The Portland Bureau of Transportation will reduce the space for driving in order to lower speeds through a notorious corner in the Sullivan’s Gulch neighborhood.
The turn from eastbound NE Weidler to northbound NE 24th has been the scene of numerous car-into-house collisions over the years, so much so that local news outlets say it’s been named the “car crash house.” In late December, another car driver missed the turn and slammed into the house while also breaking a gas line. The collision started a huge fire and the resulting news coverage ratcheted up pressure on the City of Portland to do something about it.
At a meeting of the Sullivan’s Gulch Neighborhood Association on Monday, PBOT said they’ll seize the opportunity of an upcoming repaving project to redesign the street. The idea is to slow drivers down enough so if they miss the turn their cars won’t jump the curb. And if drivers continue to be so bad at operating their vehicles, they’ll slam into newly installed boulders.
According to a presentation shared at the meeting, the plan is to reduce NE Weidler from two lanes to one lane as it approaches the turn. To further narrow the driving space (a proven way to reduce speeds) PBOT will also add parking on one side of the street and widen the protected bike lane through the turn. PBOT will also lower the speed limit from 30 to 25 mph and install a speed reader board that will encourage drivers to go 15 mph around the curves. A new marked crosswalk will be installed on the western corners of NE Weidler and 24th. PBOT will also add several new marked crosswalks, curb extensions, and a buffer to the existing bike lane on NE Weidler between NE 15th and 24th.
And if all else fails, large boulders placed in front of the house at the end of NE Weidler street should prevent anyone from leaving the roadway.
PBOT says they hope to complete the project this summer. See the project website for more information.
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When I served on the Sullivan’s Gulch NA (2003 through 2006) we tried to get both. Broadway and Weidler turned into two-way streets, to slow traffic down. Having them both one-way is utterly stupid, it just turns them into freeways in an urban setting.
“PBOT will also lower the speed limit from 30 to 25 mph”
Don’t know if I should laugh or cry. PBOT always seems to think putting up lower speed limit signs is a solution. Yet if no one follows the new speed limit does anything change? Nope, and in fact it worsens things as more people realize that speed limits in Portland are mere suggestions.
They should still lower it.
If the city enforces it….a big yes!
Bingo. My nearby main street went from 35 to 20 during COVID. Speed bumps were tossed in after the realization very few were obeying the new speed limits.
And people still fly over those speed bumps not caring what damage happens to their vehicles. In my unscientific observations, it’s mosty the elderly and the parents dropping off/picking up their kids at the local elementary school.
People still speed down Ainsworth since PBOT installed speed bumps, but their data shows the the top 10% or so, if I remember correctly, of egregious super-dangerous speeding has come down to the normal just regular-dangerous speeding.
There is data showing that lowering speed limits on Portland streets has a positive effect.
If it lowers the speed of some drivers, it lowers the speed of drivers behind them.
Limits should reflect the speed that people should be driving, whether they drive that speed or not.
Paying cops to sit around and watching people speed by isn’t very effective either.
“Paying cops to sit around and watching people speed by isn’t very effective either”
But we don’t do that mate….
Yes, and administrative controls, like speed limits, are less effective than engineered controls, like narrowed lanes and visual clutter, which in turn are less effective than substitution or elimination of a hazard. The concept behind the hierarchy of controls isn’t to just focus on elimination or substitution and ignore things like rules and PPE; it’s to implement controls at every level, but in a resource constrained environment to prioritize by effectiveness. To your point, changing speed limits in isolation is marginally effective in increasing street safety, but it’s also very cheap to implement while the city waits for funding to become available for a more complete overhaul (which is actually what’s happening here).
Not arguing with you, just trying to give a more complete answer. You’re both right in that the city can and should do more than changing out a few signs, and changing out a few signs is still an improvement over the status quo.
“No one follows…” I follow all of the lowered speed limits, and so do the people behind me.
You’re few and far between from what I’ve seen in Portland.
ditto!
Street racers hate this one simple trick!
Lowering the speed limit is 1 of 10 other measures they are taking to slow cars down at this stretch of NE Weidler.
Large boulders or a few bollards seem like they should be part of the solution.
Should be the first thing they do.
They have bollards in front of the court houses, police station, & federal buildings downtown that are designed to stop terrorists attacks with large vehicles driven by very determined people. Certainly 3 or 4 of those in the planting strip in front of that building would stop the occasional speeder or drunk driver. ?
That the city “just can’t do anything” is a major cop-out & becoming indicative of PDX in general.
“The city that works.” My butt.
Can we please install the boulders between the driving lane and bike lane?
Sounds great, although maybe not quite what people meant when they’ve pushing PBOT to come up with “bolder solutions”.
I’ve never had a car in my house, but I just lost my 4th vehicle in the 19 years I’ve lived on another curve in town. My neighbor has lost 2 in that time, for a total of 6 crashes – plus a few more unrelated to the curve. How do I get PBOTs attention? Does it take a news crew?
I’m not saying this will work, but what I’d do is gather what info/data you can about the crash history, and take it to your neighborhood association, and request that they contact PBoT about addressing this issue. Also, loop in your 3 district city councilors, they (or one of them) may be willing to go to bat for you.
No guarantees of results, But this is what I would do. Others may have additional ideas.
Thanks, I didn’t think about the neighborhood association. Good thought.
Your neighborhood assoc. may even have a transportation committee, I think most do. You’d want to include them. Good luck!
If your NA doesn’t already have a transportation committee, form one and offer to chair it.
Do you live on a gravel street?
Pbot allows race track to continue for years and is surprised at crashes. So instead of making it a truly neighborhood greenway, they put in parking.
Genius!
Instead of narrowing to one lane, they should just put in stop signs. One at weidler and one at 24th from the south
Just at they should on Ainsworth and Prescott at 27th? (Where the bus crosses).
A stop sign in that situation, where there is a ton of traffic from one direction (Weidler) and barely any coming from the other direction (24th), wouldn’t really do much of anything since people would surely get used to rolling through the stop sign, knowing that they would almost never actually have to stop, and I think plenty of people wouldn’t even slow down. And if someone is driving fast enough to whip around the curve too fast and drive into the house, are they really going to care about a stop sign? I like the idea of designing the road itself to slow drivers down, rather than relying on some stop signs that probably would be ignored.
That house is raised up from the street enough that PBOT could make them a nice retaining wall using 2’x2’x6’ concrete blocks that weigh 3600lbs each. Just backfill with gravel and they will stop just about anything! The current front yard grass slope is just a ramp. That pic of the burning minivan is crazy, time for a change indeed.