The Portland Bureau of Transportation did something surprising at an intersection in northeast with a history of high-speed collisions: Instead of installing new traffic signals, they took the existing ones out and replaced them with a four-way stop.
And the local resident who pushed for something to be done now says the project has been an “unmitigated success.”
John Voekel lives near NE Prescott and 7th Avenue and he, along with several other neighbors, live in fear of the fast drivers on Prescott — a busy, east-west collector between Alberta and Fremont. Voekel has seen (and heard) so many crashes over the years that whenever he’d approach the intersection on a walk with his dog and/or young daughter, he’d stop well short; then look closely and listen, to make sure no one was speeding toward him. Beyond his own experience, Voekel knows that 7th Avenue is a designated neighborhood greenway route that passes a weekly farmers market and school just one block north.
Making matters worse is that sight lines at intersections are bad due to crowded parking lanes, mature trees along the street edges, and relatively dense single-family housing. But none of that excuses the behavior of the many drivers who speed recklessly down this neighborhood street.
Crashes are so common in this segment of Prescott that another nearby resident (who asked to remain anonymous) started an Instagram account called “Slow Down on Prescott” that has documented dozens of drivers crashing into other drivers and into parked cars since 2021. A June 2023 story in Concordia News, a neighborhood newspaper, included quotes from people who live on Prescott saying they would have never moved to the street if they’d known how much of an impact the speeding and crashes would have had on their lives. The speed limit is 25 mph, but most people go much faster. There have been several rollover crashes and speed racing is not uncommon.
2023 was a breaking point where neighborhood concerns and the number of scary incidents rose to a level that PBOT could not ignore. Meetings were held with the Concordia Neighborhood Association and at Sabin Elementary School. That’s where Voekel first met PBOT Traffic Engineer Richard Nys. The two began to email back-and-forth. Voekel would send photos and descriptions of crashes to Nys, along with ideas on what might prevent them.
PBOT knows Prescott is a dangerous street, but it’s just one of many they must juggle.
Then Voekel talked to another neighbor who’d lived in the area since the 90s. “She told me Prescott and 7th used to be a four-way stop,” he recalled in a video call with BikePortland this morning. “And when I heard that, I was kind of like, ‘Yeah, that makes sense.'” From then on, whenever there was a power outage in the neighborhood and the signals would go into flashing-red mode, Voekel would check it out. It seemed safer, because no one was trying to speed through a yellow or “beat the light” and everyone had to stop. When PBOT’s Nys heard the idea, he looked into it. Voekel said the cost savings in the long run of not having to maintain a signal, appealed to PBOT.
Meanwhile, the crashes became almost routine. There were four in one month. “We had this string through the summer of just like wreck after wreck after wreck at the intersection,” Voekel shared. It became almost routine for neighbors to hear a loud boom and then run to the scene to see if anyone needed help. Then on a sunny Sunday afternoon this past August, someone hit a parked car and flipped their car over on the corner of 7th and Prescott. It happened right as many people left the nearby King Farmers Market. “The fact that no one was standing at that intersection waiting for the light to change on their way home from farmers market was just like blind luck,” Voekel said.
After that crash, Voekel started a petition calling on PBOT to remove the signal at the Prescott and 7th intersection and replace it with stop signs. “I am deeply troubled by the ongoing dangerous conditions at NE 7th & Prescott,” the petition reads. “These are not just minor fender benders. These are serious wrecks where cars are rendered non-operable, ending up on the sidewalk, and placing bystanders at great risk.” And he specifically called out the signal. “The traffic light incentivizes dangerous decision making and the speeds along Prescott are too damn high.”
The petition was a nice nudge, but Nys and his team at PBOT were already studying the problem and planning on making the change. By October they had put black hoods over the signal heads and the stop signs were up.
The person behind the Slow Down on Prescott Instagram isn’t sold on the stop signs as a solution. They feel many drivers will still fail to stop, but also acknowledge the crashes might not be as severe if and when they do happen. The Instagrammer, and many other neighbors, want something more substantial like speed cushions, to make the entire street safer.
Voekel also knows this one change won’t fix everything, but he feels much better about the intersection and says it already feels safer to him and several neighbors he’s talked. The experience has also restored some of his faith in city government. He gave Nys a lot of credit for listening and being responsive to the neighborhood. “They took our situation really seriously, and they actually did what you would expect of a government agency… I’m just a layperson and I’m just impressed Rick listened to me at all.”
The four-way stop is still considered a pilot project as PBOT continues to analyze how it impacts traffic in the area.
