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.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
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.
If the product has 14% of all road deaths in Oregon and is 3% of registered vehicles, it doesn’t take a statistician to determine that just participating in the activity requires a certain amount of recklessness.
Based on the video below, it isn’t entirely clear what happened but not implausible that the van pulled in front of the motorcycle, a generally common traffic pattern if one drives enough, and he’s dead, even though he may have been doing everything right (not speeding, focused and attentive, looking ahead, full gear, etc.).
Nice victim blaming. You do realize the same thing is said every time a pedestrian or cyclist is killed, right?
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.
Thank you for your 2 day a week sacrifice.
“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.***
Motorcycle riders are physically more vulnerable than people in cars but they aren’t listed in Oregon’s VRU law. I had to look it up. The law uses the word “careless” to describe the behavior that is more heavily penalized when a person is at fault in a crash that injures any of ten groups of people. On the street the law is toothless because it only comes into play when a motor vehicle operator is DUI, leaves the scene, or both.
Possibly law enforcement would use the law a bit differently if motorcycle riders were included, but the initial penalty on a VRU citation is community service and traffic school. There’s no added fine or jail time unless a person fails to complete those. I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as a VRU citation for demonstrated carelessness around unprotected people that does not maim somebody.
Motorcycles are considered VRUs; see the link Steven posted above. Motorcycles are the last item listed.
Motorcycles are probably more vulnerable than pedestrians and bicyclists because their high speed poses a particularly acute danger.
Counterpoint: Motorcycles are inherently dangerous vehicles, especially for the driver, far more dangerous than regular cars, and would be illegal if we actually cared about Vision Zero. Motorcycles are one of the only cases where I tend to put more blame on the person choosing to ride one than anything else, because it is a reckless thing to do to even ride a motorcycle. Vespas/scooters are one thing, as they are speed-limited and therefore not used on high-speed streets and highways like this. But motorcycles are bonkers.
You sound like my mom. Long term MC riders are very much aware of risks involved in their mode. Like when bicycling, situational awareness is vitally important. Identifying driver’s blind spots and anticipating driver douchbaggery are necessary survival skills. It is true that large modern motorcycles are tremendously powerful and blindingly fast and they are attractive to thrill seekers and men in the thrall of testosterone poisoning (often inexperienced and young) That said, sane people on motorcycles enjoy the same (or enhanced) pleasure from their transportation mode for being in the world and not in a motorized, climate controlled can and they do this safely and for great distances and for many years. You should hear yourself inferring that motorcyclists invite and deserve harm because of their mode choice.
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.
+1000 points
Oh please tell me more about how you think my decisions on which fatals to cover are made.
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.
I dunno, a half dozen people with an inclination for tactical urbanism, some tools, and a pickup truck could probably improve pedestrian safety in a single long night of work, if they thought their work would have any staying power, whatsoever, and wouldn’t be removed by ODOT by noon.
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.
Until people viscerally understand that their neighbors, their friends, their family, and, even, themselves drive like homicidal idiots little progress will be made. Portland’s prevailing culture is the primary barrier to addressing the yearly toll of severe injuries, life-changing disability, and death caused by the the utterly normal way Portlander’s drive.
COTW. Too often I feel that the BP comment section is derailed by the prolific commenters who are more concerned about scoring points, getting the last word in, or making a “witty riposte” than actually contributing to a productive conversation.
(mea culpa: I’ve found myself caught up in this behavior as well. Though I’d like to think that, like the man once turned into a newt, “I got better”.)
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.
It would be done the same way as they close all the other streets in Portland.
Sounds like you have a plan; have you talked to your councilors about it?
I’ve often thought that any death, major injury, or significant property loss should automatically trigger a root cause analysis with binding recommendations for improving safety. The way things are done now, a police officer just investigates the proximate cause so that the insurance companies can figure out who foots how much of the bill; there’s no impetus for deeper analysis from official sources on why a building on the corner of 7th & Powell keeps getting run into or why people keep dying on Columbia and Lombard.
Hey Michael, theoretically this already happens, just not to an extent that makes significant changes consistently. Here are some examples PBOT gives for having made changes to roads after a crash.
If you read through these, you’ll get the impression that signs are the most common intervention as a result of scarce funding.
Here are the high crash network streets and completed projects that PBOT has identified where speed is the most common element of crashes.
One of the most effective means for reducing speed is speed cameras. That program is hampered by state law that restricts them to the high crash network as well as the historical problem of getting PPB to review vids, which has seen a recent change. I’m not sure why there have been so few cameras going in, but I expect it’s due to funding limitations again. PBOT plans to add 10-15 more in 2025-2026.
As reported on this very site, the mayor’s budget would freeze implementation of new traffic cameras.
https://bikeportland.org/2025/05/02/pbot-eyes-elimination-of-key-programs-and-services-as-they-await-budget-fate-394185
Argh. Those cameras could really help.
Yeah, I want to put special emphasis on the word “binding” that I used in my comment. These crash reports that PBOT does are little more than suggestions and wish lists to throw on the pile. In my ideal world, there’d be some way for the root cause analysis remedial recommendations to jump to the front of the project queue.
If the study recommendations are binding in a meaningful way, you’re handing an unelected body a very powerful tool to allocate resources (i.e. staff and money) and set priorities in a way that is difficult for even elected officials to do.
I can see why this would be difficult to implement in practice.
Great point. That would be an excellent suggestion for the new TSP, although a hard sell, particularly without funding. What an amazing change it would be if we could get that in at least in part.
I think there’s possibly another problem too which is qualified immunity for city traffic engineers. I’m not saying they should be liable for everything that goes wrong, but there are documented cases where city engineers disregard accepted standards, people die, and there are no consequences at all.
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.
You must be new to Oregon. Several years back Gov. Brown expanded the definition of VRU to include, scooters, mopeds, and even full size motorcycles. Let me guess, you’re one of those “share the road, except for those people” types.
I dunno, it seems like any death, regardless of what vehicle that person was piloting at the time of death, is tragic and regrettable, and worthy of attention. It also seems like what makes a motorcyclist unsafe along this stretch of highway would also make a cyclist unsafe, so it’s probably apropos for a cycling blogger to reference.
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).
“I’m curious what advocacy campaign could change their minds?”
Since decades of advocacy hasn’t done anything to reduce the body count in a meaningful way the only way I see is to start voting them out. Vote for anyone else to demonstrate that traffic deaths mean something to the voting population. Actually sacrifice some political principals to make sure that safe streets are taken seriously.
Huh? I mean, I don’t really care what party I vote for, and I really dislike the two-party system we have in the US. I tend to just vote for people who care about road safety etc.
But your theory is that we should vote the opposite simply on principle, presumably for the party who proposed to slash funding for projects that encourage biking and safety??? Like “to cut off your nose to spite your face” sort of behavior??? In what world would that, “make sure safe streets are taken seriously”???
Yes, like Arab voters did in Michigan by voting for Trump against Harris. They may have cut off their nose, but they also ensured that Democrats won’t take their vote for granted again. They sacrificed short term pain for (hopefully) long term gain.
That is what I believe Jake9 is advocating for.
Yes, thank you! An excellent example.
“I tend to just vote for people who care about road safety etc.“
I guess none of those people were elected as road safety is pretty bad.
Might as well try something new and if that batch don’t work to make the roads safe vote them out as well. Keep going until people realize they need to create safe roads to be elected. Is it a solution that will create safe roads tomorrow? No, but it’s an idea that can work over time.
I think a lot of people typically vote for candidates who would have transportation policies that are more bike/ped friendly, but since candidates have positions on a large range of issues, and transportation is only *part* of any officeholder’s work, the effect is probably diluted.
Maybe you’d vote for X because their bike policies are great… but they have crappy policies regarding homelessness. Actually, I think that’s probably happened a lot, recently.
In other words, unless we have direct elections for positions like “Transportation Commissioner” and “Water Bureau Commissioner,” it will be hard for voters to communicate a clear policy preference.
For that matter, voters are almost certainly split on these issues themselves:
In the abstract, most voters would probably express support for bike and pedestrian safety improvement, but if the question is framed as “making it harder/slower/less convenient to drive, in order to protect vulnerable road users,” voter support would likely drop.
I think we see that loss of support with actual concrete projects: when inevitable tradeoffs arise between cars and bikes (parking on N Willamette, bike lanes on Broadway) or bikes and pedestrians (bicycles on the golf course, e-bikes on the Springwater), people come up with all sorts of reasons that bike projects are actually bad!
There’s always a cost associated with any policy:
Most voters would prefer that no one dies on SE Powell. On the other hand, if ODOT tried to traffic calm and slow speeds down, we’d see lots of opposition from people who drive through there- and I would be sorta sympathetic! There are few routes from inner SE all the way out to East Portland; drastically slowing Powell might save lives and improve quality of life for those living near the street, but it might mean a 20 minute longer commute for someone who lives out in Gresham or East Portland.
Right now, if someone said, “give me 20 minutes of your time today and you’ll save a life,” many people would say “That’s weird, but okay!”
But if someone asks, “spend 20 more minutes of your day driving in a car on a crappy street with lots of traffic, every work day for the next decade, so that homeless pedestrians and drunk drivers will be *less likely* to die on this street in the evenings,” I don’t think the response would be as positive.
With choices like that, it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that traffic safety is a hard sell for voters, and thus for politicians.
One solution that might actually get a lot of support would be to increase traffic law enforcement. Since a lot of voters hate to see dangerous, speedy driving, and anti-social speeders might be less likely to be politically engaged, increased enforcement (swift, certain consequences) might bend the incentive structure against the most dangerous kinds of driving, without generating as much political blowback.
“…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.
Perhaps you can point me to the activist group that has been instrumental in reducing street deaths throughout Portland?
I’m telling you to get out there and make it happen yourself. Since you seem to have all the answers already, why wait for someone else to figure it out for you?
A couple things probably contribute: Denver has a legitimate regional path network, hundreds of miles more than Portland, imagine being able to ride 100 miles on paths and not cover a single overlapping section. Also, Denver has a nominally shorter active transit season, but about the same transit ridership numbers, so a lot of people probably just drive through the winter.
Definitely not apples to apples, but that is because Portland let their standing as an active transit city go to their heads and Denver just kept doing the work building paths and connecting segments, but hey, at least we can ride 17 miles to Boring and have to turn around and come back the same way.
I lived in Golden for awhile and really enjoyed my time there. They have a great removed from the road trail system as well for walkers and cyclists and it was incredibly calming being able to do either while going to an actual location and not have to even really think about keeping an eye out for dangerous drivers.
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.
I really don’t understand this. The yellow crosswalk lights are relatively cheap to install, and they make crossing tremendously safer. They probably offer the best bang to buck ratio of any safety infrastructure.
What if you (or your neighborhood association) identified two or three locations where these would be particularly impactful and then worked with your state rep to pressure ODOT to install them?
That’s a good idea! Chances are, two out of three of those locations were already identified in the city’s TSP and maybe even the Metro RTP, complete with cost estimates, that your state legislator can then use to deal with the inevitable ODOT staff pushback.
We have a couple of those flashing yellow crosswalk lights on 122nd. They were great, until they started to fail and just kept the lights flashing. So, people just started to ignore them because they presumed, they failed yet again.
Probably 95% (unscientific study) of the drivers do at least slow down to check for people, but the other 5% just blow through. I really enjoyed watching the van yesterday doing probably 50 on 122nd in the early afternoon not caring who or what was around.
One thing I’ve noticed about the signals is that they let folks who see a car slowing in front of them know what’s going on, so they don’t just change lanes and speed across the crosswalk thinking the driver is making a turn or something.
And even with the flashing lights, I won’t start crossing until traffic has stopped because, while compliance is very high, I won’t bet my life on it.
I live just a few blocks from this location. I rarely see folks drive the posted speed limit. Making a left-hand turn out of the WinCo parking lot should be removed as an option.
People drove through the side streets of the Foster-Powell neighborhood like race car drivers trying to avoid being stuck on Powell. Yes, the roads are a problem, but even with better roads, we can’t fix how poorly some people drive.
Enforcement of our traffic laws would be a start….
I was at the South Tabor Neighborhood Association (STNA) meeting last night where we heard from representatives from Trimet, ODOT, PBOT and councillors Morillo and Koyama Lane. While there was generally agreement on the problem, I was struck by two things, especially from ODOT-
So my takeaway was that they’re going to spend about $10m for some flashing lights, tree trimming and paint while people keep dying.
If those flashing lights are the yellow crossing beacons, that will make a huge improvement. I cross Powell several times a week on foot and by bike, and find using those beacons feels much safer and more pleasant than the nearby signalized crossings.
That won’t help a motorcyclist who gets sideswiped by an SUV, but it will make living with that facility much better for anyone who needs to get from one side to the other.
If you don’t believe me, come down to the crossing at 30th (or so), or the one by Powell Park, and try them yourself a couple of times.
Who deems them to be impossible Solutions, Watts? Only other commenters.
I do, because I have some inkling how the world works.
However, I am open to evidence I’m wrong. If you have any examples of an American city closing a street like Powell because of traffic deaths, that would be helpful. Or if you’ve had meetings with political leaders who seem receptive and are crafting proposals. Or if there’s simply a plan showing how it could work, and what the ramifications would be, that show the benefits would outweigh the costs. Something other than just fantasizing by the regulars in the comments section of a small bicycle blog. Show me why I’m wrong. Make an actual case. I can be convinced.