Comment of the Week: An unheeded warning on SE 26th

Hi Matt–I copied & pasted from my own draft (found in my own notes–habit after occasionally losing whole texts when posting online) so I’d have to search for it here to find it! I edited out some (in my recent post) as it applied more to SE 26th than SE Powell. I do remember posting several times here over the years about the increasing danger to peds/cyclists on SE 26th.

Here’s the full text of the post I plucked from (from my notes):

(2016)
“SE 26th between Powell and Division, running through the Clinton (Hosford Abernethy/Richmond) neighborhood has–like most of Portland–changed radically over a mere span of years, and not for the better. 

Much attention lately has been focused on SE Powell, and rightfully so. But this once-sleepy neighborhood two-lane street, SE 26th Avenue–an adjunct to SE Powell–resembles a freeway increasingly too, with more and more commuters and freight carriers cutting through, and all driving at ever-increasing, dangerous speeds.  

The cars and trucks are winning, at present, as impatient Portland drivers seek out shortcuts and show reckless disregard for vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists. It’s my hope that it won’t take another tragic accident before traffic calming measures are brought to SE 26th.

There are no crosswalks, no traffic-calming measures in this stretch of SE 26th–despite the fact that a school (Cleveland High School) sits at its south end. From the charming Clinton Corners intersection with Clinton Street Theater and Clinton Coffeehouse, cars are encouraged by current road design to speed. Once you pass the intersection heading south, there’s a long flat virtual drag strip, all the way from Clinton to Powell. Few drivers resist the urge to put the pedal to the metal. Some drivers–motorcyclists, scooters, motorheads–seem to seek this stretch out to go full throttle.

The development of SE Division Street was no friend to neighbors on SE 26th. Now, in addition to rush hour commuters morning and evening and school traffic morning and afternoons, this little street sees continuous evening-to-late-night traffic daily, from people using SE 26th to get to restaurants and bars on one of the most hyped Portland streets ever.  

All this, in combination with the City of Portland’s fateful and covert decision a few years ago to approve UPRR’s overnight movement of major operations to Brooklyn Yard in SE, thereby bringing unwanted and unwarranted big freight traffic to SE 26th and all surrounding neighborhoods, has led to a little neighborhood avenue becoming a major thoroughfare. Something it was never built to be.  

This is a neighborhood street. SE 26th between Powell and Clinton is lined almost entirely (once you get past Cleveland H.S.) with residences. Increasingly, I see nervous neighbors scurrying across the ever-busier road, pushing strollers or walking with their families, running for their lives as impatient cars speed past. I can’t emphasize enough the startling jump in traffic numbers and speeders we’ve seen here.

Can we:

1) post some speed limit signs? i didn’t even know the speed limit

2) create some crosswalks?

3) post more “SLOW: SCHOOL ZONE” signs?

4) get a “You are driving ___ mph” sign?

5) get a photo radar car and ticket speeders and reckless drivers?

6) get more of a police presence here and some traffic enforcement?

7) tell UPRR not to consider this a freight route?

8) get some traffic calming measures?

Now I hear ODOT wants to remove our bike lanes! The only way I would go for that is if major–and i mean major–traffic calming measures were brought to bear. Curb extensions, cross walks, planters, roundabouts. My fear is that this little road is going to be thrown to the big metal dogs. I repeat: this is a neighborhood street. Lined with homes. Filled with pedestrians, with cyclists, with old people and kids. This is not a freeway, though that’s what it looks like now.

I’d like to do whatever I can to encourage the City to return to their original plan of calming traffic on SE 26th, and making it more of a green street. Please don’t sacrifice us to commuters, freight carriers, nightlife-seekers and the dismal prospect of a freeway outside our front doors.”