A fatal collision between a driver and someone walking along Southeast Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard on Sunday has re-ignited safety concerns about this notoriously dangerous street in District 3.
According to Portland Police Bureau Central Precinct a woman on foot near Chavez and SE Boise Street was struck by a car driver and seriously injured around 6:45 pm Sunday evening. The woman died at a hospital a short time later. The driver remained at the scene and PPB says they are, “cooperating with the investigation.” PPB haven’t released further details, but I’ve inquired and hope to learn if any updates are available.
The intersection of Cesar Chavez Blvd with Boise Street is just one block south of SE Gladstone. Boise, which runs east-west, is a small residential street while Chavez, which runs north-south is a notoriously fast and wide stroad with four general purpose lanes. Chavez has no shoulder or bike lane and the posted speed limit is 30 mph. Sidewalks along Chavez are relatively narrow. There is no marked crosswalk near Chavez and Boise (but keep in mind that in Oregon “every corner is a crosswalk” whether paint exists or not).
Chavez Blvd is known to many Portlanders for its tragic history. In 2015 Reed College student Mark Angeles was killed as he rode through the SE Gladstone intersection and was involved in a collision with a tow truck driver who was turning onto Chavez. That happened just one block north of Sunday’s crash. In 2021, 24-year-old Austin Boyd was killed by a driver near SE Clinton Street just 0.8 miles north of where the woman was hit on Sunday. The person who hit Boyd with their vehicle did not stop and was/is wanted for hit-and-run. Then in 2023, 1.6 miles north of SE Boise Street, Portland librarian Jeanie Diaz was hit and killed by a reckless driver while waiting at a bus stop on Chavez and SE Taylor.
SE Boise St. is three blocks from SE Holgate, a major neighborhood collector. On November 14th of last year, the Reed Neighborhood Association wrote a letter to the Portland Bureau of Transportation calling for “urgent safety improvements” to streets in this area. The letter warned that drivers in the area of Holgate and Cesar Chavez Blvd regularly display “impatience” during high traffic periods and that backups often lead to, “increased instances of drivers ignoring pedestrians needing to cross at the SE Cesar Chavez intersection.” Since November, the letter has been endorsed by the Brooklyn Neighborhood Association and a parent group from a local elementary school. A neighborhood advocate told BikePortland this morning that this most recent tragedy has hardened their resolve to gain attention for concerns in this area and that, “Our plan is to send this letter to the city council, PBOT, and the mayor early next week.”
Is there any hope that PBOT will make changes to the design of Cesar Chavez Blvd? There is a project in the city’s Transportation System Plan titled, “Cesar Chavez Corridor Improvements” that would, “upgrade sidewalks, and add pedestrian/bicycle crossing improvements, upgrade signals and make striping changes to improve traffic safety and transit operations,” between NE Sandy and SE Woodstock. However it’s estimated $5 million price tag is unfunded and I’m not sure what it’s prospects are, but this most recent death has got many local activists looking to hasten its timeline.
I’ll update this post if/when I learn more details about Sunday’s collision. If you know more, please get in touch. And if anyone has specific information about what happened Sunday night, please contact crimetips@police.portlandoregon.gov, attention Traffic Investigations Unit, and reference case number 25-023076.
Thanks for reading.
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1st- condolences to the family
2nd- someone needs to go to jail.
3rd- as one who used CC almost daily for years, I’m surprised that it has mysteriously flown under the radar. A speed camera or three should’ve already been up.
This street needs to come down to 2 lanes immediately.
It is two lanes further south. But the street is very wide for a 2 lane and people speed down it regularly. It really needs speed cameras along the entire thing
I agree that every multi-lane urban stroad really ought to be no more than one lane in each direction, but my chief concern with reducing the number of travel lanes of any arterial is that drivers will then seek the path of least resistance and use local streets as cut-throughs even more, endangering even more vulnerable users – lane reductions need to be part of a
complete breakfastfully-funded plan to add diverters and traffic calming to local streets to discourage high-speed cut-through traffic.I support a Caesar Chávez Blvd road diet. A 2 lane + limited center turn lane with really wide sidewalks would be great.
I lived on Chavez by Holgate for years. The drivers in the area are insane. People regularly going 60+ at any opportunity. Lot of car on car crashes/near missed, especially where it becomes one lane at the Trader Joes and cars feel the need to pass each other.
Anyone turning left from Chavez to the side streets desperately hits the gas when they see a narrow window gap in traffic. I wonder if that’s what killed the pedestrian during rush hour.
No traffic calming or enforcement of any kind on a 4 lane highway lined with residential. Complete negligence from PBOT here
Please contact your new city councilors and explain this to them. They need to hear from us, not just from cops and PBOT. Thanks!
Fortunately I moved across town. I hope some other neighbors take action
> Then in 2023, 1.6 miles south of SE Boise Street, Portland librarian Jeanie Diaz was hit and killed by a reckless driver while waiting at a bus stop on Chavez and SE Taylor.
Small typo/error, Taylor is 1.6 miles north, not south.
How many people will die on Cesar Chavez before our city decides that maybe the current travel configuration doesn’t work? I recently moved and ride the #75 a whole lot more than I used to and it really is stressful to wait for the bus. Bus lanes would go a long way to making the corridor safer for everyone, and lord knows the #75 needs it.
And man, an unfunded $5M project that will unambiguously save lives while our multi-billion dollar freeway projects limp along with basically no promise of saving lives is such a clear example of how Vision Zero has been all slogan no action. I know that funding is different between these two things, but surely ODOT would be able to disburse more money to local governments if they didn’t spend all of their personnel hours and political capital on freeway expansions.
Cesar Chavez is dangerous and has claimed too many lives. This is unacceptable and needs to be addressed. Yet, as High Crash Corridors go, Cesar Chavez is considerably less deadly. The worst carnage takes place on Lombard, Columbia, Powell, 122nd, Sandy and Marine Drive.
As many of you know, I live right around the corner from where Jeanie Diaz was killed, and certainly wish the deadly violence of drivers on this and other roads got as much attention from politicians as the presence of the visibly poor does. There are many low-cost measures that can and should be taken:
to name a few, in addition to those in the PBOT plan.
But as long as deaths or injuries don’t “cost” the city anything, there is an incentive for the city to not make roads safer.
So I suggest we all testify at City Council about the dangers of Chavez, noting specifically in our testimony that we are alerting Council to the dangers so that there is public record that can be referenced in future lawsuits if the city fails to make the street safer (I did this regarding the corner of Chavez and Taylor, where Diaz was killed). And then, whenever there is a collision resulting in injury or death that occurs because of city inaction, whoever is injured or is a survivor of the person killed needs to sue the city.
This is not how government should be forced to act, but honestly I just watched the documentary How to Sue the Klan, and it reminded me that when the government systems fail to protect people, the civil courts may offer some alternative.
Happy to share the content of my testimony if anyone wants it!