Another person has been killed while using SE Powell Blvd. While the number of fatal traffic crashes citywide are less than half what we had at this date last year, that is no solace for South Tabor Neighborhood residents who say the dangerous conditions on this state-owned urban highway is “no less than an emergency.”
Police say a motorcycle rider was involved in a collision with someone driving a van around 2:00 pm on Tuesday. The rider sustained serious injuries and died later that day at a nearby hospital.
That person is the 16th road user to be killed on SE Powell since 2022 — half of whom were bicycling or walking prior to being hit. 11 people have been killed on Powell in the four-mile stretch between SE Foster and 140th since Sarah Pliner was killed at SE 26th on October 4th.
South Tabor Neighborhood Association Chair Juan Cummings is beside himself. “In a sane world, we wouldn’t tolerate a single unnecessary death,” he wrote in an email today. “If a factory had dozens of deaths in a few years, the business would cease to exist, and managers would be facing criminal charges.”
Powell is owned and managed by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), and the agency is working on making repairs and upgrades needed in order to transfer jurisdiction to the City of Portland. That can’t come soon enough for Cummings and other nearby residents who are sick and tired of dealing with this deadly ticking time bomb in their neighborhood.
The STNA will host a meeting Thursday (May 15th) night at 7:00 pm at All City Church (2700 SE 67th). They’ve invited staff from ODOT, TriMet, and the Portland Bureau of Transportation. A staffer from City Councilor Angelita Morillo’s office is also expected to join.
It’s only been two months since the last time these folks came together to voice concerns and demand action from government agencies to help keep them safe. A meeting back in March came after an 86-year-old man was hit and killed while walking across Powell at 67th. I expect calls for action will be even louder this time around.
“We don’t want to talk anymore,” Cummings wrote today. “We want shovels in the ground.”
Thanks for reading.
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Motorcycle riders are vulnerable road users
Humans are vulnerable road users.
Roads should be designed and used to protect humans.
People driving motorized cages are far less vulnerable and cause almost all traffic homicides of vulnerable human beings. Perhaps roads should be designed for human beings by making it extremely difficult or impossible to drive (at speeds >20 mph).
Someone should tell them that, maybe they’ll stop doing reckless stuff
Why stereotype motorcycle riders? There’s nothing in the article to indicate the rider was reckless.
Indeed. Who’s invulnerable to traffic crashes?
Remote workers who only leave the house to collect the Amazon / Uber Eats / Doordash from their porches
Except drivers manage to crash cars into porches pretty frequently so I guess not even the computer touchers are safe.
No, we shop at stores, eat at local restaurants, and even go out for coffee, all from our home offices. No different if we were at a central location after burning a bunch of gas and wasting a lot of time to get there.
I ate out in my local neighborhood more in one month during COVID than I did in a year while working downtown. I’m forced back downtown a couple days a week now. I don’t go buy anything while there, I bring it all with me and eat at my desk.
And Doordash, and the rest, are way too expensive. I only used those options when we had a case of COVID and self-isolated.
“Vulnerable road user” is a term with a specific legal definition, not a philosophical conundrum. But I suspect you knew that already and just couldn’t resist a chance to show off that big brain of yours. I’m sure we’re all suitably impressed.
It’s actually both.
***This comment was deleted because I felt like it was too insulting to another commenter. Please try again. – Jonathan.***
Wouldn’t it be amazing if ODOT legislature, Gov Kotek, Chris Warner, Kris Strickler & Rian Windsheimer cared a lot more about people walking, riding bicycles, and taking transit; and then they made roads that required people to drive slower, and less often…
https://bikeportland.org/2025/04/03/oregon-legislatures-transportation-funding-proposal-includes-bike-tax-increase-393789
https://bikeportland.org/2024/03/11/kotek-tells-odot-scrap-regional-tolling-plans-384685
https://bikeportland.org/2023/01/12/chris-warner-leaves-pbot-for-job-in-governors-office-369227
https://bikeportland.org/2019/12/05/oregon-senate-confirms-odot-director-who-believes-freeway-widening-is-a-climate-change-strategy-308458
https://bikeportland.org/2018/02/19/opinion-to-make-portland-safer-odots-rian-windsheimer-must-go-268670
Comments like this imply that ODOT, Kotek et.al. care more about people driving. They don’t. At all. Yes, our road infrastructure favors vehicular traffic. But let’s be very clear. It is the mode of travel not the users of that mode that leaders care about. Nobody cares more if it’s a driver or their passenger killed in a crash vs. a cyclist, pedestrian or motorcyclist.
I agree that no one seems to care of the mode traveled, however I believe that the class of the person matters a lot.
I remember when Fritz’s husband died on I5 and almost immediately a physical barrier was erected.
https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2014/10/safety_barrier_set_for_interst.html
I also remember people dying on I5 before that and no results coming from it.
I think the political and higher classes don’t care when the lower classes are killed on the roads until if affects them.
Reason number who knows to elect yourself a different bunch of people.
I think the class and the status of the person in the community matters in terms of the outpouring of concern from the community but probably not so much in terms of making changes to increase road safety, In rare cases it might trigger a more meaningful response, like the one you mentioned. Even here on Bike Portland reporting is selective (crickets on steady drum beat of fatalities on Columbia and Lombard. More on High Crash Corridors closer to BP’s target audience). We are all a little guilty of this. While some communities are at greater risk of being in a crash, I’m still pretty convinced that it doesn’t matter what mode you are using or how much money you have in your bank account: if you were killed by a crash your life is immediately devalued by politicians and our justice system.
If ODOT and PBOT were required to close every street/road on which a motorist killed someone (whether a pedestrian, bicyclist, skateboard, motor vehicle driver or passenger, or a beloved librarian sitting at a bus stop) to motor vehicle traffic, and KEEP IT CLOSED until it was reconfigured to protect human life, then how many lives would have been saved just on Powell in the past few years? Then add in Cesar E Chavez. And other multi-death roadways.
But instead, public agency continue to operate unsafe roads/streets on which motorists behave in unsafe ways, endangering countless lives.
Imagine if we banned any activity that posed any danger whatsoever to human life. Truly, this is the way forward for humanity /s
Yeah, like ban suicidal behavior like crossing any street without using a car…
Two droll comments in a matter of minutes from a board member of the “hold my beer” brigade. These ripostes are insulting, unhelpful, and unnecessarily divisive. Who reads the contents of this story and these comments and thinks, “You know what this subject needs? Belittling sarcasm.”
As the story underscores, Powell Boulevard is a dangerous roadway with a damning and tragic history of injury and death, and calls for immediate action to make this urban street safer for all users should be championed.
But that probably wouldn’t feed the ego of a snark slinger.
Especially ones that could possibly be implemented. Impossible suggestions are no better than the dry sarcasm that they provoke.
Don’t forget the value the impossible suggestions have on the self-esteem of the poster. By demonstrating their virtue and righteousness they generate a value for themselves.
I disagree. “Impossible” suggestions often end up not being impossible. And even if they are impossible, and even if the person suggesting one knows that, they can often further the discussion constructively.
Lois’ “what if” comment definitely seemed to me to add constructively to the discussion, whether or not it’s impossible to achieve, or whether or not she thinks it’s possible.
Many of my own best ideas and actions, ones I’ve heard or seen from others, and others throughout history, were initially dismissed and ridiculed as being impossible.
And “dry sarcasm”? I’d say Matt’s “insulting, unhelpful, and unnecessarily divisive” is much more accurate.
If someone thinks an idea is impossible, it’s certainly possible to express that without dismissively twisting it into something ridiculously extreme, as Jeff did to Lois’ comment.
It already is something ridiculously extreme.
You know what this story really doesn’t need? Another “let’s close all the roadways!” navel gaze.
Come up with workable solutions, or leave civilization behind and fend for yourselves in the woods.
What’s not workable about closing a road in order to figure out how to fix it?
Roads get closed for repair all the time, I don’t see how this would be any different. A few years ago, the NE 33rd ave flyover above Columbia was found to have structural issues. Guess what, they closed it until they figured out how to fix it. All motor traffic had to figure out a detour, including buses. From what I recall, the detour was in place for over a year.
That closure happened, and yet that bridge hasn’t even killed anyone yet. But on a street where fatalities happen over and over, and suddenly closing it is unrealistic? Sounds to me like we’re already being left to fend for ourselves, and you don’t even have to go into the woods for it.
Here’s a workable solution. In the city where I now live we have lots of 1970s double-width stroads just like inner Powell, many also with medians. Our very clever city traffic engineers got the fun idea of reprogramming all the street signals so that any driver moving at exactly 25 mph would hit a green every time – every single time without fail – but the stroads are still posted for 35 mph or 40 mph, with many drivers of course going well over that. Naturally the only way this works is with them not telling anyone they don’t legally have to tell, certainly not the press nor politicians. (Our state highway dept had to approve, so they know all about it, as does our municipal transit operator.) Apparently even the state stroads within the city have their signals so modified too.
Result: Crashes are still common, but fatal crashes are way down.
Powell Boulevard IS a dangerous stroadway, one of many in Portland. It just happens to be owned by ODOT, but there’s plenty owned by PBOT that are equally dangerous. Even the portion of Powell east of I-205 is very dangerous, and it only has one traffic lane in each direction and near-constant congestion.
When I lived (and advocated, sometimes successfully, for change) in East Portland, we had lots of Powell Boulevards with regular traffic deaths, on Glisan, Stark, 122nd, 148th, Division, 82nd… Eventually some of those stroads got massive stroad diets. Unfortunately, the carnage continues even on those changed stroadways.
The stroadway design is only part of the problem, but driver behavior is still the biggest factor, and our apparent tolerance for not just drunken and distracted driving, but even for “normal” drivers making the odd mistake and not driving if their life depended on it, rather than ours. We basically “allow” in a passive way, or even act as “enablers”, for what in essence is legalized murder on our stroadways. We all do. And until we offer the death penalty or equally draconian punishments for unsafe driving and see a change in our collective behavior, we’ll likely continue to get this awful but routine litany of traffic fatalities, and offer cynical snark that you justly note.
There’s a huge gulf between asking how many lives would be saved by closing streets where fatalities have occurred until the street was reconfigured to be safer, and what you wrote.
I’ve never heard anyone make an honest attempt at accounting for the impacts of closing a street like Powell, including from those who claim to want it closed. How would it be done? Who would enforce it? What would the people and businesses who rely on it do?
It would be an interesting scenario to explore, if it were done honestly and in the spirit of curiosity.
I guess now that e-bikes have thoroughly diluted the definition of what a cyclist is, Jonathan has decided to add traditional motorcyclists into the menagerie of victimhood. Quite an interesting development!
But perhaps it makes sense, considering that I encounter motorcycles, dirtbikes and quads being used on our “non motorized” paths on a regular basis.
Anyhow, welcome, motorcyclists! I have two wheels and do 12mph on greenways, you have two wheels and do 140mph on I-205. We are one and the same!
Where are you seeing that?
He called the person a motorcyclist. He reported their death as being among the other deaths on Powell. He didn’t write anything that implies their being lumped together with cyclists vs. drivers or any other type of road user, other than people who have died.
He didn’t do anything you seem to be unhappy about him doing.
Another horrible and chilling fatality. When are the transportation activists going to put actual political pressure on the democrat (socialist or otherwise) politicians responsible for this? These needless deaths are a homegrown problem and I would have thought that political affiliation would not be a factor in how hard the community pushes back, but over the years I am proven wrong over and over.
Here’s Denver with 711,000 people in 2023….
There were 28 reported crash deaths in 2023, compared to 21 in 2022.
Here’s Portland with 641,000 in 2023….
The Portland Police Bureau says there have been 71 traffic-related deaths so far in 2023
Granted it can’t be a complete apples to apples comparison, nor am I trying to make it so, but what in the world is going on and why has it been going on so long??
Oh wait, I know what to do. Time to drink some beers and bike over to another party, I mean die-in to show how serious and upset everyone is and then we can go back to voting for the same people over and over again who oversee such a horrific death count on the roads.
I’ve got bad news: Most of the decision-makers at the highest level of government in Oregon (ie those who control the purse strings for ODOT facilities) prioritize vehicles, vehicle speeds, and “congestion relief” through road widening. That’s why the latest legislative framework in Oregon proposed $250 million off the top every two years, to be bonded against, to build megafreeways (Rose Quarter expansion, I205 freeway expansion, etc). That’s why they committed to $1 billion to the interstate bridge replacement that triples the width of that bridge, most of which is for more lanes and shoulders for vehicles. And, that’s why they didn’t even put a dollar amount next to things like jurisdictional transfers and Great Streets, the two programs that could actually be used to make Powell safer. It’s tragic and maddening, especially as yet another person is killed on our streets.
I’m curious what advocacy campaign could change their minds? When I hear most of them speak, they:
A) Say the right words about caring about safety and then kind of shrug and say “but we need these big freeways to move people”
B) Think any significant mode shift and slower speeds is a pipe dream. “People drive” is what we hear both explicitly (think OTC member Lee Beyer, Senator Frederick, Representative McLain, to name a few prominent folks) and implicitly (just about everyone else).
“…what in the world is going on and why has it been going on so long??”
A total lack of enforcement of any traffic laws can’t help!
Because in Portland, all the great ideas and impetus die in committee. Politicians purposely “let’s form a committee, study the issue for a couple years, until we reach 100% consensus”. That’s the Portland way, maybe other places like Denver the politicians actually take action, because you know, we elect them to make those decisions for us whether we agree or not.
Sorry, is somebody stopping you from joining an activist group yourself? Or even lobbying City Council on behalf of your own community? I guess it’s easier to trash talk strangers anonymously on a blog than doing the actual work of agitating for change.
ODOT is too busy spending its millions on PR consultants to spin the Rose Quarter and I-5 in North Portland as “safety projects” (mostly fender benders) and lobbyists to convince the legislature to give them a blank check for those multi-billion projects when people are actually dying.
Fun fact: Oregon has a worse-than-average state transportation death rate, even in this grade-by-the-curve US awful transportation safety record.
ODOT can say safety is their top priority, but the numbers don’t lie.
We’ll look back on for generations – when we can’t afford actual safety projects and hundreds of more people died – and say of “what were we thinking”?
Nailed it.
Vellyray was on scene after the crash yesterday. PPB shut him down when he asked the driver what happened.
https://youtube.com/shorts/eAE0gtnDQrA?si=30enusP8jKL7iBxh
I don’t know who Vellray is, but this video does not paint him in good light, IMO.
I live south of Powell in the mid 60s and the fact that there are only 3 lights between 52nd and 82nd is insane. People regularly doing 60mph through there. And not a single crosswalk with flashing lights. No reason at all to not have at least flashing lights, at a minimum.