The City of Portland is removing traffic-calming infrastructure because drivers run into them too often. While that might seem like success to some, continued clashes between car drivers and concrete planters has led to high maintenance costs and transportation officials say it’s not worth the effort.
Several readers have reported to BikePortland recently that the large, round, concrete planters installed on bike routes throughout the city have gone missing. When the first batch of these were installed in 2021, we said they were a very big deal because their size and stature seemed unavoidable and it was a relatively bold safety move by the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT).
The round, 2,500 pound planters filled with concrete were installed at strategic locations to protect bike lanes at conflict points, to reduce speeds and lower car traffic volumes on neighborhood greenways and other key bike routes. They would often come with yellow advisory 15 mph “shared street” speed limit signs and reflective material to enhance their impact.
These planters emerged from PBOT’s Slow Streets Program which began in May 2020 during the Covid pandemic with flimsy signs and orange plastic barrels placed in streets at 200 locations. The idea was to calm drivers and improve safety for walkers and bikers during a crisis when Portlanders needed more outdoor, Covid-safe public spaces in a hurry. In 2021, PBOT opted to make 100 of those locations permanent, using more robust materials in hopes they’d require less maintenance than the signs and plastic barrels.
But that’s not how things have turned out.
In May of this year, Portlander Ted Timmons (and amateur pilot and aerial photographer) emailed 311 (311@portlandoregon.gov) to report one missing near his home in the North Tabor neighborhood. “Until recently there was a large concrete planter on NE 53rd near Irving,” Timmons wrote. “It is gone. What happened? Will it be replaced or is it permanently gone? I own a house within sight of it, and I really appreciated how it helped with traffic calming.”
A few weeks later, Timmons received a response from PBOT Bicycle Coordinator Roger Geller, telling him it was removed, “due to excessive maintenance issues.” “It kept getting hit,” Geller wrote. “Which created a consistent maintenance burden for PBOT staff. In the future, there may be other more permanent improvements that can be installed at this intersection but there is nothing identified yet.”
The planter at NE 53rd and Irving was installed in 2022 to calm traffic near one of PBOT’s advisory bike lane installations.
A month after Timmons emailed, I heard from reader Chris H. He noticed planters had gone missing in two locations along the North Central Avenue neighborhood greenway (at N Richmond and N Chicago). Chris emailed PBOT’s Geller to ask where they’d gone. Geller offered the same response he gave Ted T, and then added, “The concrete planters were installed in large part to reduce maintenance issues with the plastic orange barrels that were initially installed in May of 2020. Unfortunately, the tight turning radius created a consistent maintenance burden for PBOT staff.”
Chris called the decision “discouraging and frustrating,” and wrote to Geller that he’d be forced to, “avoid N Central during commuting hours from now on.”
The decision to remove these planters wasn’t Geller’s alone. The May 2024 Slow Streets Draft Evaluation Report (PDF) released by PBOT says despite being popular with the public, the program wasn’t effective at calming traffic, and some locations were hit so many times by car users it drained maintenance resources.
“Overall, speed and traffic volume changes were mixed making it difficult to attribute any changes in traffic operations to the Slow Streets program,” reads the draft report. And from a roadway design perspective, the report says the goal of converting 100 locations to more permanent treatments might have been too ambitious and didn’t allow PBOT engineers to do thorough site analysis for each one. (As of May 2024, PBOT says 62 locations have been converted.) “The wide-spread approach led to some locations with unexpected operational issues that required significant maintenance to correct. Individual site assessment by engineering staff will help avoid future maintenance issues,” states the report.
The original “a-board” signs and orange plastic barrels were moved so often, PBOT contractors had to make weekly (and often more frequent) site visits to put them back in place. PBOT assumed 2,500 pound concrete planters would fix this problem. Turns out they underestimated the force and frequency with which some drivers’ cars hit them.
According to maintenance records, in the 20 months between July 2021 and April 2023, PBOT fielded 75 requests for upkeep at 55 locations. 60 of those requests required two PBOT maintenance workers to respond with a winch-equipped vehicle or small forklift to move the planters back into place.
With high maintenance costs and inconclusive data on speeds and traffic volumes, PBOT’s report says their Slow Streets infrastructure is “not impactful” and they prefer more traditional traffic calming methods like diversion and speed bumps.
PBOT’s conclusions in the report were likely influenced by a directive (PDF) from City Traffic Engineer Wendy Cawley. Effective March 11, 2024 Cawley called out a variety of temporary materials PBOT uses — including “planters” and “paint and post installations” — and said staff are no longer allowed to use them without prior approval and they can be used only in limited situations.
“Temporary materials require more maintenance than permanent infrastructure when left in the field for long periods of time,” the Cawley memo reads. “PBOT is facing a fifth year of budget cuts and cannot afford to reliably maintain temporary materials/infrastructure at the current level of usage. Additionally, the aesthetics of temporary materials do not support the vision for Portland that City Leadership and Portlanders have.”
If concrete planters are used, Cawley says they, “must be protected by concrete curbing to minimize vehicle strikes and the need to reset or move materials back into place.”
While PBOT has cooled on Slow Streets-style installations, the public seems to have loved it. PBOT received over 2,000 comments about the Slow Streets Program and presented about it to over 50 neighborhood associations. PBOT says the comments were “overwhelmingly positive” and “staff consistently heard that Slow Streets had a positive impact on Portland streets and communities.”
Overall, the signs and planters have functioned well as gateways to greenways and in helping raise awareness of safer bicycle routes and the people who use them; but PBOT believes they haven’t worked as a permanent traffic engineering solution.
To effectively calm Portland streets it will take an even more robust approach from PBOT. And they say they’re ready to do it with more engineering analysis and more permanent infrastructure, as long as they can identify the funding to make it happen.
Learn more:
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
When a driver slams into a pedestrian, bicyclist, another vehicle, or private property, it costs PBOT nothing. So PBOT, thinking only of its own budget lines, removes infrastructure that is keeping drivers from slamming into pedestrians, bicyclists, other vehicles, and private property. Another example of how PBOT is not focused on the well-being of Portlanders.
It would be great if we could somehow convince PBOT that human life is valuable, too. Or if we could make PBOT feel a budget pinch every time their decisions endanger Portlanders.
But why cannot PBOT just BILL THE DRIVERS who are hitting the infrastructure for the cost of fixing or replacing what the drivers damage?
I realize some drivers just hit stuff (concrete barriers or human beings) and drive away. But if my neighbors can all put cameras on their doorbells to record everything that happens in front of their houses, why cannot PBOT install cameras that would record the reckless drivers too?
It’s really difficult to positively identify a vehicle and license plate, even in high resolution imagery. But even if you could, the amount of money it would take to pay staff to review video, research who is responsible for damaging infrastructure, tracking them down, and then extracting money from the responsible party would surely be much more than the revenue you could hope to generate. How are you going to get them to pay for three damage? They aren’t going to do it out of the kindness of theire heart or a moral obligation. Only the threat of criminal prosecution or a lawsuit is going to get someone to pay. And for that, you need to pay attorneys. Lawyers don’t come cheap.
Traffic cameras are a good model for speed enforcement, but they aren’t going to be nearly as effective as a revenue source for infrastructure maintenance.
Maybe, destroying public property with a car should be a ticketable offense.
But do we write tickets for such things in Portland? My lived experience says no we don’t.
Maybe the means of destruction shouldn’t matter.
Maybe the next iteration of planters could have a row of protruding steel dies that would stamp an ID number into the car of the offender at about bumper height. If they were about 8″ in depth it would be much less than the crush zone of the car. They might also serve to disable a car with a radiator.
You’re defending the drivers who hit these. OK.
I’m not defending them. I think they should be fined for traffic violations and property damage, no question about it. I totally support the idea of making violators pay restitution for traffic violence.
The problem, I suspect, is that most of these incidents are hit and run situations. The logistics of trying to identify, locate, and track down hit and run drivers is challenging. It is a worthy abs worthwhile pursuit, because hit and run drivers are a menace to society. They should not be allowed to continue to inflict damage. But must law enforcement activities are not profit generators.
The idea of installing, maintaining, and monitoring cameras for the purpose of defending dozens of concrete barrels at various locations around the city is kind of silly. It’s just not practical. The purposed solution to the problem would be incredibly costly – much moreso than the cost of maintenance, which PBOT is refusing to bear. The city should come up with the money to maintain the infrastructure, but they should do so in a practical and useful way.
I’m not convinced it would be that difficult. Based on the frequency reported in the story, it would be worth it, and an admin fee/ penalty on top of the damage costs could cover the cost of cameras.
I mean in some ways these are issuing immediate fines to anyone who hits one in the form of damage to their vehicle and they work even on unregistered vehicles and in cases of hit and run. I think it is worth the investment by the city as I am sure that folks probably pay a lot more attention around them after the first time they hit one.
You aren’t defending those drivers? You didn’t say that we shouldn’t bother trying to catch them because it’s too difficult?… because it kind of sounds like you are.
I said the camera proposal is impractical, unworkable, and unrealistic. I also think it is highly unlikely that any enforcement action, no matter how effective it is, is likely to generate enough revenue to pay for itself. I think there is a strong case to be made that enforcement and prosecution of people that damage public property is beneficial for a whole host of reasons. I think it is important and that we should do it. But don’t expect enforcement to pay for this program.
Mm… Thanks for the clarification.
There would be no “monitoring” required. As with Tri-Met the footage recorded is only looked at when someone reports an incident.
Put a bounty out for the first person to report one has been hit with info able to id the car responsible & pay them 25 monies. ?
Red light cameras seem to have little problem in that regard. Send the ticket, er, the bill, to the registered owner. ?
For reasons I don’t fully understand, PBOT seems convinced that the human life of those inside cars is valuable too, and creating infrastructure that increases the the number of crashes is bad, even with no evidence it is slowing or diverting vehicles.
What are these people thinking?!? Crashes are good, right?
Did anyone conclude that drivers were being hurt? I didn’t see anything about that. Maybe I missed it.
Pedestrian deaths are (relatively) rare enough that I don’t think they had time to collect data on how much these influenced pedestrian safety. The whole thing is just too subtle to measure, and they’re caving in because people hit them with their cars.
People hit curbs with cars all the time, we don’t remove those.
Curbs exist to manage stormwater runoff. They have nothing to do with traffic safety.
Must be why so many sidewalks have tire tracks on them.
I missed the part about drivers dying or being seriously injured on this residential road.
As we know, it is impossible to avert crashes by, e.g., paying attention while driving, and slowing down when necessary. And we also know that the cars Americans buy are increasingly dangerous for those inside the vehicle and safer for those outside, right?
Watts, this kind of things is why I don’t buy your “I’m pro-transit/walking/biking, too” nonsense. No one who’s paying attention to these issues would’ve said what you just did.
I’m pro whatever works.
Problem is, you have to define what “works” means. Insofar as people who hit these things then were either unable to drive their cars, had to drive slower due to damage to their vehicles/drove slower because they’d been spooked, or simply avoided the routes where these bollards were, and as a consequence there were fewer out-of-vehicle injuries (I’ll note that nowhere in this article, at least, does it say that anyone who hit these things was injured), then they did work.
If people were really concerned about their vehicles or just not crashing generally, they’d probably be more attentive to driving while doing it. Whatever excuse you want to provide these drivers, they ultimately weren’t cautious enough while driving, and therefore they hit the bollards.
Why on Earth should we be trying to abet people driving carelessly? Driving (at anything above a walking pace) is inherently dangerous, and making it seem less so just paradoxically makes it more dangerous.
Yeah, the statement was a bit glib, and I couldn’t revise it. It’s factually false, as there are many things that would “work” that I would not support.
I’ll support almost anything to fight climate change that would actually work and has any chance of being implemented (feasibility is part of my definition of “working”). I’m probably further out on that line than anyone here with the possible exception of the long name dude because neither of us make support for climate measures contingent on other social agendas like getting rid of cars or taxing rich people. If someone gets rich mitigating climate change, more power to them.
I really don’t care about the cement circles one way or the other. I don’t really like them when I’m biking (I like to ride in the center of greenways), and I have never encountered one while driving (which I am pretty confident I do a lot less of in the city than most people here who have cars). I’m seeing a lot of absolutely ridiculous comments here, including glee at the pain of others, and I’ve mostly been reacting to that energy.
Everyone seems to want to follow the evidence, except when it leads somewhere that doesn’t fit their priors.
crashes are not good, but they appear to be further evidence that too many cars are on our greenways and they are being driven with too little care.
Uh, no, that’s not it. No one (except you?) claims these things are hurting drivers.
If you can’t drive without running into to things – serves you right if you get bumps and bruises and have to pay to fix your car.
Better than what happens when they run into another human being.
This whole “forgiving” design objective that seeks to reduce damage to people who are careless rather than protect the other human beings around them needs to go.
This is a great example of when you use half truths to make a point that’s either dishonest or distracts from the actual issue being discussed.
No drivers are being killed or seriously injured on our residential streets but cyclists and pedestrian deaths and injuries are higher than ever. If someone was killed or seriously injured as a result of hitting one of these planters then they would have already been traveling far in excess of the 20mph speed limit while also not paying attention, meaning the driver in that scenario is the one creating the hazard. All this while vehicles have become safer than ever for the occupants, and more dangerous than ever for people outside the vehicles.
On a street like this the safety of cyclists and pedestrians should take precedent over the convenience and throughput of cars, even if it means they have to slow down and drive carefully around the big yellow planters.
Precisely. It reminds of red light cameras, where people bring up statistics to show that (in some cases) crashes increase as a result of these safety devices, and use these half-truths to argue for their removal. These arguments neglect the fact that:
a) The vast majority of these crashed are relatively minor (i.e. fender benders) and there a significant drop in serious life-altering crashes that are often the result of people running red lights; and
b) The former types of crashes drop dramatically as drivers change their behaviour.
On residential streets? Sorry… what were you saying about half truths?
I agree. PBOT says it can’t find evidence that these devices increase the safety of cyclists and pedestrians, so this isn’t about safety, it’s about optics and safety theater.
I don’t care what PBOT does with these; they don’t impact me much at all. They offer me no discernable protection, and are only a minor bother when I’m biking. The symbolism is not important to me.
“I don’t care what PBOT does with these; they don’t impact me much at all.”
Why on earth are you here picking fights with people who actually do care? For someone who is against people who cycle for fun, you sure do a lot of recreational commenting.
Against riding for fun? I am someone who cycles for fun.
As for your question, it’s mostly a reaction to the joy so many people claiming to be concerned with safety have expressed over cars crashing.
That “too” you cut off at the end really does change the whole meaning of the sentence, doesn’t it? No one except you suggested the people inside the vehicles were being hurt or killed by crashing in the street calming infrastructure.
What a giant disappointment. PBOTs refusal to try anything else to address the supposed problems just drives me crazy. “Remove the infrastructure people love with hopes that some nebulous un-funded other solution might come later”.
What a step backwards.
One might argue that a driver hitting something so big and obvious might be grounds for having their license removed, not the big and obvious thing. Obviously.
Y’all are coming this from the wrong angle.
PBOT doesn’t care about the common driver hitting the objects, they care about the Police Officers hitting them. Regularly. At 90 mph. At night. With their lights off.
Why you might ask are the police driving around at night at 90 mph with their lights off? Or more likely you’ll ask what evidence I would have that they even do such a thing?
Back in 2011 the City (BES + PBOT) put in a series of bioswales (mid-block curb extensions with trees) on NE Glisan between 132nd and 148th, complete with yellow paint, reflectors, signage, all perfectly safe, yet the Police Bureau wrecked several police cars on them. And so during a public discussion it emerged that the Police were driving around at night, at 90 mph, with no lights on (neither the flashing kind nor apparently the headlights), to “test their night vision” was the lame excuse they gave.
Now you know.
Which is the main explainer of why Portland (and many other cities) can’t put in speed humps, chicanes, diverters, and any other infrastructure that would have any real impact on crazy speeding drivers. It’s not the fire trucks and EMT, it’s the crazy drivers in those police cruisers, driving at night, at 90 mph, with no lights.
Interesting–if true! Citation?
It was at an East Portland Land Use and Transportation Committee meeting 12 or 13 years ago, on the second Wednesday evening around 7 pm, but I couldn’t tell you what month. Do you remember what you had for lunch last week let alone 12 years ago? I don’t recall anyone taking notes.
David, you’ve been gone from Portland for a long time, and while the history is good to know for people who are here now, it’s less and less relevant to conditions in Portland today.
I’d recommend a more tentative approach and a less definitive one.
I know you’ve been away for a short while, but the city has gone nuts with neighborhood speed bumps recently, regardless of their effectiveness. That has definitely changed.
Where are these speed bumps? Last I heard PBOT only installs speed bumps on designated Safe Routes to Schools and lacks the funds to complete that limited network.
NE Fremont between 102nd and 122nd was the latest victim of PBOT’s safety measures in my neck of the woods.
Yep, that’s a Safe Routes to School primary investment route for Parkrose Middle School.
https://pdx.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=f63985bf53974691bbe895a0e8e9e5c0
What a waste to do it on Fremont without sidewalks. They should concentrate all these on Shaver as that goes between the middle school and the high school.
All these speed bumps have done is embolden people to dangerously pass folks because they feel so put out by being delayed a few seconds.
I’ve finally decided to avoid Fremont as much as possible as it is more dangerous now than it was before the speed bumps.
“While that might seem like success to some”
I think that sums up one of the big problems with our community.
Perhaps. I certainly don’t want folks to hit these things. I don’t think traffic calming should be designed to punish bonehead drivers, but it should do more to actually alter people’s behavior.
The community problem here is that we (the city of Portland) look at a temporary concrete planter and say “Sweet, we did traffic calming!” and then drivers go and run into it, when we should have built an actual daggum traffic circle in the first place. Better for everyone in the long run to do it right the first time, but we waste so much money and political capital on these halfway temporary measures so we don’t piss as many people off. I’m sure many PBOT staff are trying their best, but I wish the decision makers could realize that you’re never going to make everyone happy, but at least you can make the streets safer.
Agreed. For what it’s worth, PBOT concluded these barriers were not making the streets safer.
PBOT did not make this conclusion.
You are right. They concluded they didn’t have evidence these devices slowed or diverted traffic (as per the article), but they did cause car crashes.
Funny that inanimate, non-moving objects, cause the driver to plow into them with their vehicle. Couldn’t it possibly be the inattentiveness of the driver that could be the issue? Nah, never the driver.
Of course it’s an issue. Most things are multiple causes.
uh oh, the bike portland dot com comment section Voice of Reason doesn’t know how null hypothesis rejection works 🙁
Ultimately success would be Portlanders slowing down for something but apparently giant concrete objects aren’t even worth slowing down enough to avoid hitting.
If the problem is funding, it seems like the state legislature should authorize cities to use cameras in these locations, and have the maintenance costs for the barriers covered by those who hit them.
I think it’s a pretty standard practice when there’s a crash for the damage to public infrastructure be paid for by the driver/insurance company.
If people understand damaging these things will be on their dime, rather than the city’s, they might actually work to avoid them.
Do you think repairing their car isn’t sufficient motivation? I don’t think “motivation” is the right framework for thinking about this issue. I think it’s some combination of driver skill and limitations on human cognition, specifically ability to focus for long periods on routine tasks, especially when tired or distracted.
I would be interested in getting a feeling for the collisions that transport the planters (momentum and kinetic energy of the incident car, the momentum transfer, the time profile of the momentum transfer, etc.). Is it an impulsive impact or a slow push? It does seem like the reaction forces on the incident car in a collision that moves a Mg planter would do some damage. Do the drivers not see the planter and run into it accidentally going ‘full speed’? Or are they pissed it’s there and ‘nudge’ it out of the way? Or what??
I would be shocked if many people are sacrificing their vehicle to “nudge” (or ram) the planters.
My guess is that the driver is focused on something (like an approaching car or cyclist), and simply doesn’t expect a big concrete object in the middle of the road. Like any routine task done thousands of times, a lot of driving (and walking and bike riding) is reflex and responding to stimuli at the subconscious level. I believe this is simply a limitation of how our brains work, and the only cure is to get people out of the business of driving large vehicles.
I watched a woman plow into the 53rd planter as I was approaching the intersection on my bike. She was very very focused…….on her phone.
Thanks for the anecdote. Scary!
I think nudging is likely for the one removed from N. Central and Richmond. It was often five feet or more out of place with no obvious signs of impact damage. After a while it was simply gone without any explanation that I could find. If someone knows why it was removed, please let me know. So far its companion at Central and Chicago remains (more or less) where it was put.
Yeah. I’m still suspicious they aren’t being purposefully relocated as guerrilla resistance by drivers who are offended/inconvenienced by them. A lot of people say we need something beefier, but these seem like they would be a decent improvement in a lot of places if they can stand up to the abusive drivers.
Repairing their car isn’t sufficient motivation because they think they will clear the planters. Chances are that people try to take these at speed and fail to maneuver around the obstacles. After they damage their car, they might be more cautious.
Paying a couple of thousand to repair their car isn’t motivating, but paying a couple of hundred more to the city would be? That was JaredO’s contention, about which I am highly dubious.
Yes, it would be. It sucks to damage your car, but it sucks more to be responsible for the damage that you cause, to be called out on it with official documentation, and potentially to have it count against your driving record. In fact, it should be part of the public record, like New York does with traffic violations. This may actually get peoples attention and reinforce the idea that there are consequences to driving while staring at a phone.
But, in fairness to Jared O, his comment was also about fairness to the rest of us. Why should PBOT’s budget be drained by reckless drivers? Money that could be spent on all the things that we need instead of cleaning up after dangerous drivers.
I’m not sure you appreciate the bureaucratic complexity of trying to monitor a bunch of cement cylinders then track down and issue fines to people who hit them. If you are concerned with draining PBOT’s budget, this would only make the problem worse.
But I get it. War on cars, safety theater, and all that.
I spun the wheel and got … bureaucratic nihilism for $10.
I’d like to solve the puzzle.
“I’m going to need those TPS reports… ASAP…”
I got the memo about he cover sheets.
There are absolutely jurisdictions that seem to make an effort recover costs to repair infrastructure damaged by vehicle collisions elsewhere in the US but I don’t see any evidence that PBOT or ODOT ever make a serious effort to do so. They could presumably access and analyze both Oregon Traffic Accident and Insurance Report and Oregon Police Traffic Accident Report that are filed with the DMV.
Oregon’s law requiring collision reporting seems to have a $2500 property damage threshold if there’s no injury or death. Both a form filed with the DMV and notification of the local police are required. https://www.oregon.gov/odot/dmv/pages/driverid/accidentreport.aspx.
“(D)iscouraging and frustrating” is putting it mildly.
This is infuriating.
Yes, but until people start voting for leaders that will pursue ALL forms of traffic safety (including police enforcement) it will continue.
So frustrating! I wonder what the payback time is for a “permanent traffic engineering solution” that has lower maintenance costs is.
It’s unfortunate that they’re removing them but I’d rather PBOT spend money on better things than moving concrete barrels
Some cars should wear a helmet. It’s a dangerous world full of hard heavy objects, like boulders, trees and such. Maybe the cars should stay home, or take extra care when they have to go out? Are PSAs in order?
It must be some kind of infraction to interfere with a traffic control device.
I’m disappointed that PBOT is retreating instead of doubling down. Is it that the planters are only kid height instead of being more or less truck sized? Because they could be taller and heavier. If a person drives their vehicle into a fixed object it amounts to culling the herd.
Biking 101 lesson: don’t hit the hard stuff.
-don’t hit the hard stuff-
This lesson applies throughout our lives.
Please also remember rule #2 of cycling – Keep the rubber side down.
The aesthetic part of the statement makes is downright enraging. Yes I’m sure we’d all like the traffic calming measures to “look nice”, but I’m far and away more concerned with cars not tearing down my neighborhood street as if it were a highway.
The very fact that they’re being consistently hit is proof that they’re badly needed, and I hope we can get effective permanent replacements in for these ASAP.
Is it? PBOT said it has no evidence these devices slow or divert traffic, while it has clear evidence that they increase the number of crashes.
This is what evidence based infrastructure looks like.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. All of the PBOT statements I’ve seen use weasel words like this that, reading between the lines, suggest they haven’t studied them enough (or at all?) to know what impact they’re having (if any). They just know drivers are running into them and that’s driving up maintenance costs. The rest seems like pure speculation.
Indeed. I don’t know what they’ve looked at (hopefully it’s discussed in the report), but there is clear evidence these devices were causing crashes (which presents an obvious safety problem).
How much benefit would they have to produce to overcome that safety deficit?
“…these devices were causing crashes…”
It is certainly no accident when a motor vehicle under the control of a human runs into a fixed object. The planters were doing nothing, a driver ran their vehicle through the space. This is a ‘Billy hit my fist with his face’ kind of argument.
For planning purposes, the value of a human life is $10 million. That’s a lot of planters and a lot of planter adjustments, and yes the driver or their insurance should pay anyway.
A few blocks away, a row of planters keep traffic on NE Rodney pretty chill. I don’t suppose PBOT has any numbers on that.
You think people are hitting these things intentionally?
Through negligence, their intent was to do something else rather than pay attention to their driving. So in a way, yes.
If someone who does something careless or foolish can be said to “intend” anything bad that happens as a consequence, it really renders the word meaningless.
If I ski too fast, I’m intentionally hitting the tree; if I try to jump over a fence, I’m intending to get my foot caught on it and break my teeth (a real example from my misspent youth); if I try to sneak into Satyricon, I intend to get thrown out on my ass (literally) by a bouncer; and so on.
I’m sorry you don’t like that recklessness is grouped with intent, but that’s just the way it is in our society. I think you’re going to have to get over that one.
Wrecking the car of a careless driver is a safety benefit, because that negligent driver is at least temporarily not driving.
And ideally, we make the neighborhood streets annoying enough that these types of drivers choose to avoid them entirely.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that they aren’t working, it just says they don’t have any data. The planters were installed during covid which was only a few years ago.
The real question is, by destroying lousy drivers vehicles, is this successfully taking bad drivers off of the road?
They do have some data; they know, for example that the devices are causing crashes, which is bad in its own right, but also costing them a lot of money. They are also unable to demonstrate any commensurate benefit (which doesn’t mean there is none). They feel they’ve come to a decision point, and the data that they have points towards removal.
Whether causing crashes as a way to “thin the herd” is good public policy, well, I’m just going to say no, it is not.
But this is just lazy, bad thinking.
If I eat raw eggs or raw chicken for a couple years, chances are pretty good that I will be fine. But if you do that on a population level or serve it at a restaurant, it’s obviously dangerous.
Their sample size is too small to reach the conclusion that it isn’t effective. So instead of doing something to address the idiot drivers who would have 100% ran over a person if the planter was a person instead, they just remove the protection. They could have done something to make it more visible. Added a camera. Anchor it better. I don’t know, go wild.
Instead they’re just like “this is affecting automobiles, get it out”.
The solution should be more traffic calming, not less. Perhaps if traffic calming is so rare, people drive crazy because it works everywhere else. If stuff like this was everywhere, people would know they can’t do that.
Interestingly, this is exactly what PBOT said as well. PBOT felt these devices were not calming traffic, and said they wanted to rely on methods where there is evidence of efficacy.
Look, I get that everyone wants to see cars crash, but I’m not sure how you expect PBOT or any public agency to support that unless there is crystal clear evidence there is a commensurate benefit. In this case PBOT says there’s not.
People lie to justify things as well. I live right by the cement block on 53rd, and it absolutely slowed down speeding drivers, even more than speed bumps. It had an immediate effect on this dangerous intersection. I don’t really care that a few people damaged their cars on it. Maybe they will decide to avoid cutting through a neighborhood next time.
Coming from someone who objects pretty strongly when they think someone has misrepresented what they’ve said, it’s curious to see a claim like “everyone wants to see cars crash” stated as fact, in response to a suggestion for infrastructure designed to protect people from car crashes. When has anyone here stated or implied that’s what they want?
Not sure I would characterize the planters as the ’cause’ of the crashes. One could invoke your line of argumentation to claim that we should remove the signs from the roads because they’re causing graffiti. And yes, thinning the herd of drivers who can’t avoid a giant planter with reflectors is manifestly good public policy.
If I put a rock in the middle of the street with a cone on it, and you hit it with your bike, did I cause the crash or did you?
If I put a matte black pipe in the middle of the road and you hit it at night, I probably caused the crash.
If I park a car in a curbside parking space and you hit it, you probably caused the crash.
I’d say a large, brightly colored, signed, reflectorized planter with pavement markings around it is a lot more similar to the parked car than the pipe.
Unless the rock was intentionally made less visible, the bike operator caused the crash. The source of the outrage is that these planters IMPROVED the streets. I checked the ones at Greeley and Bryant yesterday. Iove the planters, and I think PBOT should keep fixing them until the caters learn to avoid them.
I disagree; both are responsible for the crash.
?? The biker must be prepared for whatever hazards are present on the road. The intentions of the rock placer are relevant for discussions of the ethics of the situation (what if the rock saves 10k Palestinian babies?), but if you hit a marked rock in the road, it’s your fault. If you hit a huge marked planter (these look permanent), it’s for sure on you. I’m still dumbfounded that people running into these things is an issue.
This is a really weird hill to die on – what’s your angle in this conversation?
Looks like this loan office caused a pretty bad crash not too long ago. Then there was the restaurant that caused a car to crash into it in May. Shopping centers are notorious for causing car crashes. And coffee shops are joining in as well. Even houses and apartment buildings have begun causing drivers to crash into them. When will our leaders do something to stop these reckless buildings driving up the rate of car crashes?
(Pictured: sports car with a crumpled hood after being hit by a large storefront)
I’ve always viewed the concrete barrels as a small step in the direction of actual diverters. I don’t think they were all that useful as anything other than a transitional measure. The fact that none were ever converted into diverters indicates to me that they weren’t actually going to produce the outcome that I hoped for. If we are going to continue to rely on greenways as the backbone of Portland’s bike network, we need real diverters, not concrete beg barrels. If elimination of these structures frees up resources that can be used to build real diverters, it will be a win. I’m not holding my breath while I wait for new diverters, though.
COTW
A good example of how incrementalism continuously fails us. The problems caused by half measures sabotage them, leading to reversal, because the full benefits aren’t realized.
PBOT has been very reluctant to use diversion. Perhaps if they used diversion more often this wouldn’t feel as much of a loss
Is there comparable city data on change in speed in locations that didn’t have the planters? E.g., if streets with planters saw an increase of one mph from 2020-2023, did other streets see less of an increase, a similar increase, or more of an increase? A quick google didn’t turn anything up, but it feels like the comparison is important information missing from the draft evaluation.
So use poured concrete integrated with the road surface. If the problem is that reckless drivers are moving them by hitting them, then make them impossible to move. The more damage these things can do to a car, the better, because it means one more incompetent driver is at least temporarily unable to keep driving. Sure, they’ll need to be occasionally touched up as they get chipped up by crashing idiots, but that can be much more infrequent than having to put them back in place all the time.
How about 3D printing the Elk statue in concrete? After the crash you could just clean it up with a street sweeper.
Paint it hi vis of course because that will keep everyone safe.
/S, ok, I would never do that. But what if we did have elk or moose running around?
Wildlife shouldn’t be stigmatized to the point that the social norm is for them to dress up like a traffic cone! </S>
The speeding and carelessness of drivers at the sight of the previous 53rd planter has really increased since it was removed. I sometimes ride through there as much as twice a week around evening commute times and appreciated the traffic calming in the mixed bike lane, car lane area as well as at the intersection. This “greenway” is used as a car driver cut through. Drivers speed on both 53rd and often on the curved road that approaches this intersection from the west. Speeding drivers will often cross over into the oncoming lane to take that curve at speed.
If people are driving into the planter, it means it is too small or there needs to be full diversion to maintain the “greenway.” Or, just let the drivers crash into it, if that’s what they want to do. Since drivers are rarely tested for competency, this is good immediate feedback on their driving abilities.
I am very disappointed that PBOT is intentionally encouraging speeding and dangerous driving on a greenway.
This is the first time I have ever heard PBOT say that they prefer diversion, it seems like it is incredibly difficult to get them to use diverters to calm traffic even on neighborhood greenways, hopefully we are seeing a shift towards a willingness to install more diverters in more locations.
Every diverter takes so much time and resources from PBOT staff to install a pretty cheap solution.
There really needs to be stronger political policy that supports installing diverters without having to individually plan and go through neighborhood outreach for every single diverter. Right now a street being classified as a greenway does not have much meaning when really policy should define it as “a bike prioritized corridor that has diverters every 5 blocks, and has enhance crossings at busy intersections”. That way, new greenways will come with the expectations of greenways will have diverters.
It would be no different than PBOT having standards for how frequent crosswalks should be in pedestrian districts. Sure there is some planning on exactly where the crosswalks should go, but there is no debate as to if there should be crosswalks at all.
I’m interested in your definition of a greenway. Could we add “daylighted intersections with stop signs visible for 100 feet”?
Why restrict that to Greenways? We should have daylighted intersections every place there is an intersection, and visible stop signs every place there is a stop sign. #TautologiesYouWishPBOTUnderstood
I fully agree, the standard for greenways should be to include diverters at a certain average frequency whether that is 5 blocks or 10 blocks etc. The PBOT staff time should come in the event that there is a desire to drop below that level, not meet or exceed it.
Rather than write something assertive I’m just going to ask Jonathan: what *would*, in your eyes, accountability look like at PBOT? Do you for some reason not think that Geller has become overly comfortable in his decades in the same position? And that the bicycling community might benefit from having someone younger and less complicit in PBOT’s bureaucratic ossification, despite the loss of institutional memory his exit would entail? Could it not be some sort of rotating position? I’m guessing it’s personally awkward for you but this seems like the exact kind of situation that begs for a different approach, particularly given our decline in bicycling numbers, and yet… I feel like I’ve seen this movie before…
Geller is part of a system. He is not an independent actor and I have a very strong hunch the personal choices he would make if he were in charge would be vastly different than what you see on the ground. But that’s how systems – especially gov’t ones – work. Geller is there to advise, vet, share feedback, and so on; but the big decisions are made way above his pay grade. I don’t think it’s wise or fair to bring his name into this. Note he’s had the same title his entire tenure. If we name names, we should focus on a different part of the org chart IMO.
As for what “accountability would look like at PBOT”? I’m not sure what you are asking with that question. I think we make them accountable by watching closely what they are doing, share the information in the community, let activists and advocates do their jobs, encourage folks to pay attention, tell PBOT and council what we think, and so on and so forth.
Just curious, what might be the pay grade at which decisions about removing infrastructure are made?
PBOT, like Water and BES, is run by engineers, even if they are by their overall numbers a small minority of PBOT’s staff numbers. They hold the purse strings, more or less, and city council makes decisions based on a set of choices given to them by the engineers. Roger Geller is a city planner who has done his best to advise and try to steer those same engineers, but engineers generally have a contempt for city planners (and most other people for that matter.) Basically the people who decided to put in infrastructure or take it out are from a completely different division from Geller let alone from a different pay grade.
I just have a feeling most of this isn’t true
If engineers are setting the agenda, providing the menu of designs that the council chooses from, then the process before the vote is way too obscure. Apparently the infrastructure that we get has to come through a filter of people trained in a school of street design that has given us SE Powell, NE MLK Jr Boulevard, NE Sandy, SW Barbur, SW Macadam, and SE McLoughlin.
City council does not choose road designs. They operate at a way higher level, setting general policy and approving budgets.
Fair enough. I disagree —I think he should have been shown the door many ineffective years ago— but I appreciate your thoughts.
“I think we make them accountable by watching closely what they are doing, share the information in the community, let activists and advocates do their jobs, encourage folks to pay attention, tell PBOT and council what we think, and so on and so forth.”
I would agree if this approach had been nearly effective enough in holding PBOT accountable but I don’t think it has. Instead I think we have become enablers of the status quo over many years, just another cog in the dance of dysfunction.
Well we certainly are enablers in the sense that the community is also party of the dysfunctional system. The advocacy ecosystem isn’t perfect, just like the government ecosystem isn’t perfect. We (you and I and everyone reading this) are a part of this. I believe we all play some role in the outcomes we get. The work is to constantly challenge ourselves to be a part of progress and not an impediment to it.
What do you think his job actually is, and why do you think he’s been ineffective at it?
Bike mode share has collapsed on his watch, while implementation of bike infrastructure has been patchwork, at best.
I haven’t lived in Portland for the entirety of Geller’s career, but in the time I’ve been here, I’ve seen bike commuting crater. Is that all his fault? Definitely not. But if the job of the bike coordinator is to get more people biking, and I’m not totally sure that it is, than the numbers paint a sad story.
I’d suspect that the real metric that PBOT consists is whether he’s been a tireless advocate for bike friendly design and consideration of bikes in paving and reconstruction projects. His job is to advance bikes in policy conversations. To that end, I imagine he has aquitted himself well.
It isn’t.
I’m not sure what caused the collapse in bike commuting you noted; it started well before the pandemic, even as we’ve been building more bike infrastructure than ever before. I am highly skeptical it is the result of anything the city did or did not do, but I’m interested in other explanations that are compatible with the known facts.
Welp, now drivers are ever more free to hit children, people with disabilities, pedestrians, dogs and people on bikes…and probably for years, while PBOT tries to find the money for something more “permanent.” I’ll bet there are smart attorneys out there already looking forward to suing the city on behalf of future injured Portlanders. Which isn’t a great way to save money, PBOT.
Yeah, dead or permanently maimed pedestrians & cyclists winning a lawsuit isn’t a great reward.
It’s hard to enjoy the fruits of a lawsuit when you are dead – there’s just no future in it.
In those 20 months how much did PBOT spend on maintaining damage to permanent infrastructure. Because according to this car crashes alone cause almost 5 times as many requests for repairs.
Add in hundreds if not thousands more maintenance requests and that 75 or 45 a year pales by comparison. How much more expensive can the maintenance on these be compared to drivers damaging more permanent infrastructure?
By all means though replace them all with permanent diversion and do it yesterday. These were definitely making a noticeable difference in driver behavior. It turns out potentially damaging their cars is a good deterrent for bad drivers.
Removing the infrastructure and not replacing it seems like it might open PBOT up to potential legal claims if someone got hurt in one of these intersections…I guess they’re banking on everyone having enough car insurance. Pretty disappointing!
You idiots, why would you *remove* them… that means they are *working*. Put up a yelllow sign in front or add stripes or something.
Last August, Cawley, PBOT’s chief traffic engineer, testified at a City Council meeting extolling the life-saving importance of the contentious center medians on Division.
Presumably, the medians were intended as a “permanent” construction. Apparently, based on PBOT’s definition, 2,500-pound planters are “temporary.”
Is this the binary choice PBOT works under? If infrastructure is permanent, it is protected, and if the infrastructure is temporary it is vulnerable to bureaucratic whims. Begging the question, why build temporary if it isn’t a permanent solution? Who is protected by the provisional?
In this scenario, where seriousness is supplanted by semantics, the prevalence of plastic wands suggests PBOT is more than comfortable with the illusion that the temporary is permanent.
The pot holes and the many many stoplights are what’s making Division slower.
I agree with you about the potholes, not so sure about the stoplights. There’s also that super slow train that goes through there.
I think we’re not all being thankful enough that the painted lines haven’t been scrubbed in the before/after pics that JM included. We should all stop complaining and be thankful for paint!
PBOT is outright dumb to not bill the driver’s insurance for repairs and repositioning. (are the collisions all hit and run? )
Oh , those things are barriers or barrels. By definition they are clearly not planters.
I recently saw one of the street side $2000 new style Portland trash cans destroyed from a car collision. The city was informed. Absolutely zero interest in attempting to get reimbursed for this expense ( to taxpayers).
I too think folks should be made financially responsible for the damage they do to public property, but I have to ask, how much would it cost the City to collect (if ever) from someone?
Court costs, administration fees, police officer time, etc.
Seems like one could just not pay any fine, just like the Arts Tax, and go about their lives without any consequences.
The entire point of the planters is to protect pedestrians and riders from drivers who can’t be bothered to look for the massive concrete cylinder in the road.
Side note: in the picture of the yellow planter that was hit with enough force to move out of position, who went and digitally removed the pride & pro Israel messaging on the garage?
Photo credit is PBOT, so I would expect someone at PBOT.
How hard is it to “maintain” a block of concrete…most PBOT maintenance vehicles are 1 ton trucks , or larger…toss a traffic cone on the street, hook up a chain, drag it back and move on.
This decision seems so outrageous it’s like a parody. Drivers prove to be so careless that they are unable to avoid hitting slowing infrastructure, so you remove it? It is justification for making it MORE imposing and more damaging, not less. It is justification to create a veritable obstacle course, not remove obstacles and enable these clearly incompetent motorists to propel their death carriages at higher speeds that put more lives in danger. This is malpractice.
This has a strong echo of PBOT’s decision-making at 7th/Tillamook: In the name of safety, they removed a tree instead of removing lower limbs, they created a bike lane inside a pedestrian curb extension, and they added some paint that reinforces the idea that bikes do not belong in the travel lane. Basically they made the street wider and faster for people driving, and they took curb-protected space away from pedestrians while calling it a bike project!
Is this what happened to the planters on NW 24th as well?
More gaslighting from a “zero vision” transportation bureau.
PBOT installed barrels* in locations that do little to slow motorist speed specifically because they have repeatedly refused to install diversion in the many areas that meet the criteria spelled out in the city-council ratified “Portland’s Neighborhood Greenways Assessment Report“.
*~3 of these barrels would make for a nice diagonal diverter in many Neighborhood Greenway locations with >1500 VPD
I’m not a cyclist but have close direct family members that are that I fear for their safety and respect cyclists and pedestrians everywhere…
That said, sorry but people need to learn how to drive. Based on the top picture and how many others are crashing into them, people are simply not going straight a bit before turning the wheel more sharply to create a proper turning angle. We see this all the time with drivers driving to the inside line of curves, even blind ones where there could be cyclists because they are never taught to carve the outer curve, especially to create the proper angle on a 90 degree turn. They think the same lazy 45 degree turns are going to work?
PBOT had a choice to make and their choice was drivers killing more cyclists and pedestrians.
This is very unfortunate and does cause serious concern.
Is there word if they will be removing more planters in the future or just the ones that required consistent maintenance? If more, is the there a list of schedule locations to be removed?
There’s always been tension at PBOT between the planners/safety folks and the maintenance side of the org. It looks like maintenance has the upper hand at the moment which isn’t a surprise given the commissioner who was in charge and the director.
Rather than jump into a long thread about this I think it’s clearer to start a new one. PBOT does have data about these diverters other than how many times they’ve been hit. They’ve done multiple traffic studies since they were installed but none before or after they were removed at least at 53rd and Irving.
They did speed studies in March, May and September of 2023 and the 85th percentile speed for both North and Southbound traffic didn’t exceed 24 mph. The speed limit is 20 mph. That’s pretty good for a problematic intersection. In my experience this has always been the worst location along 53rd with the most aggressive drivers trying to pass with oncoming traffic and at the intersection where other traffic is turning onto 53rd.
The PBOT data provided in the slow streets PDF is unrelated to these intersections. Seems like the data is pretty cooked to get the result they wanted. Which is frequently something PBOT does *cough* Hawthorne bike lanes.
This sounds like the answer. They don’t have evidence that the diverters slowed traffic because they didn’t take a “before” study. It’s the weasely-est way to get out of maintaining their infrastructure. The fact that the 85th percentile is 24mph is down right amazing. You don’t get that kind tolerable of speed anywhere besides the narrowest of greenways.
This must be a f***ing April Fool’s joke, right?
I happen to know that STOP signs and traffic signals require maintenance, too. So, PBOT can save even more money be removing them.
The city should immediately remove all the “City that Works” slogans from its vehicles. So much BS.
I assume the only two ways you don’t see one of these is 1) staring at your phone or 2) drink driving. Either way, I see it as a cyclist saved. How do you miss these?!!
If a driver cannot avoid running into a half-ton concrete planter, painted yellow, with hi-viz reflectors, how in the hell would that driver see a child in the crosswalk?
Ugh. I had really hoped that these were a first step in taking back some control of our streets by slowing drivers down and calming things. This city needs hundreds of traffic islands and dividers and diverters, but only has a handful. By the PBOT stats; this equates to a truck going out once a week to fix a diverter, which seems pretty normal and not excessive. How will anything ever get done if _every_ future installation requires countless dollars in engineering, design, and construction?!
I think “Speeds and traffic volumes” are not the only things the barrels were useful for. And I think some of the things they were useful for are intangible and hard to describe, certainly hard to measure.
Perhaps that’s why so many comments here are emotionally frustrated by this, what feels like ground that was gained being lost, safety given and then taken away; the frustration and despair of feeling like the bicycle as transport is losing the battle for prioritization. That the city has moved on from something they never really gave a chance to.
And even if the pragmatic case that they didn’t impact the speed/volume is the only viewpoint, I expect the city to try again and again and again until they figure out what does. Move the barrels around, paint them, make it super narrow, add two, anchor them to the ground, etc etc.
I think this is a very insightful comment. I think many people interpreted them as a “signal”, and perhaps they were. That’s why everyone is so frustrated, even if actual safety isn’t changed much. Greenways aren’t that dangerous to begin with, so making a measurable improvement is hard.
Agree with previous commenter who said this was a cheap half-attempt at traffic calming, a job better done with redesign of the roadway. I would like to add, this is a clear lesson about how using the wrong tool for the job will end up costing more in the future. It costs for initial installation, ongoing maintenance (because the wrong tool doesn’t function correctly), and will ultimately cost for replacement and implementation of the original, higher-cost correct tool. The lesson is titled “how to waste time and money.”
C’mon, now – you didn’t actually believe PBOT was committed to traffic-calming, did you?
Sometimes – and most of the time in Portland – cynicism has its rewards.
PBOT is committed to traffic calming. They may not be doing it to everyone’s expectations, but they are doing it. I would like to see at least one inch added to the height of speed humps, more diverters, more plazas, more cameras, etc… So I am not happy either.
for more information about the FY 2024-25 budget, go to this url:
https://www.portland.gov/cbo/2024-2025-budget/development/adopted
I found $1.4 million for transportation safety, which is clearly not enough…
and also not the only money for safety. Other money is being spent, oddly (ironically?) enough, on high crash corridors.
The FY 2024-25 Adopted Budget for the Transportation Operating Fund is $433.6 million, reflecting a $16.0 million decrease compared to the FY 2023-24 Revised Budget. This decrease is primarily due to the bureau’s efforts to provide a fiscally sound, balanced budget in the face of significant revenue losses over the past several years. PBOT’s Adopted Budget includes $189.1 million of capital expenditures, including funding for the following projects: ADA curb ramps, Foster-Woodstock Couplet, NE 42nd Avenue Bridge Replacement, SW 4th Avenue, Outer Stark Corridor Enhancement, high crash corridors projects, Active Transportation Improvements, safety projects, and road rehabilitation.
The most recent Transportation System Plan (TSP) created ten citywide programs that are a group of similar small-scale investments, generally under $500,000 each including: smaller active transportation investments through pedestrian and bikeway network completion; targeted safety investments on high crash corridors and through safe routes to school…
Vision Zero has a budget of $1,388,318 for FY2024-25
FIFY:
[Zero Vision] has a budget of $1,388,318 for FY2024-25
Wonder if they are going to use that money to replace all those lawn signs?
/s
No way.
Why is PBOT is more concerned with protecting cars than with protecting people? If a car hits a planter around the posted speed limits (20-30 mph in these areas), a properly restrained person in the car will most likely suffer bumps and bruises at the worst. If a car hits a pedestrian or bicyclist at the posted speed limits, the person hit will be lucky to escape with only minor injuries while broken bones and worse are far more likely. PBOT needs to rethink their priorities.
Jonathan (or whoever can answer this), serious question:
Is there a way for a user here to block another user?
There’s one dude in particular whose comments are routinely obnoxious and irritating, and I would love the ability to mute or block him.
Sorry Mark, I’ll try to do better!
Ha!
I suggest just scroll on by. I try not to join the “Portland intolerance” brigade. Sometimes once can learn from comments even when they’re irritating.
I too would love this feature. Alas, the last time JM spoke to it, it wasn’t possible on the platform.
“Turns out they underestimated the force and frequency with which some drivers’ cars hit them.”
Naturally, the response to seeing an increased need for street calming structure is to remove it. Sounds like PBOT underestimated bad drivers have gotten over. It’s too bad there’s no way to track these vehicles & their drivers, maybe take away these people’s driving privileges, until they prove they can be trusted with large vehicles.
Maintenance costs money. PBOT is still on a declining benefit gas tax funding model. Maybe we can start an “adopt a big concrete thing in the middle of the road” model
I’m going to call PBOT tomorrow:
Me: “Based on this planter decision, and several of your other recent decisions, I think you should cut all the city’s speed limits in half.”
PBOT: “What do those other decisions have to do with cutting speed limits in half?”
Me: “Then the speed limits would match how you do everything else–half-fast.”
Taking cars off the road LFG
Until the Portland community again supports enforcement (police and traffic cameras) of our traffic laws, passive traffic calming, infrastructure and non police alternatives will struggle to achieve the desired goals of reducing record violence in Portland.
There’s no one solution to trying to get drivers to do the right thing. Traffic enforcement would definitely help, but taking away planters like this, that actually are working, is totally hairbrained and I just can’t fathom the decision makers justification back at PDOT HQ
There’s a lot of irate folks posting here. I’m curious if any of you have channeled your irativity and contacted City Council or the PBOT director about this. I was thinking last night about how I would structure an argument to keep the cylinders, and given the ad-hoc nature of their installation, the lack of data supporting safety and the cost of dealing with people who crash into them (not to mention the crashes themselves), I was having a hard time.
I’m curious how many people have written, but also would anyone who has gone to the trouble of structuring a clear argument designed to appeal to non-believers be willing to share here? Maybe your letter will inspire others to write as well.
I’m also curious, do folks feel that they have more or less leverage now that there is not a specific commissioner in charge of PBOT?
Watts, I have more leverage, and have already given one D4 candidate a stormwater tour of SW Portland, including Gibbs and Shattuck streets. A few of them have read the selection of my BP posts I sent them. Campaign season is a really good time to capture the ear of potential representatives, although it’s getting a little late (those folks are going to be super busy during the next three months; early spring, late winter is the best time to get a candidate’s attention).
But your question is premature. It is having three city council members representing your area of town that will bring the leverage.
But the first two sentences of your post bring up something I often think about. Aside from the known advocates who post here (BikeLoud folks, etc), how frequently do the strong opinions expressed here materialize into action? Do folks donate, throw a house party, write a letter, volunteer, put up a yard sign? It’s just something I wonder about. BP has a pretty big audience, so yeah, comments might get read, but that is not a substitute for actually engaging with the city.
Or maybe you get two bites at the apple? One now, then again when the new crew is installed. And the city manager is in place now, for those who believe the administrative route would be more fruitful.
To get council to act, you currently only need to convince 3 folks, all of which represent you; next year you’ll need 7, only 3 of which are “yours”.
But by the proximity logic that you tout regularly, if an issue is specifically a District 2 issue, won’t the residents of District 2 only need to convince 3 folks?
Besides, even if there are barrels removed on a specific street in any of the 4 districts, the resident can not only contact the city councilors for their district, but they could certainly contact the mayor and city council members outside of their district to speak on an issue with city-wide implications. Though, I acknowledge that under the proximity paradigm they might be veering out of their lane with those missives.
And in regard to channeling any “irativity,” I think there are plenty of folks who visit BikePortland who can both comment on this site and communicate with politicians and PBOT on this issue.
As to the contents of my communication to PBOT, I won’t go into details, but simply say that the tone could be described as “diplomatic WTF.”
If the council is going to take an action, 7 people need to agree. PBOT does not adhere to my views on citizen engagement. If they did, this matter would not be handled by a series of centralized edicts with no input from the affected public.
Absolutely, which is why I asked if anyone was willing to share the arguments they made.
Watts, I’m not a micromanager. I want strong, competent people who understand, or are willing to get up to speed on the issues that matter to me. I am not expecting a bat phone that connects directly to Commissioner Gordon. We have a lot of qualified candidates in D4, I’m looking forward to having them stand up for the district.
I think the bat phone approach is helpful when there is an acute situation like this, and the education of elected officials is better when there is a more deliberative process you want to reflect your needs (like street drainage or sidewalk construction).
The bat phone has lost some of its potency. I don’t know how effective it would have been in this particular situation, but this is the classic case where having a direct appeal to an elected official with the power to make change would be beneficial. If 20 people called Commissioner Gordon, PBOT would likely slow its roll, and maybe take a second look.
But now? I’m still trying to figure out where the levers of power are.
“ There’s a lot of irate folks posting here. I’m curious if any of you have channeled your irativity and contacted City Council or the PBOT director about this.”
Have you? You seem to have a lot of opinions, on a lot of things. Have you tried contacting PBOT about them?
Not about this; I really don’t have a strong opinion about it one way or the other.
But about other issues? Certainly.
Moving forward, the path is less clear. I have personal contacts at PBOT I can continue to leverage, but I usually like to start at the top, and that’s going to be harder going forward. People who don’t have the contacts I do are going to be at an even bigger disadvantage.
An important detail for this story is that there are two larger planters with curbs a few blocks north of the one they removed. I am guessing that they haven’t had the same maintenance calls for these, since they can’t be knocked around. This supports PBOT’s conclusions about the need for permanent, immovable infrastructure.
Unfortunately, we all know that when PBOT says that they are waiting on funding for permanent fixes, the timeline could be decades. One issue with PBOT’s analysis and urgency that others have mentioned is that speed is not the only metric that is important. The fact that drivers are hitting these objects demonstrates careless driving in this area that is designated for vulnerable users. That in itself is evidence that further traffic calming is needed.
Finally, does PBOT know if these are actually from collisions or is it possible that an aggrieved monster truck driver is getting their kicks from pushing them around? It must be frustrating to spend more than 80k on a ridiculously over sized vehicle and realize all that money went to making it harder to park and drive where people live.
“actually from collisions or is it possible that an aggrieved monster truck driver is getting their kicks from pushing them around?”
Yeah, I think that would still be called collisions…
“According to maintenance records, in the 20 months between July 2021 and April 2023, PBOT fielded 75 requests for upkeep at 55 locations. 60 of those requests required two PBOT maintenance workers to respond with a winch-equipped vehicle or small forklift to move the planters back into place.”
60 / 75 were to move planters back into place. After the vigilante backlash at the golf course, I don’t think it is too far of a stretch to imagine someone slowly putting their bumper against the planter and then dislodging it. I wouldn’t think of this as a collision. Cameras would help in the situation of repeat offenders. Although, I agree it is much more likely people are either not looking or trying to take these intersections at speed and failing to navigate.
I’m guessing PBOT has replaced the signs on those mini islands/circles many times from vehicles driving into/over them. This steeetview shows a freshly (2016) broken curb on the northern circle. The south circle at least has a tree, for now. The obvious benefit of the larger concrete planters is that you can’t drive through/over them. It seems PBOT is trying to strike a balance of slowing/restricting vehicle traffic, but without needing to do much maintenance of that infrastructure. Thus all the paint and badly battered plastic wands around town.
I’m all for having objects in the road that make people slow down, pay attention, and think about what they’re doing. It’s amazing hearing complaints about Division and how the “swervy” dividers and lanes are hard to drive on. If navigating that road is a difficulty for you, you probably shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a vehicle!
I am amazed that PBOT is removing these, and not doubling down with more of them all over the city.