A man riding a bicycle was killed by a driver near the intersection of Northeast Glisan and 128th this morning. The Portland Police Bureau say it happened around 2:37 am. By the time officers arrived they found the bicycle rider dead and the driver had fled the scene.
This is the third fatal collision involving a bicycle rider so far this year.
While we don’t know many details about what happened yet, this location is notable for a few reasons. This section of NE Glisan east of I-205 was significantly reconfigured by the Portland Bureau of Transportation in 2019. Once referred to as a “raceway” in a PBOT slide presentation, the street was converted from a classic east Portland stroad into a more humane design with protected bike lanes, enhanced crossings, and other safety-related features.
Glisan at 128th is also where the 130s neighborhood greenway crossing from north to south. It’s an off-set intersection, so PBOT built a two-way protected bike lane and median island crossing in order to help get bicycle riders safely across the intersection. Another reason PBOT paid special attention to this crossing is because it’s right outside Menlo Park Elementary School.
PPB is still investigating the crash and said in a statement his morning the incident could impact the morning drop-off.
According to our Fatality Tracker, this is the 47th fatal traffic collision on Portland streets so far this year, down from 55 at this point last year.
If you have more information about what happened, please let the police know so they can track down whoever did this. If you saw or heard anything, please email crimetips@police.portlandoregon.gov attention Traffic Investigations Unit and reference case number 24-269766.
UPDATE, 10:08 am: Another bicycle rider has been killed in a traffic crash this morning. PPB says it happened around 9:00 am at NE 105th and NE Marx.
UPDATE, 10/22: Video from the scene by KPTV (Fox 12) shows that the bicycle rider and driver were headed west on NE Glisan, just before coming to the overpass outside the school. The rider was in the general travel lane and the driver hit him from behind at a high rate of speed.
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.
A funky crossing, but from an engineering standpoint very functional.
Early in the morning cyclist maybe cutting west going south to 128th. Sad.
All crossings of Stroads in east Portland are key to active transportation usage, hence the reason for the crossing design. These crossings are critical.
PBOT, please activate the signal at 113th and Glisan. It’s been completed for months! Who’s running PBOT?
Mayor Wheeler has been leading all city bureaus since July 1, as part of his transition plan to the new city government starting January.
On the engineering side, while I don’t know what’s specifically going on with PBOT or this crossing in particular, I can generally say that testing and commissioning after installation can take a lot of time, especially if your commissioning agents are third party contractors (as they almost always are). Frustrating, I know, but I wouldn’t assume that the city’s engineers are asleep at the wheel on this one, just that the wheels of project management often grind slowly.
I am so frustrated by that signal at 113th and Glisan. That how I bike to Gateway and drivers never stop. I was waiting to cross last week – along with a literal grandma, who I had a lovely chat with while waiting lol – and we didn’t get to cross until a delivery driver used his truck to block the two Eastbound lanes, rolled down his window and told us he’d wait until the other side stopped and we got across safe. Turn on the signal, PBOT!!
We need aggressive enforcement on these multi-lane roads. Compliance with RFBs has been horrendous since Covid.
Enforcement of all signals, including red lights is a complete joke since the pandemic started. Just as it used to be a norm to gun it when a light has turned yellow, it’s become a societal norm to speed up after a light has turned full red.
This worsening polycrisis era is demonstrating how human empathy breaks down during periods of chronic societal stress.
There are crossing lights in several locations around the City that have been sitting there for many months waiting to be activated. 16th/Burnside and Salmon/Grand off the top of my head.
…
Isn’t this a big issue though? Sure, the crossing is functional from the perspective of an engineer, but if people who use the infrastructure cut the corner then it’s not very functional
100%. Unless it is the heaviest of rush hour, I would never detour at this location. It is a poor design and the detour to the east makes no sense.
The only alternative is using the narrow bike lanes on heavily-congested 122nd, which is why the funky 130s bikeway was created in the first place.
Welcome to East Portland – where the most direct route is always the most dangerous.
Must “functional” infrastructure accommodate everyone using it the way that’s most expedient?
No, but why not load the “less expedient” burden onto the mode that need only press the accelerator or brake a little differently, or perhaps crank the steering wheel a little more?
Why not indeed. Would that help here?
Halsey, Glisan, Burnside, Stark, the 4M, and to a certain extent even Division, Powell, and Foster are currently be used as cut-through stroads for traffic coming and going between inner Portland and Gresham – but they should be used only for local traffic, that the cut-through traffic really ought to be using I-84 if they want to go fast, then the various interchanges including at 122nd & 181st. So what each of these streets need are a series of stroad diets, no more than traffic one lane in each direction, dedicated bus lanes, curb-protected bike lanes, and numerous diverters, medians, and traffic circles – to help reduce cut-through traffic to a slow trickle of no more than 20 mph – so that when a bicyclist does choose to take the lane, they ain’t gonna die for it, even at 2:37 on a rainy morning.
The road diet you suggest has already happened (along with the installation of parking protected bike lanes). As for the rest of it, it’s fine with me. If residents of District 1 ask their new city council members to fund a series PBOT projects to reduce traffic on E Portland surface streets to a trickle, I won’t object.
What if the other three districts’ residents ask for and get PBOT projects to reduce traffic in E Portland to a trickle (due to its primacy in an ‘equity’ contest) in the presence of widespread ambivalence among those in district 1 that make requests of their new councilors? That’s a more pertinent hypothetical to consider (although I hope D1 sends good folks to the council). I’m uneasy with david hampsten’s declarations about how people should use the road network that exists (“they should be used only for local traffic”). I’m much more comfortable with collective decisions to shape the character of the network, even over opposition in the specific districts in which the work is conducted.
I’m unclear what you’re asking. Is it what should happen if the other three districts gang up to dramatically constrict traffic volumes on D1 streets against the will of D1 residents and council members?
That strikes me as exceedingly unlikely, but the fundamental principle I’ve asserted many times would apply here: those most affected by a decision/policy should have the loudest voice. That is, D1 should have more control over its streets than folks in more distant districts.
I rarely use outer Glisan, so my opinion about what happens there should carry little weight, even if I know better what’s good for folks there than they do.
Yes, I think you understood what I was getting at. I agree that D1 residents’ concerns should carry additional weight in D1 road planning, but I’m suggesting that there are important non-local considerations about how the streets in D1 fit into a larger system that are also important. I often ponder the bike lanes out there as I drive by in my car (and pine for bike lanes when I find myself riding my bike W of 205 on Glisan). Now I will remember this tragedy when I do so.
I think this is true for regional streets, perhaps including NE Glisan (though I’m not sure if it actually serves a regional function or not.)
If you are a frequent street user, then you might be one of the stakeholders who should have an amplified voice. If you use it once every couple of years, probably not. I’m staking out principles, not specific rules.
Terrible news, hope the family and friends of the victim can find justice.
But man, that intersection treatment is wacky. Doubling back to a crossing seems less than ideal, would it really be so bad to have have two different crossings within a block right outside of an elementary school?
The solution PBOT came up with here is just baffling. 128th is nearly aligned with the school driveway, so a full signal with marked pedestrian crossings on both sides would make the most sense. No out of direction travel for cyclists, and students/parents get a full signal for safe crossing of Glisan. It would also help school busses get out safely onto Glisan.
Cutting corners can be deadly.
Agreed. And there’s an overpass just feet away so it’s not like there aren’t options. It’s just weird.
I fail to see how a full signal will stop a criminal hit-and-run driver, ever. A roundabout or traffic circle might work better for everyone except the school bus driver (although many kids do walk and bike to this low-income Hazelwood neighborhood school in the David Douglas PSD). The 1980s pedestrian bridge next to it is almost never used and it’s totally non-ADA, which is why the city put in a surface crossing.
False comparison. A full signal has significantly higher compliance rate than an RFB.
I’m all for traffic circles, but I’m not sure this is the right place for it. I’m sure the children and parents crossing from the school would prefer a full signal to a traffic circle where they are reliant on drivers to yield to them at the entrances and exits. I don’t think compliance will be much higher than with the current RFBs.
If you lived near here, you would know that the medians and other infrastructure associated with this current installation are constantly being crashed into. I would expect the same to occur with a traffic circle.
Are bicyclists and pedestrians crashing into the “medians and other infrastructure”? Or car drivers?
How would we know?
Try spending a little time by this area and you’ll see. Also video evidence is out there
Cars are pretty consistently driving through them at a high rate of speed. In a lot of cases it’s double the speed limit
I wish PBOT would just imagine cars when they are designing for bikes, then would get some safe, direct and functional infrastructure for people cycling
Here’s a fun exercise y’all can do, kinda like when you were given a quadratic equation in high school and had to solve for X:
Assume if you will that 122nd and 148th have long histories of bicyclists and pedestrian deaths due to a dangerous car environment. Using whatever tools you like, including Google Maps and Streetview, identify the most optimal “safe, direct and functional infrastructure for people cycling” between 122nd and 148th, from SE Foster to I-84 in the north.
A few “shortcuts”: TriMet owns and maintains the Blue Line light rail track along Burnside and has a limited number of signalized traffic crossing, as well as a few bike/ped only crossings – whatever optimal route you choose cannot add tunnels, bridges, etc. Metro owns and operates the Glendoveer Park and Golf Course and utterly refuses to have a bike path cross it.
Have fun!
From Foster: 128th -> jog on Holgate to 130th -> 130th -> jog on Powell to 129th -> 129th -> jog on Division back to 130th -> 130th -> jog on Stark to 128th -> 128th -> Glisan -> 131st Pl/132nd Ave: arrive at I-84.
I think the choice of intersection at 128th and Glisan is very poor, and it would make more sense to just head directly to 131st Pl/132nd Ave directly from Glisan rather than adding an additional set of turns on Pacific.
But it’s essentially the same route of the greenway, it’s just an East Portland greenway so it has a ton of jogs on major streets and thus is way less direct than taking 122nd. 122nd is the road in the city that could best support a transformative road redesign (it’s so consistently wide – free parking and 5 lanes and a terrifying bike lane), I’d like to see that project get momentum
The problem with 131st Pl/132nd Ave is that it T’s at Burnside, there is a substantial elevation change between the eastbound and westbound lanes with the track in the middle on a retaining wall. At 128th however there is a bike/ped crossing on the tracks, so PBOT chose to jog on Stark from 130th to 128th.
As far as adding curb-protected bike lanes on 122nd, which I agree would be a real game-changer, there is a huge long list of politically more active routes, at least among BP readers:
_ They did Naito already, after years of re-dos.
_ MLK and Grand are massively overdue for a road diet and curb-protected lanes and intersections.
_ Will they do Vancouver/Williams next?
_ Or Caesar Chavez (39th)?
_ The whole point of transferring 82nd to PBOT was that ODOT wasn’t going to make 82nd bike friendly, but will PBOT do the right thing and put in curb-protected bike lanes and intersections? yeah, right…
_ 92nd/96th/99th/102nd/112th are more likely candidates in many ways.
_ 148th goes through some of the poorest parts of the city, high-equity, super-wide right-of-way.
_ PBOT did some recent work on 162nd from Stark to Powell with wide buffers, a total road diet, even some concrete islands and protected intersections – adding curb-protected lanes would be easy, but low-impact, not a lot of resulting use quite likely.
_ Lombard, Barbur, 7th/Sandy, Foster, B-H, and Broadway would be other good candidates.
The irony of course is that the few stroads with actual curb-protected bike lanes are mostly in East Portland, but east-west, on Division, Powell (ODOT), and parts of Broadway/Weidler, plus SW Naito downtown.
There’s actually 3 crossings within a block at this location. They could have moved that particular one a little down the road. Currently drivers use the bike lane as a passing lane
I don’t know this intersection at all, but I know what my own ears tell me, which is that drivers are out of control. I can stand outside my house in SW Portland at almost any hour of the evening or night and hear what sounds like the night at the races: cars and motorcycles are zooming loudly up and down the streets, treating our public spaces like their own private playgrounds. Woe be unto anyone who gets in their way.
I can only assume it’s the same in other parts of Portland.
Better infrastructure, yes, but we also need police to enforce the laws and get the dangerous drivers off the streets.
Why was a school open at 2:37am?
It wasn’t but that didn’t stop the cager from killing and taking off.
He never actually hit the brakes. Just continued through the cyclist as if nothing happened
This (and the crash at NE 10th and Mark) was the lead story on the 4pm broadcast of FOX 12 / KPTV news – they aired door cam footage that captured the incident. Extremely disturbing to see. Hopefully it can be used to identify the driver.
https://www.kptv.com/video/2024/10/22/portland-biking-community-urges-safety-after-2-deadly-crashes-12-hours/
**** Content warning for the above video ****
The incident is shown at about 1:00 in.
it shows the moments leading up to the fatal hit and run on Glisan. It looks like the rider was heading westbound in the main vehicle lane, approaching the pedestrian overpass. No visible illumination. There could be a number of reasons for not using the bike lane here (wet leaves, standing water, etc), but we can only speculate.
The driver comes up at excessive speeds, what appears to be at least double the speed limit here. And given the time of day, it is possible that one or both were impaired.
The person biking could have also been lining up to make a left turn using the middle turn lane – a perfectly legal and logical thing to do. The fundamental issue here is the driver – probably distracted, maybe impaired, and definitely going way too fast.
The bike lane leads directly to the marked crossing in front of the school. While one certainly could use the middle lane to turn left at this spot, there is a solid median just east of the crossing that makes this impossible to do at speed. If you were already in the bike lane westbound, merging over wouldn’t save any time. Check out the satellite view above.
This section is at the bottom of a big hill coming down from the golf course, and the bike lane up there is often blocked by RVs. I could see reasons to just take the lane on the downhill here, as you can really build up speed, and the area is not well lit, with debris in the gutter bike lane. But drivers go so fast out here, I would be wary to take the lane at any time of day.
I know Oregon has a sidepath law that basically requires riders to use a bike facility when it exists, with most bike lanes designed for 8 mph to 15 mph bike speeds, but many states do not have such laws and faster cyclists are actively encouraged to “take the lane” if they choose to go faster, either on ebikes or regular bikes going downhill, so I can see why this rider might have soberly chosen to use the traffic lane in a rainy early morning – I do it myself quite often here in NC, it’s a lot faster. As far as I can tell, there were no rear reflectors and the tires were entirely dark, but the pedals may have been reflective, there’s some “shine” in the pedal area just before the impact on the video.
In the overhead photo above, the cyclist was to the right of the overpass heading left in the vehicle lane for that direction? I want to know what happened, but I really don’t want to see the video
Correct. The collision occurred east of the pedestrian overpass, with both people traveling westbound.
The video cited above doesn’t actually show the impact, it’s been edited to stop just immediately prior to impact, but they also show the crumpled up bike in the street (but no body). At one point you can clearly see the back of the rider and the jacket he was wearing, plus the fast sports car that hit him.
To me the rider looked like he was heading straight west on Glisan, he wasn’t signalling a turn or anything, and he was in the middle of the traffic lane, which here in NC and much of the USA would be perfectly legal and proper, though he does need front lights and a rear reflector.
The link no longer works
try this: https://www.kptv.com/2024/10/22/portland-biking-community-urges-safety-after-2-deadly-crashes-12-hours/
The news showed surveillance footage of the murder. It looks like the driver was traveling in the unprotected “bike lane” at an extreme high rate of speed and hit the cyclist from behind, they never had a chance. Very disturbing.
Frustrating that the news turned the segment into about how cyclists should be more safe and wear bright colors, instead of focusing on the danger of killer cars.
We need real protected bike lanes with metal bollards at every potential entry point.
Paint is not infrastructure.
It looked to me like the rider was in the traffic lane, not the bike lane.
But I agree, the seque into bike safety was strange.
The cyclist was in the driving lane without lights but that does not justify the actions of the driver.
237AM. What a tragedy. And a sad reminder that not much good happens on the roads between midnight and 5 AM. High likelihood that mind altering substances were involved by some or all of those involved. Unfortunately it seems we (the public) never hear the results of these investigations. I hope it gets reported on.
I drive this stretch of road every day to take my son to school. Most cars are moving fast between 122nd and 148th, trying to reach one of these two major streets. There’s no traffic light to slow anything down. And the street narrowing treatments PBOT put in place are actually very distracting (it’s just paint on the road with some parking spots). Drivers treat this stretch like a highway. They should put in a bike crossing and ped light. I will remember to slow down on this road as well. Sad that this happened.
There is a specific bike crossing and 2 pedestrian crossings with lights. If you frequent this stretch and you don’t know that, then I believe that is precisely the problem.
You are right! I should have been more specific- between 129th and 139th there’s no crossing. Point still stands though- fast traffic.
I was critically injured by a hit-and-run driver while cycling 3.5 years ago. My hit-and-run driver was found!!! That is unusual. Some incredible woman saw a smashed vehicle and thought it looked suspicious, so she Googled. She discovered they were looking for a hit-and-run driver in her neighborhood, so she called the police.
That woman is a hero!!
Too many humans see something wrong and keep walking. A smashed vehicle, a couple fighting in public, slapping a woman, or hitting their kids…. And too many folks turn a blind eye. If you see something that looks wrong, please take action.
My hit-and-run driver lied to police for 8 months and said a friend had borrowed his car.
My skull split open, I was in a coma several weeks, I had multiple surgeries including 3 brain surgeries, was in the hospital for FIVE months, and acquired some permanent disabilities. The hospital bill was over $10 Million.
Too much evidence became apparent so the driver changed his plea to guilty. His driver’s license was not suspended, and he was not put in jail. The judge determined he owes me $1.4 Million, and needs to pay $300 a month. So if I live an additional 400 years, I’ll see that money. Oh. And he’s not usually paying. He just skipped ten months. Nothing we can do about it. So that criminal is still out and about – as are too many others.
Traffic violence occurs about 100 times more in the US each year than other developed countries. And this gets no media. THANK YOU for your coverage, Bike Portland!