via Oregon Department of Transportation:
New school speed zone signs are among upgrades near Cleveland High School
Contact: Don Hamilton, 503-704-7452
Working toward a safer Southeast Powell Boulevard, ODOT this week completed installation of new school speed zone signs lowering the speed limit to 20 mph next to Cleveland High School.
The new signs are part of a series of safety upgrades that ODOT, the Portland Bureau of Transportation and TriMet announced Oct. 21 during a community forum at the school. The signs reduce the speed limit between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. near the school along Powell Boulevard, which is U.S. 26.
“Lowering the speed to 20 mph during the school day will make this road much safer for students,” said Rian Windsheimer, ODOT regional manager for the Portland area. “We will continue working with our partners at the City of Portland to make our roads safer for all users.”
Crews also recently completed crosswalk improvements at several locations along Southeast Powell, including 24th, 26th, 28th, 31st, 34th, 42nd, and 69th avenues.
In the weeks ahead, ODOT and PBOT plan more safety upgrades in the corridor. In addition to speed feedback signs — which tell motorists how fast they’re going — improvements include giving pedestrians a walk signal before vehicles get a green light, higher visibility striping at crosswalks, improving visibility and, in the long term, photo radar enforcement and studying reallocation of traffic lanes along Powell.
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“Lowering the speed to 20 mph during the school day will make this road much safer for students,” said Rian Windsheimer, ODOT regional manager for the Portland area. “We will continue working with our partners at the City of Portland to make our roads safer for all users.”
Just curious how this is going to work (on the downhill direction in particular) without any enforcement. I haven’t noticed anyone lowering their speeds through this stretch. I’d love to see it be successful (for many reasons but the biggest is that I’m the parent a Cleveland student) but it seems like there need to be other services in place to make it work. Is ODOT being realistic?