I have always made an effort to visit places where people have been killed while using Portland roads. It changes me to be in the same place where stuff like this has happened. It’s radicalizing, illuminating, sobering, often terrifying, and usually, extremely frustrating. Frustrating because I’ve done this dozens of times over the years, and each time it just seems like such a senseless waste of human potential and something that we could have prevented. Whenever I hear from family or friends of victims, the one thing I always share is “I’m sorry.” And I say that not just in the traditional, general sense of empathy for their loss, but “sorry” because I feel like we all have a roll in making our streets safe and when we don’t do enough, a death can be the outcome.
As I sat in the passenger seat of our car Saturday with my phone balanced on the dashboard to get video of NE Glisan (I wanted the driver’s perspective too) where it passes Menlo Park Elementary School, I could feel myself getting angry. All last week I was in touch with a nearby resident who shared videos of people driving into medians and sign poles on this same section of road. But it was the video of a sports car driver flying west on Glisan near the pedestrian overpass outside the school that made me mad. Actually, it was the seconds before that car zoomed across my screen. The seconds that showed someone on a bike, leisurely riding with no hands in the middle of the lane (not the bike lane). I’ve done that myself so many times. When I was a kid I’d ride home late from my girlfriend’s house. I lived in a quiet Orange County, California suburb and the massive stroads in my neighborhood were barely occupied late at night. I would ride in the middle of the street as fast as I could, trying to beat my record home. With noise from wind in my ears, especially if it was raining or stormy, I could imagine not hearing a fast driver coming up behind me.
All I could think of while at the site Saturday was that video. The sound of the car and its impact. The finality of what happened. Just because one selfish person decided they mattered more than everyone else for those few fateful minutes.
The sight lines are perfect at this location. The driver going westbound on Glisan toward 128th (and the pedestrian overpass) would have had nothing obstructing their view in front of them. I will not speculate further about what might have happened until I can verify details.
I’ll speak to what I saw on Saturday: concrete median islands clearly damaged from reckless drivers and many plastic posts either damaged or completely uprooted. Glisan has parking-protected bike lanes in this location. That means PBOT puts a bike lane curbside and floats car parking spaces in the street. Ostensibly these parked cars provide a protective buffer between drivers and bike riders. PBOT likes the design because it’s cheap (parked cars usually take the place of permanent concrete) and it doesn’t upset the apple cart as much as removing parking spaces does. One problem with this approach however, is that when there are no cars present, we’re left with a wide road and bike riders that are totally unprotected. The only thing “protecting” someone using the bike lane are a few parking sign posts on floppy springs, maybe plastic delineator wands (if they haven’t already been uprooted by errant drivers), and stripes of paint.
Curbside bike lanes are also more likely to be obstructed, since debris accumulates in them and PBOT still doesn’t reliably keep these spaces clean. I have no idea why the victim in this collision was riding in the general travel lane instead of the bike lane. They might have been prepping to take a left and go south on the neighborhood greenway a block away on NE 128th. Or they might have felt like the bike lane was too narrow and obstructed. Looking west at the point of impact, the bike lane narrows due to a sign pole, then it’s obstructed by a storm drain grate, then curves to go around a planted bioswale and then makes another curve into the protected crossing and bike lane in front of Menlo Park school.
Not sure what else to say about this location. Usually fatal crashes happen at intersections and there’s a turning movement involved. Collisions like this where someone just rams into another person from behind, are very rare.
I am still waiting to hear from police about the identity of the rider and get an update on the hit-and-run investigation. Stay tuned.
If you’d like to take part in a vigil for this rider, and for the person killed while biking just three miles away, there’s a vigil planned for this Saturday. It’s being organized by Bike Loud and Families for Safe Streets. They’ll meet at NE Marx and 105th (I have a post and video about that coming soon) at 11:30 am for a moment of silence and then ride to NE Glisan and 128th for a vigil and call to action. More event details here.
