As part of a $185 million jurisdictional transfer with the Oregon Department of Transportation completed in April 2022, the City of Portland is hard at work transforming 82nd Avenue from a deadly, state-run stroad into a tamer, safer “civic corridor.” Part of that work requires the Portland Bureau of Transportation to weigh public opinion on convenient driving with our city’s adopted goals for zero traffic deaths and a “Safe System” approach to road design.
The current projects on the table are traffic signal rebuilds on NE 82nd at Glisan and Davis that will come with ADA upgrades at the corners, concrete medians to manage car traffic, and other changes aimed at improving safety. These intersections (just one block apart) are important to the community because they’re adjacent to Vestal Elementary School, Montavilla Park and several popular businesses.
To help guide the final design, PBOT is seeking public feedback via an online survey open through the end of this month. City staff also attended a meeting of the Montavilla Neighborhood Association Monday evening (if anyone attended, we’d love to hear how it went). These proposals are part of what PBOT refers to as the 82nd Avenue Critical Fixes — a list of projects funded by $80 million in federal pandemic relief grants that must be spent the end of 2026. PBOT has described this as a “lightning fast” timeline for them to identify, design, engineer, and build the projects.
So… why is PBOT focusing on Glisan and Davis?
In 10 years of crash data (2012 to 2021) PBOT found that there were 236 collisions within this two block section of 82nd. Two people died and 8 people suffered serious injuries as a result of those collisions. 86% of the serious and fatal crashes involved people who did not comply with the traffic signal. This is typical behavior on a five-lane stroad where cars and their drivers dominate the landscape.
Seven of these collisions resulted in 8 serious injuries and 2 deaths. Both of the fatal collisions involved a vehicle and a pedestrian, and both occurred at signalized intersections – one at Glisan and the other at Davis. PBOT found that 86 percent of serious injuries and fatal crashes involved travelers who disregarded their signal. In 2023, a third person was killed in a crash where the victim was crossing Glisan in a wheelchair.
In addition to new signals, PBOT’s proposed design solutions (see them below) include concrete medians that aim to reduce left-turn crashes. PBOT’s analysis found that drivers making left turns are a common source of injury crashes near 82nd and Glisan. “The proposed traffic separators and medians on NE 82nd Avenue will reduce or eliminate the risk of these crashes,” PBOT said in the survey.
Even with their Vision Zero goal and clear data on turn risks, PBOT is trying to balance safety with accessibility for drivers who want to turn into adjacent businesses without going too far out of their way.
The city’s draft design for 82nd and Glisan (above left) includes a concrete median and “traffic separator” for about 250-feet north and south of the intersection. South of the intersection, they are proposing a gap in the median so northbound drivers can turn left into a car wash business.
There’s a similar auto access compromise being proposed south of Glisan at the T-intersection with NE Davis. PBOT wants to build a concrete median across the entire width of the front of Vestal Elementary School (about 300 feet from NE Everett to just north of Couch). PBOT is showing the public two options: One without a break in the median at Davis (above center), and one with a break in the median (above right).
According to PBOT, benefits of the continuous median are that it prioritizes the safety of families and children who walk and bike to Vestal, minimizes cut-through traffic on Davis, and creates more space on the median for street trees. The “drawbacks” are that drivers would have to take a different route into a nearby food cart and would have to travel a few extra blocks to get to homes in the neighborhood just east of 82nd.
Because of those “drawbacks” PBOT is also proposing a design option that has a 40-foot gap in the median so drivers’ access to Glisan will not be changed.
If you’re wondering why a city ostensibly committed to Vision Zero and a Safe Systems approach to road design is willing to sacrifice safety for driving convenience, keep in mind what PBOT just went through two miles east of NE 82nd and Glisan on SE Division Street.
PBOT faced withering criticism from business owners and other activists who said the median hurt businesses and made it inconvenient and unsafe to drive. People opposed to the median testified numerous times at city council, were the focus on several local media stories, blamed PBOT for inadequate public outreach, and garnered the ear of PBOT Commissioner Mingus Mapps and Commissioner Dan Ryan. Ultimately, PBOT returned to Division back in September with a demo crew and punched a hole in the median outside the business of the person who led fight against the median.
Suffice it to say, PBOT doesn’t want to repeat that episode on 82nd Avenue.
You can help them make a good decision by taking the online survey. It’s open through November 30th. Once a design is chosen, construction will start in 2025 and the project should be done by 2026.
Thanks for reading.
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PBOT will never achieve Vision Zero if they keep designing projects like this. Having two options for NE Davis – one that fixes some of the safety problems and one that does nothing is ridiculous. People are dying and PBOT is still unwilling to force the issue with drivers.
“PBOT is still unwilling to force the issue with drivers.”
We’ve seen first hand the dangers of having PBOT impose solutions on their own. Bringing the public into the conversation is absolutely the right decision.
I continue to be amazed at the total lack of imagination on the part of drivers who complain about being inconvenienced. I know it’s not at all a mindset representative of most Americans, but why aren’t they asking, “why do I have to drive at all?” Why have people been forced into communities where they must spend thousands of dollars a year, risk major harm to themselves and others, and travel much further for regular needs than they really need to?
I wish these people would ask themselves, “why do I need to drive?”, rather than wonder why it’s less than ideally convenient to do so. Lives (to say nothing of the planet’s climate and our society’s health) depend on asking these questions.
People have to “drive at all” because there is no viable alternative for many people, and no attractive one for most. Many people could take the bus for at least some trips, but choose not to because driving is more attractive.
Leaving aside the rhetorical point of whether people have been “forced”, we have the built environment we have, and the question is how do we move forward from here. What is the politically viable alternative we can work towards in a meaningful timeframe?
There’s no viable alternative for a lot of people because we’ve built our cities on the presumption that anyone worth worrying about will have access to and capacity to operate a car at all times.
Given how many people–even on a site like this–balk at the need to rebuild towns and cities around the presumption that people aren’t born with a set of car keys in their hands, I don’t think there is a meaningful, politically-palatable alternative, just more unnecessary deaths, more environmental destruction, more social isolation and decay. Just…not enough people seem to care.
That still leaves us with the fact that there’s no viable alternative for many folks.
We need to accept that reality and figure out a plausible plan for changing it (ideally one that does not rely on impossible steps).
There is none. Environmentally here’s no reason to believe that being as auto-oriented as the U.S. is sustainable on a global scale (even the most efficient EVs currently on sale meet barely meet 2040 lifecycle emissions goals), and if it isn’t, why should we deserve it more than people in currently-poorer countries?
Socioeconomically, auto-oriented development has never paid its full costs, and psychologically (at least in my analysis, though I’m not alone in it), it becomes much easier to imagine society as merely composed of individuals rather than mostly-cooperative groups when in a lot of American cities, you literally do not see people outside of cars and buildings–mostly private spaces where you cannot just exist.
If building more densely, and reprioritizing our transportation systems to accommodate that higher density, represent “impossible steps”, then I don’t see any way forward. If we can’t ask people to care about each other, rather than worry about getting somewhere as fast as possible or accessing as many consumer dollars as possible, then I’m not sure if we can do anything.
It’s interesting that you both decry how autobound we are and also use language that suggests that it’s something to aspire to. Don’t other people “deserve” something better, like high density apartment living, mass transit, and few cars? Why should anyone else suffer like we do?
They do, indeed, deserve something better.
My issue stems from the fact that, the world over, people of wealth and power continue to think that being separated from the public when they travel place to place (and also just generally) is desirable. Yet living where that process is most complete reveals enormous costs whose most direct beneficiaries are the companies peddling the wares that make it possible, and those pushing an inherently inhumane sociopolitical strain of thought which stresses individual achievement and self-actualization, at least in vacuum ideally, but very comfortably and openly at the expense of others realistically. This is an inherently incoherent concept because we require others for a frame of reference and basic socialization.
In my eyes, the idea that automobility was a significant advancement in how people get around is, more or less, a lie. Since domesticating horses, people have had always been able to transport themselves individually: by foot over short distances (that “last mile” problem), or by horse over longer distances. Carriages (not more utilitarian wagons) were often a sign of a (usually exploitative) upper class membership, and didn’t actually do anything different besides making individual/small group transportation more pleasant.
Bicycles then essentially took the machine out of the medium-distance transport problem, and then cars came along and put a (more accessible) machine (the internal-combustion engine) back in. Cars weren’t called “horseless carriages” for nothing, and in either case we’re talking about transporting small numbers of people at fairly large expense.
Mass transit (specifically trains, but also buses) was the actual transportation paradigm shift of the past 200 years. Suddenly, one motive unit could move hundreds of people at a time over long distances–not from door to door, but that’s what your feet or cheap wheels (bicycle, wheelchair, etc.) are for. People have just been ooo-ing and ah-ing over a gadgetbahn for the past 120 years, and the sheen hasn’t worn off.
Hard to believe as it may be, I actually love cars. I got my first Car & Driver magazine when I was 7, and I still follow the industry very closely 27 years later. There’s just no denying that for getting people–especially the large numbers of people you find in urban areas–from place to place, they are extraordinarily inefficient and expensive.
Convincing the wealthy and powerful that maybe they should be investing their time, energy, and money in making “the public” more pleasant to be around–rather than cloistering themselves away from it–is something I’d spend all day doing…if I was nuts enough to think anyone would listen.
Not so to the people living at the time:
The concept of mass transit is great, and I would love to see Portland implement it well. However, I don’t think it’s possible on any level (economic, political, environmental, or physical) to retrofit an 19th century transportation system into a 21st century city and have it work well enough to displace a large enough chunk of driving to make a difference.
Just as cars replaced horses, something will replace cars, and it won’t be TriMet buses.
https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/03/29/the-horse-manure-problem/
I don’t know how to tell you this, but people have been wrong about things before.
And this is where–I’m sorry if this comes across harshly–your entire perspective is misguided.
Insofar as a 21st century city is built around cars, it’s much more like an idealized version of a 16-18th century city than anything truly revolutionary. With obvious but minor exceptions, each person has their personal fiefdom: a private estate (single-family home) surrounded by space which is intentionally unused as a sign of the excess resource possession necessary to do so (yard), with access granted primarily to individually-propelled carriages (cars) which the estate holder anticipates. The whole thing is privatized, top-to-bottom. The earlier incapacity (by way of unwillingness to infringe on the “private property” of industrialists to do whatever they want with pollutants of various kinds) for incorporating things like industry into this “urban” fabric without major harm to the environment or public health shows how ill-suited this model of urban development has been to industrial human societies from the very beginning.
Of course, from a legal, social, and logistical perspective, this is also much simpler to manage than the public edifice that is both the 19th century city and its 19th-21st century transportation implements. In the aforementioned framework, all land is the responsibility of the private land owner to control and maintain, so minimal coordination is necessary. Hence the enormous physical complexity and cost of it; very few resources are dedicated to resource efficiency and pattern simplification, both of which would ultimately allow more people to participate in it were it to take part (of course for a lot of people, the exclusion of others of one or all types is the benefit). That’s the magic of cities and the failure of rural/suburban urban development models: the former allows more people, the latter requires fewer.
As with all things socioeconomic, the important ultimate question for transportation systems is, does system A permit more people or does system B? Unless you think human life cannot be inherently a positive thing, then there’s a moral obligation to set things up so that as many people as possible have the chance to answer that question for themselves, ergo whichever system works for the greatest number of people isn’t just the correct one, but the right one.
That may not mean buses, but it almost definitionally cannot mean cars; cars move fewer people in the same amount of space with the same amount of material cost as any system we’ve yet created. I’m not saying something unequivocally better is in theory impossible; I’m saying we have systems that are already 90% as good. Why are we wasting irreplaceable time while we wait for a hypothetical 100% improvement?
What is your 90% solution? And if it’s that good, why aren’t more people embracing it?
TriMet works pretty well if you live along a corridor and are going downtown. If you are doing anything else, it is so much slower and more hassle (and for most trips more expensive) than driving/riding. That is, if the trip is even possible.
The 90% solution is building/rebuilding everything in cities around walking/cycling/rail. Yes, you may not be in a climate-controlled stupor; you may have to actually use your own body for parts/all of your travel. But dooming the world environmentally and letting it decay socioeconomically so that you can be as accommodated in your trips as technology has been able to provide isn’t a reasonable compromise.
Good transit (so, not yet TriMet) paired with urban spaces built around it can provide 90% of that convenience and comfort of car ownership, for much less personal cost, and a fraction of the environmental/socioeconomic cost.
People aren’t doing it more often in the U.S.–and the problem is far and away most dramatic in the U.S.; even Canada/Australia don’t have the VMT that we do–for a long list of reason, with which I’m sure you’re familiar.
As you say, our transit isn’t good; lots of people already have the sunk cost of car ownership for lack of anyone providing a non-car alternative. That makes it difficult for people here to imagine/advocate for living car-light/car-free. The automotive/oil industries have always been big, often with close ties to government helping to promote their interests. Cultures tend to propagate in an area and exclude others once they’re established, and the U.S. has long abetted private wealth at public cost (including everything associated with car ownership).
No one is claiming that EVs are a solution in and of themselves but if this sh*thole nation (and Canada and Australia etc.) is going to begin to address transportation-associated emissions, they are bloody essential.
….I mean a lot of people, especially in the U.S., do at least behave like they’re a silver bullet. I agree they’re an essential step, but absent modal shift, it’s a step change in global sustainability, not a change in paradigm.
People in America drive because they are out of shape, obese and dislike all physical exertion, preferring to take pain medication for the inevitable body and joint pain that result from their inactivity.
That is undoubtedly structural, just like most societal phenomena, including racial disparities.
Whether it derives from the car centric layout of our urban areas, a culture addicted to drugs, or an economy ruled by pharma, auto and fossil fuels is anyones guess.
Luckily, in this case, the choice PBOT faces is not whether “people have to drive at all,” but whether marginally
-more-convenient-driving is more important than the lives of neighborhood children.
What an absurdly easy decision.
Also, if PBOT consistently makes better choices about this, more people will feel safe riding or walking more frequently, and driving less as a result.
We need to rebuild our environment to incentivize safer choices and we need to start immediately and proceed continually!
I am really trying to be more empathetic to small, local business owners when it comes to car access. You can cite every study and article that says bike lanes increase business or whatever, but when businesses on Division complain that they’ve lost customers – in their eyes – because of the median, it sets off alarm bells for small business owners all over the city. Who are honestly probably running on razor-thin margins already, especially for food service.
Yes, it’s important for the 82nd redo to improve safety and fit within the Vision Zero framework. All us transportation wonks want to see it completely transformed to a vibrant main street with slow traffic, protected bike lanes, etc etc. Unfortunately, that’s not how the majority of people see it. I know, I know, people are dying out there but most “normies” just don’t really care – until a loved one get killed or injured by a car, I guess. Until that happens, all they perceive is an inept, opaque, and wasteful government impeding their ability to get around.
But if the 82nd outreach process gets botched and people feel like PBOT hasn’t listened to their concerns, that could kill an already anemic political will in this city to make our streets truly safe. The small business that currently exist on 82nd are what make it a destination. The folks who own, work at, and patronize those businesses should be given a voice. Especially given the diversity of the neighborhood.
All that being said, they should totally build the median at Davis. It’s a safety measure to help protect literal children. I hope the owners of the Yard are smart enough to realize that limiting left turn access won’t really affect their business. They’re the only food cart pod in that part of town. People are not going to punch “Food carts” into Google Maps, drive all the way there, then go miles and miles out of their way to a different spot just because they couldn’t make a left turn. The app will direct them to make a U-turn or approach it from the South. The Yard owners are also not driving away customers by plastering their business with political signage and broadcasting their conspiracy theories out into the world like the folks screeching about Division.
I say all of that as someone who likes to go to there for the dank food carts, and mostly (sorry BikePortlanders) accesses it by car.
I think a majority of people do think Division is safer. And when/if PBOT publishes and evaluation report for SE Division, we will know more.
We need a safe city too. Should we allow smoking in restaurants again? where did all those complaints go? Maybe we need to stop wearing seatbelts too. Government’s primary job is to keep us safe and fix problems. the needs of small business are outweighed by the lives of children and the safety of all people.
In the meantime, as can be seen in the SE Hawthorne Boulevard Evaluation Report: SE Hawthorne is better than it was before.
The evaluation shows the projects achieved desirable outcomes in-line with the project goals
with minimal undesirable side effects.
Safety: Both projects improved safety by lowering vehicles speeds, especially top-end speeding. The Multimodal Improvements Project also provided safer bike lanes and the Pave & Paint project provided new crossings.
Transit: Thanks to new infrastructure and design considerations, the bus is running faster on SE Hawthorne Boulevard. Faster bus times provide a direct impact to equity focus communities that ride the Line 14 bus through SE Hawthorne Boulevard.
Traffic operations: Traffic volumes stayed consistent following the project. Vehicle travel time increases matched pre-project modeling expectations.
At the time of writing this report, PBOT staff do not have access to post-project crash data. This report will be updated in 2024, 2026, and 2028 to evaluate crash impacts once the data is published
I’m all for the full median divider at Division as it’s NEXT to a school, and would make the route safer for children. This intersection really needs median dividers in all four directions. Glisan is a mess to the west of this, as west-bound cars race to pass and merge into one lane at 80th, and it’s a 4-lane dragstrip to the east. The northern part of 82nd is relatively calm next to the Community Center, but again that and the park are a HUGE destination, with crappy access. (There really needs to be a pedestrian crossing and park entrance at 82nd & Oregon, but that’s another issue). Fortunately Washman car wash just redid their curb cuts and fencing to minimize the chaos of cars coming and going, but I’m guessing it’s not long until some SUV/Brodozer takes out the whole black fence and then people just start driving wherever again. It’s quite the gauntlet to walk that block face of Washman along 82nd.
Sadly PBOT canned the upgraded pedestrian crossing that was planned for 80th as part of the 70s Greenway. Now they’ve applied for funding to complete it with a Safe Routes to School grant. PBOT Seeks Funding for NE Glisan Crossing at 80th – Montavilla News
It’s like there’s this really dangerous intersection, and a school with kids that need access, and PBOT keeps not doing anything and making poor choices.
Whoops, I meant to say I’m all for the full median divider at Davis.
I wonder if there’s a way to quantify the additional risk to children that would be avoided by closing that median at NE Davis — maybe by analyzing those past traffic crash statistics. Something like “allowing southbound left turns onto NE Davis makes it likely that 1 more child will be hit ever 5 years.” That would really make the issue clear to people.
What’s a kid here or there as a sacrifice? We must keep our four-wheeled gods happy after all.
Stop de kindermoord!
I remember an Onion headline from years ago, when cellphones were new:
DRIVER USING CELLPHONE KILLS FAMILY OF FOUR BUT GETS HOME BEFORE THE MEATLOAF GOES COLD.
I was reminded of that headline when I read this story about 82nd. Cars – and the distracted people driving them – are so inherently dangerous that every decision to save drivers a few seconds puts POOC (people outside of cars) at risk. We experience a 9/11 each month in the USA, on our roads, and no one bats an eyelash – well, they bat a performative eyelash, but nothing on the roads really changes, lest drivers be inconvenienced.
Comment of the freakin’ YEAR!!!
WORD
I’ve lived in this neighborhood for 23 years, walk to The Yard food carts, and can’t count the number of crashes I’ve seen on 82nd between Stark and Glisan. I’ve also been a regular attendee at the 82nd Avenue Coalition meetings, and I’ve already filled out this survey (Option A.)
I get that PBOT needs to give the community at least the illusion of choice on
this treatment, given the blowback from Division and other public relations problems. But the lack of crisis thinking, and failure to triage 82nd like the East Portland Death Star it is, really bothers me.
I really want to support “small businesses,” but man, I have a hard time making accommodations for a freakin’ CAR Wash. And that’s really the central problem with infrastructure changes on 82nd: AUTO lots, AUTO parts stores, AUTO repair shops, DRIVE throughs, and CAR washes. It is the most Car-centric business district in Portland, with the fatality and injury statistics to prove it. PBOT – and the public – needs to treat 82nd like a patient that’s bleeding out, and do everything possible to save lives. Accommodating business concerns is important, but can’t be allowed to supersede saving lives.
Crashes make great business for the auto body places out there
Thank you, Jonathan, for getting Vision Zero right this time and calling out the cognitive dissonance of PBOT weighing design decisions in obvious conflict with the policy.
At some point you’d think we need to scrap one or the other, because this isn’t even lip service to Vision Zero or the first time that it has happened.
Also, in regards to The Yard food cart pod on the SE corner of 82nd and Davis, Option A (unbroken median) could actually be seen as a plus. There’s already a RRFB signaled crosswalk right there serving Vestal Elementary. Assuming the median would also include a pedestrian island, drivers could more easily park on
The side streets west of 82nd (not just east) and more safely cross to The Yard than they could with the partial (option B) median.
There’s already a full signal at Davis, not an RRFB. This project is just rebuilding the old traffic signal that’s already there. I agree the median will improve safety for people crossing, but it’s not accurate to say it’s not already a signal.
I have no idea if it’s doable in this case, but I’d like PBOT to look at roundabouts as solutions for any of Portland’s high-crash intersections — at least in cases where the corner lots have buildings set back a reasonable distance from the streets.
82nd and Glisan may very well fit the bill.
Honestly, I was thinking the same. Theres definitely room here for a roundabout, and roundabouts are always safer than traffic signals since it’s impossible to run a red light at one
Someone recently posted their (amateur) drawing of what they thought was a feasible roundabout geometry, and concluded it could work in the space available, but only if the incoming streets were a single lane.
Until 82nd is reduced to one lane in either direction, a roundabout will not work.
There’s no way a roundabout would fit in that space. You’d have to acquire property at all the corners to widen out the intersection. Roundabouts need a ton of space.
I can see a roundabout at Foster, but the other intersections would need to have too many expensive properties, particularly fast-food chains, acquired by the city to work, plus all the sewers and curbs would need to be moved.
Pretty silly to suggest that not being able to turn left onto Davis is a huge inconvenience for patrons of The Yard when The Yard has no on-site parking.
I made sure to remind project planners in my survey response that the first Fundamental Canon of the Code of Ethics for Engineers is to “hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.”
The problem with 82nd was supposed to be ODOT neglecting to update it, but PBOT seems intent on preserving the stroad of 4 car lanes and free left turns as if traffic congestion is some kind of golden goose. Do a bus+turn lane road diet, why are we still doing surveys and designing plans while people get killed with cars?