBOT is not willing to ever touch that third rail since the result is often massive backlash citing traffic/parking/etc, despite it being easy from an engineering perspective to at the very least add bus-only lanes to all the arterials.
Clicky Freewheel,
It must be easy to think this isn’t solvable if you don’t live there and have to risk your life every day just to get to the store. This is absolutely solvable. As you say yourself, speed is everything. Look what PBOT did on SE Division (when pressured by awesome grassroots activists who didn’t shit from the status quo). They imposed an emergency speed limit and followed up with a safety project. They should immediately replicate that same procedure on every one of these high crash east portland arterials. Speed reduction is just the start. Like you say, they could add a transit-only lane, they could close a lot of those super-wide driveways and do all sorts of things on the “access management” front (prohibit certain movements for drivers). The best thing about big arterials is that they are big, which means there is plenty of space to do cool things with.
We just need people who aren’t afraid to do those cool things.
It’s not solvable with the current political will but it could be solved in a blink if we wanted to. Make driving and parking expensive and make transit free. Things would settle out to a new normal in a few years.
transit might not end up being free in the long run but it would likely cost less than owning and using a car
“transit might not end up being free”
a societal choice…and a bad one, imo.
Automated cars.
The best way to proceed is to stop giving into the “realities” as foisted upon us by the auto-centric powers-that-be and the people around them who are too afraid to rock the boat. It is time to take a stronger approach; one that will result in a new set of realities eventually coming to pass.
I am so tired of non-auto infra conversations starting from such crappy positions because of default assumptions based on the current power structure.
Sure we need to be practical and realistic and mindful of constraints… But we cannot forget that the current conditions are based on bad decisions made many decades ago and that 2018 demands new decisions to reverse them…Decisions that will never be made if the starting point of our conversation begins with the premise that all we can hope for is scraps and marginal, incremental gains.
What I would like to know is what, if any, solutions do people who live in far East Portland want? Do they even agree there is a problem, or, what the problem is?
Solutions are best when they come from within a community.
hello, kitty…
There has been a massive effort from people who live in east Portland to describe and advocate for their needs. East Portland In Motion and the East Portland Action Plan are the two biggest ones that come to mind. Both of them are detailed plans with specific project lists that PBOT uses to justify funding. It hasn’t been perfect or easy, but east Portland has come a long way on the advocacy front in the past 5-7 years. Do “they” all agree? No. Because that’s not how cities work. There are many different opinions out there; but there is an overwhelming sense from what I would assume is a majority of people — that there is a problem. East Portland’s deadly streets don’t discriminate. They are killing people in all modes. I am not an east Portlander so I don’t speak for them… But given what I have learned I think they’d say the biggest problem is speeding and unsafe walking conditions — especially for older people and people who are not native english speakers.
In short, we are not lacking on information about what the community wants. They have given thousands of hours of their time telling the city what they want. We are only lacking the will to implement those needs in a shorter-than-normal timeframe.
Here you describe the problem primarily as one of resources. Above, you seem to be advocating for more radical solutions than are perhaps envisioned by the plans you referenced.
I want to support my (distant) neighbors, but the problem is theirs to solve. Many of us know how to fix the safety problem, but don’t have to live with the tradeoffs.
“the problem is theirs to solve”
really?
By that I meant that the solutions should be theirs.
My neighbor is one of the fastest drivers in our neighborhood. Recently she got a dog, so we run into her out walking now and again. One of the first times we got our dogs acquainted and walking together, a driver flew by and she said, “Boy, people drive so fast around here!”.
My point is, it’s never my problem to solve…
Kinda like how the people who complain the most about congestion are the ones doing the most to contribute to it?
Yes, the community has given a significant amount of time advocating for mostly active transportation and transit solutions for East Portland. We were recently informed that the bike projects funded from the East Portland In Motion (EPIM) plan have been delayed, yet again. Those projects we requested in the EPIM plan would have provided safer crossings on our wide arterial streets (most of which do not have continuous sidewalks), and lower stress bike facilities to service the various school districts and provide active transportation alternatives for Safe Routes 2 School (SR2S) programs. East Portland has over 40% of the school age children in the city.
The Division Safety project is behind schedule and the Division Transit project has been delayed. I’m afraid the carnage will continue until we get a clear signal from the powers that be that East Portland transportation projects get immediate priority.
The City of Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee recently advocated to Director Treat to keep Portland’s 25% bike mode share goal for 2025. While the inner city has a built, low stress biking system, mode share for biking remains stagnant. If we as a city want to commit to active transportation and attain that goal, East Portland projects are the “low hanging” fruit and need to be built.
What do we want as a city? We’re all in this transportation quagmire together!
Thanks for your spot-on observations as always, Jonathan. You write something interesting that deserves more discussion: “We are only lacking the will…” So, why are we lacking the will that we have for other projects? There are multiple reasons. Maybe because East Portland lacks representation at the City Council level, for starters. A district system would help keep elected officials more accountable, IMO. Looking at where the council members live (as well as, I’d wager, where many commenters on this page live) explains a lot about why this city throws up its hands and sighs, saying “we can’t solve anything in East Portland.”
Comments posted on this page (such as “I can’t imagine what it is like to be pedestrian in outer East Portland” are indicative of this attitude on a citizen level. (And before anybody gets me wrong, I’m not trying to antagonize anyone, or pick on you, Brian (the OP)! Yours is actually an empathetic comment). But it points to the fact that the vast majority of readers of this page probably neither live in nor even visit East Portland regularly. It’s likely that many of you can probably choose (read: afford) to live in neighborhoods with better pedestrian/bike infrastructure. Remember, however, if you happen to be a child, or a refugee, you have a lot less choice over the built environment you get to surround yourself with. And we’re talking about 40% of Portland’s children.
If you have the time and energy to organize on behalf of walking and cycling, please remember to speak out for neighbors who are less able to do so because of language and cultural barriers, poverty, sheer distance to downtown, etc. not to mention a lack of access to the city’s power-brokers. Don’t write off East Portland. And if you’re not visiting East Portland, you’re missing out on having some amazing food and meeting some great people… the rest of your neighbors!
I agree with most of what you say – East Portland very much reflects most of the rest of the USA, very suburban and auto-oriented. You are right, the cost of “fixing everything,” that is, making East Portland just like inner Portland, is cost-prohibitive. The zoning is neither here nor there – most of East Portland that you see now was already built when the city annexed the area 1986-1991. The odd thing is, when it was part of the county, parking was banned on all arterial and most collector streets, so taking away parking is possible. Some at PBOT do in fact desire reducing lanes and traffic throughput on East Portland streets, but there are others at PBOT who don’t.
However, there are other options. Instead of “fixing” East Portland to be like inner Portland, why not explore the possibility of using the existing street grid there to make driving difficult within its superblocks, but biking and walking easier? From there, might you create a network of one-way arterial roads, such as Stark east-bound only and Glisan west-bound only, and use the “saved” lanes for protected bike lanes, pocket parks, and sidewalk cafes? Could Division & Powell also be a set of one-way couplets?
no one-way streets… they make drivers more dangerous and streets faster…
Really? Downtown Portland is that fast?
I dunno. I live near 162nd and Glisan, and I’d say that actually there are more sidewalks and bike lanes than my previous neighborhood of Cully. What there isn’t is much in the way of police presence. Yes, the roads are wider, but there are bike lanes on most major roads and sidewalks, for the most part. PPB doesn’t seem to get out East much, and City of Gresham has at last count 7 night time patrol officers. I also question the logic of these flashing “pedestrian crossing” lights versus traffic lights operable with a button. I don’t have a magic solution, but giving up on East Portland doesn’t seem viable.
I don’t think we’d have to remove half of the auto capacity to do what’s needed. There’s plenty of asphalt out there.
I think the key would be a massive re-engineering effort with many new intersections, Potentially removing right-on-red, and providing some protection where speeds are higher. I’m thinking a district-diet as opposed to road-diet. The engineering isn’t good for anyone out there, if we do it right it should be safer and faster for everybody. Hundreds of millions of dollars as opposed to Billions.
Removing right-on-red and left-on-blinking-yellow and incenting people to obey the change would go a long way toward a safe environment.
Yes….as an avid walker and cyclist, these two situations, plus car drivers turning right at stop signs without looking for peds coming from their right, are, by far, the biggest risks I face in town.
I watch right-on-red “after stop” compliance on my daily commute through E Portland. It is very close to zero. This is not to say inner Portland compliance is any better, but the speeds aren’t as high generally. Intersections where right on red “after stop” is clearly posted as prohibited are still used as right on red “stops”. Apparently traffic laws are optional. (Yeah I know I state the obvious.)
Even hundreds of millions of dollars is such an impossible amount that it’s not worth discussing. That kind of money is simply not there, and there’s no plan to find such money.
They want to spend like 250 million for less than a mile of I5. There is totally money there!
I read that the section of tracks that the Amtrak train crashed on near Tacoma recently was part of a $180 million upgrade whose purpose was to save ten minutes of travel time.
There is currently over $200 million dollars of funded projects in East Portland waiting to be done. Most of that money was provided by former State Representative Shemia Fagan and current State Representative Janelle Bynum. Both State District 51 Representatives.They Rock!! Without that funding we would still be waiting for crossing improvements on our major arterials. Now we’re waiting to get those crossings repaired as they have been repeatedly been crushed and rendered useless from vehicle impacts.
and what is the cost of doing nothing? we are witnessing the former East County, the land that could not govern itself, become part of the City of Portland. We are 20 years into annexation. It will take billions of dollars and unwavering commitment. If we are not willing to write East Portland off as a hopeless cause and demand a street grid that promotes not-car-dependent transport, the electeds will make it happen. Rome was not built in a day. Nor will the Portland we hope for.
most of them you can’t get to without walking through infrastructure that was designed for cars (driveways or miles of parking)… rarely do you get a sidewalk all the way to the door…
Well-worded headline.
I dare say the driver is an auto abuser…
The is a canary in the coal mine issue. As long as we allow innocent pedestrians to be sacrificed on the alter of happy motoring we will never know peace, justice, equity or sustainability.
JM, I appreciate your clear, explicit, and truthful language regarding this death. Thank you for using people first language.
You are welcome. It makes me happy that so many BP readers actually notice. (I see you rachel b)
🙂
“A driver hit and killed a person crossing the street on foot. After killing another being with their vehicle, the driver fled the scene.”
Were two people killed here?
ugh. no. just a terrible typo. fixed it. thanks.
Fleeing the scene takes this to a higher level of wrong than if the driver hadn’t fled, and brings up several questions to me. How much can the standard safety tools (road design, enforcement, etc.) do when we have people out there who would leave someone to die? It implies there’s something really wrong with society when we have people capable of fleeing. On the other hand, is there something about driving (anonymity? something else?) that allows people to override their sense of right, so that they would flee from killing someone while driving, but wouldn’t flee if it had been some other unintentional type of death? Do people flee from unintentional shootings, or drownings, or construction scene deaths?
What stands out most to me is that there just isn’t anything like driving for creating the likelihood of killing someone else unintentionally. What’s second after driving–unintentional shootings while hunting? Whatever it is, the numbers must be nothing compared to driver-caused deaths. We’d be so much better off (including as drivers) if the chances of killing someone else while driving were reduced.
railroad crossings have physical barriers to keep everyone safe from the train…
maybe every new and remodeled street intersection should have the same treatment…
What is the solution? More density and roads that allow all users. Fun fact: Stark has fewer lanes each direction than many downtown streets.
Bike Portland readers should be pushing density at every turn. Wide roads and suburbs are the most dangerous place to be.
“Bike Portland readers should be pushing density at every turn. Wide roads and suburbs are the most dangerous place to be.”
I really bristle at this zero sum logic. The strong arming that sometimes goes on here. Density is not (should not be) a goal; it is a ratio. The car (as usual) is the problem here; let’s not lose sight of that fact.
I disagree. If you want people using active transportation, density is critical for the simple reason that very few people can handle more than trivial distances for active transport.
“If you want people using active transportation, density is critical ”
FOREST… TREES
I appreciate plenty of qualities that density, so understood, has to offer, and also understand how density, so understood, and active transportation are believed to be interrelated. But the risk in my view is that we lose sight of the larger picture. Growth is an enormous problem; and so are cars. density is pointedly not a SOLUTION. It is a band aid, a fig leaf, a questionable strategy even for dealing with the present situation as it accommodates growth rather than calling it out.
Our problems—all of them—would be vastly simpler, fewer, more manageable if we didn’t have to contend at every turn with the repercussions of our love affair with growth in nearly everything.
lack of density promotes driving…
If E Portland work twice as dense, would there be fewer drivers?
If East Portland were twice as dense, there would be more population to support local businesses, who would then be able to count on some walk-in and bike-in customers, removing some vehicle trips from the road. This would work best if the density were concentrated along the major roads. Another aspect that encourages the speeding mindset, is the overall width of the street rights of way (90′ typically, vs. 60′ in inner Portland). Add to that, buildings set behind parking lots for a “wide open” feel.
And, perversely, the new Mixed Use Zone standards will require buildings to be set back from the property line by 10′ in East Portland, on Stark, Division, and 122nd, because the Planning and Sustainability Commission agreed with staff to require that to allow for “front landscaping reflective of the vegetated characteristics of these neighborhood pattern areas”, and also, puzzlingly, “to provide an environment for pedestrians…that is less impacted by close proximity to traffic”, puzzling since the sidewalk is not being set back, only the building.
Those zoning standards are just bizarre. If that’s true, it means that anyone wanting to do a standard urban building built to the sidewalk cannot.
They could cement those areas into permanent non-urbanity. As an example, look at SW Macadam. If the City hadn’t created special non-urban zoning in the 70s or 80s, Macadam could have developed as a fine urban street, with buildings fronting Macadam, with retail below and housing above. Instead, it became in-town suburbia, a car-centric highway fronted by planting and parking lots, with low-density housing wasting valuable riverfront property.
Just a reminder that East Portland is already more dense than most of Portland outside of the downtown core, with 160,000 people within an area of 29 square miles (5,500+ residents/sq mi). It does look like suburban sprawl, but looks can be deceiving!
Sorry to hear that another pedestrian has been killed or injured by a driver, especially one that fled the scene.
I took a look around the intersection (using Google Streetview) and there are 4 locations with off-street CCTV cameras that may have footage of the incident…depending on their POV and the driver’s path:
– Discount Auto Repair
– Premium Used Tires
– Chevron
– 7/11
I did not see any traffic cameras at the intersection.
[As this is a high crash corridor…these business have likely had similar requests for CCTV footage…good luck! Do not wait too long to make a request…as their DVRs may record over the footage.]
What to do, without rebuilding E. Portland?
1. Make car insurance automatic, with minimum coverage funded by some combination of gas tax, licensing fees and automatic bridge tolls on cars with Oregon plates. Have an appeal process for people who think they’ve paid too much. If the collected fees exceed the cost of crashes, put the excess into transit.
2. Run late-night traffic enforcement missions at random locations. Target only careless/imprudent or worse. Flood a zone with multiple police cars and have a TV chopper on call. If somebody gets caught with multiple serious violations, follow them at a distance, when they stop, bring in a mobile car crusher, smash the car on live TV with their face on split screen, and let them walk home. This is red meat television. (Have a Judge drive the crusher, convene a traffic court on the curb)
3. Paint exclusive transit lanes on every single damn 4-lane surface street. If somebody gets caught driving a private vehicle in the transit lane with an open passenger seat, or missing original equipment seats, they have to stand on the curb until the mobile crusher gets there, see above.
4. In the resulting street space, run free bus service on the expeditious schedule that just became possible. All private vehicles legally operating in a transit lane must turn out for a bus in less than one block or pay swingeing fines. (Install cut-outs at mid block for bikes)
If anybody has a more modest proposal I’d love to see it.
Is it time for us to declare that registered owner of a vehicle is responsible for all fines, fees, tolls, points and damages from their vehicle provided that it has not been reported stolen? “Nobody” driving 47 in a 30 just doesn’t cut it.
I don’t think they come more modest than that!
I could get behind this proposal.
I agree that viral videos are the way to reach the populace! Look at the LA car-hits-building incident!
Videos of scofflaw motorists watching as their cars are crushed would definitely put Portland and Oregon on the map. It would also dramatically affect the way people drive; no motorist would ever be able to forget such a scene.
That said, I think the best part of this is for instant traffic court. The technology is in place right now. A judge can sit comfortably as her desk, even at home, and hold court while the officer shows the video from his patrol unit and the defendant pleads his case via video. Instant consequences just work better at modifying behavior. Plus there’s that multiplier effect when someone shows up late for work or an appointment and has to explain that they were pulled over, cited, tried and fined. Their co-workers aren’t going to want to be “that guy”.
This may not be a popular opinion, but when I lived in Portland briefly I commuted from east Portland out to Gresham (10 miles each way) and found the commute fairly pleasant. There was a few hot spots, but mostly it reminded me of riding through extended residential neighborhoods like Eugene. It seems like it could be easily upgraded out there for cyclists with protected bike lanes.
Well, the few people who were riding through those extended residential neighborhoods of Eugene aren’t doing so any more. Eugene is leading the way towards zero cyclist deaths by rapidly trending towards zero cyclists. According to the US Census American Community Survey, there were 43% fewer cyclists in the commute mash in 2016 than there were in 2009.
Saying East Portland is like Eugene is hardly a ringing endorsement for the conditions in East Portland. In fact, it may make the case for massive improvements even more compelling (just don’t hire traffic planners or engineers from Eugene to put it together).
I moved from Eugene 13 years ago, but have they removed cycling infrastructure? I would guess that a drop in commuting there is for different reasons. You really have to talk yourself into driving over riding a bike there.
For a while I commuted from SE 28th and Alder to NE 181st and Halsey. My first choice was the two-bus trip, connecting at Gateway (I’m lazy and I like to read.) If I was running late I would bike it. One of the reasonable routes was on E. Burnside, and at a particular corner in the 110s, a place where a tall hedge blocked the view around the corner, I would regularly encounter a motor vehicle driven by a person disregarding the formal manner of approaching a stop that you may have been taught. I got one of those water-bottle battery headlights but it didn’t make a lot of difference.
There wasn’t a real percentage I was getting chopped there but it was a formative Portland bike experience. When it comes to safety I’m skeptical of bike lanes, the value of lights and playing by the rules generally, the intensions of any person in a car, and basically anything else that isn’t in the near vicinity of my eyes and ears. And yes I’m still pissed.
After hitting send it came to me that when it comes to safety I’m also pretty stoked about fat slicks and Shimano XT hydraulic disk brakes, maybe the best money I ever spent. When somebody shuts down your line it’s nice to have some bomber brakes.
People haul ass on Stark and between Chavez and 60th, and it’s two lanes in a residential area. I see the fear in peoples’ body language as they try to cross the street to get to/from the Belmont Station. I can’t imagine what it is like to be pedestrian in outer East Portland.
there are not enough random obstacles while driving to make you pay attention to the ones that your’e not used to… the driver probably makes that turn all the time at speed because there’s never anybody there and they’re not used to having to pay special attention to anything while driving… all the obstacles to drivers are well lit and/or permanently stationary…
we need grass-roots street infrastructure so that drivers don’t know what to expect in the road… is that a planter, or a wagon, or a person bending over? better slow down to see…
but no, everything is standard and reflective… no reason to take any precautions… if something is a danger to a driver then they’re not going to easily miss it…
let’s start redesigning streets now and cheaply with grass-roots materials that you see for free on street corners throughout the city…
eventually the city can come around and do a proper installation if needed…
we could require GPS trackers on all vehicles… cameras randomly around the city would ensure nobody was driving a vehicle without one…
driving is a privilege, so this isn’t a privacy rights issue… you can take another mode if you don’t want to be tracked…
photo caption: Looking north on Stark at 148th.
nope. looking East
You are correct. Did you also notice the cyclist in the photo? Near the northeast corner, probably about where the pedestrian was murdered.
As a cyclist who lives only a half mile from that incident, it’s well known that Division and Stark are both just E/W versions of 82nd (N/S).
We, out here, have learned to avoid certain streets and alternatives are well known. The ONLY majors that I’ll ride are 122nd ,162nd or Burnside. It shouldn’t have to be that way, but that’s the reality that we live with.
Stark is the busy street, with a peak count of 1,100 eastbound PM in 2013. 148th has maybe half that. Three lane sections would work well on both streets, with maybe a second lane near the intersection for Stark only.
A 2+1 modern roundabout would slow down traffic moving through this intersection to a 90% survivable 20 mph and still reduce daily average delay. The 4 to 3 right sizing of Stark would provide space for center median islands, and maybe parking protected bike lanes. A full corridor median would eliminate all crossing crashes at the intermediate intersections (right in right out only) and provide refuge crossings as well at all intermediate intersections, and more space at the edge for non-auto uses. Modern roundabout intersections typically run about $2M where right of way acquisition is minimal.
Stark (out this way) is 4 lane , 148 is 2 lane … I’d guess at 4 to 1 count, or more.
139th has always been a good alternative on bike , but in the last couple of months has become a 4 o’clock cut thru route (probably 122nd’s traffic)
then there are only really 2 routes East from 139th (discounting Stark or Division) , Mill or Main.
I live on Main and in the afternoon it turns from a sleepy 2 lane to another cut thru.
After dark , Main turns into a drag strip … being straight and flat from 139 to 148. I’ve repeatedly asked the city for traffic calming, but they insist that there is no problem. Rice Rockets (both 4 wheel and 2) blast up and down it at FULL throttle.
The Adams reign had the worst answer … “we have aerial surveillance , and nobody has ever been over 35mph on that road” . “We can’t install a stop sign w/o a Federal study and anyway there have never been a fatality on that road” . “If you want a speed bump … $800 plse.”
I am paraphrasing, since a dead hard drive ate the email.
Whenever we would ask about speed speed humps from PBOT on the 4M, we consistently got an answer that jive’s with the one you got. They would cite opposition from the Fire Bureau (never proven; they in fact prefer using the main streets) and about a recent study they did with speed pillows on those streets. About 5 years ago (2013) I talked with a PBOT traffic engineer, an older woman, who said that they “recently” tested speed pillows for fire trucks on Market between 117th and 122nd, but the neighbors hated them and asked council to remove them. So I had to ask her when that testing occurred, knowing that that same neighborhood now wants traffic calming. She said PBOT did the tests in 1997, so the term “recent” means in PBOT engineerese as any period between now and 20 years ago.
I’ll confess I often find DOTs, including and especially PBOT, more conservative than the Republican National Committee.
Paraphrasing, or exaggerating?
139th is a Neighborhood Collector in the City system and ER route. 130th is too, but is part of the 130’s greenway system.
Main’s speeding problem is documented in the Parklane-Oliver SR2S report, but there is no speed-only traffic calming program anymore.
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/article/536565
Neither. When the Fire Chief or one of their local captains came to East Portland meetings (usually related to the budget), we would ask them about Market/Mill/Millmain/Main, and they would tell us that PBOT hasn’t mentioned those streets to them in over 20 years as being bicycle priority streets, and moreover they tend to discourage the use of those streets for fire engines for any distance over a half-mile because they are too slow.
“we have aerial surveillance , and nobody has ever been over 35mph on that road” . “We can’t install a stop sign w/o a Federal study and anyway there have never been a fatality on that road”
Both statements are false, regardless of who said them, but I’m putting this in the ‘exaggeration’ category.
The test on Market was offset speed tables, not cushions.
Speed cushions are in the process of being approved for Secondary Response Routes in Portland, and PBOT has installed them on several streets in consultation with PFR. Mill, Millmain and Main, 130th to 174th are currently Major Response Routes – no need to check with PFR when specified in the TSP – but have been requested to become Secondary Response streets with the proposed TSP update, so traffic calming can be part of the 4M project (BTW, local captains are not the best source for fire route information).
We are from the government and we are here to help you.
hit and runs such a coward move some streets you just have to stay away from 🙁
oh on side note riding into work to heard this car behind me reving his motor as to say i’m coming to get you and its exactly what he was trying to do along with wreakless driving habits. * red light runners get away with murder *
The street in the pictures of Stark and 148th, look familiar. In fact, they look a lot like either Canyon Rd or Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy out in Beaverton. About 75′ wide. At 117th and on Beav-Hillsdale/Griffith, both intersections have visual and audible countdown pedestrian crossing signals. Beav-Hillsdale at Griffith, has beautiful red light cameras that produce a big flash when someone blows a red light. What’s the Stark and 148th intersection equipped with for pedestrian protection?
At any high volume motor vehicle use, big, super wide street and their intersections people on foot and on bikes, must have first rate survival skills. Not protected within a motor vehicle, it’s very dangerous to be crossing these kinds of streets. The odds of a person’s life continuing, when crossing in front of an approaching motor vehicle, even when the person driving has a red light and is, or may be, slowing, and other people driving already are at the intersection stopped, can be very uncertain.
But, it’s hard to persuade some people that attending to basic life safeguards for use when crossing the street on foot, is important, or justified. Even more so in a situation like crossing the street at 1am when not many motor vehicles are in use on the street. Admonish people driving to do so more carefully, to what extent that might help. Except that it’s most likely a very small minority of people that are routinely driving recklessly and carelessly, and they probably just don’t care much about the consequences.
66 feet curb to curb, not that it matters a whole lot. That’s 22 seconds for a pedestrian to cross at 3 fps.
If the streets had median islands at roundabout intersections, the crossing to the median would involve only concentrating on one direction of traffic and, maybe 24 feet curb to curb, or 8 seconds, with traffic going about 25 mph at the higher speed exit crossings.
–I don’t usually comment about how tragic it is when this happens because words fail me. Don’t know what to say that makes anything better. There goes me next time, who knows?
Driving away like that is awful, maybe driving is all they’ve got in an empty life? Sure wish somebody got that person a bike once upon a time.
In my mini-rant, above, I led off with insurance. Why? Because along with everything else it’s my guess the driver was uninsured. No, insurance isn’t much help when you’re dead. But maybe that’s why they ran.
This may seem tangential to the topic, but I think Portland needs to rethink its System Development Charges for new development. As keeps being proven, auto-oriented development is killing people who walk or bike (and drive, too). If people had more services near where they lived, they would drive less. But if someone brings those services to an area that lacks them, they are charged SDCs under the idea that they will increase demand on the transportation system.
But isn’t the opposite often true? If the closest grocery store (or pizza place, or gas station, or whatever) is two miles away from people living in a neighborhood, and someone brings that missing use into that neighborhood, now people can drive shorter distances, or walk or bike instead of drive. But the new business is charged as if the opposite is true.
It seems counterproductive to charge heavy fees to businesses that want to locate in neighborhoods that lack close access to the goods or services that they provide, when the result of their moving into those neighborhoods would in many cases be a decrease in driving, and ultimately a decrease in traffic deaths.
Are you presuming developers don’t already argue that point?
No. Why would you ask that?
I’m sure they do argue it, because it’s an obvious, valid argument. The logic SDCs are based on holds up much better in the case of a developer building a shopping mall or housing development on vacant land in suburbia than it does when applied to many projects in urban contexts.
Did the pizza place in the infamous case several years ago really generate more traffic when it moved across the street? According to SDC logic, it did. If a bicycle shop decides to open in East Portland in a neighborhood underserved by bicycle shops, will that really generate substantial new traffic that justifies substantial SDCs? Will those make it more or less likely that that bike shop will open there? Why should the City waive SDCs for someone building an ADU in their backyard that will be used as an airbnb, but charge them for a bike shop moving into an auto-dominated neighborhood?
The statement from Brady again shows the “paving” gets done and “safety” gets talked about. Makes me livid.
Ahh, the PBOT apologist awakens. And why haven’t they done this ?
are they waiting for a death ? Many cyclists use this stretch.
Main, 139 th to 148 th
is recommended for 7 speed bumps. The estimated cost for the project is $15,400.
SE,
Please don’t call anyone else names (“pbot apologist”). And watch your tone toward others. Argue with better ideas, not better insults. Thanks.
Look for information on 4M here:
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/TRANSPORTATION/article/650478
There is no 130’s greenway, or 4M bikeway. They are proposed facilities. funded, but not yet constructed.
Jonathan;
You might want to address Mr. paikiala’s calling out “exaggeration” . He was NOT there, has no knowledge of what transpired between me and the Mayor’s office as I did NOT attribute that paraphrase to PBOT. His was a non-specific reaction to 3 statements. worthless, fact wise.
IF you are trying to be fair, the rules should be applied evenly. that would be a “better idea”
Thanks for the feedback. Will do.
Article has some inconsistencies. Did the accident occur “just after midnight” or “just before 1:00 AM” – not the same thing.
One photo shows 7-11 on the right side of the picture, and one shows it on the left side of the picture, but both indicate it’s looking north. One photo is the overhead shot, and the yellow “path” of the victim is supposed to be north, so need to redo some of your directions.