Like a coach at halftime to a team that’s way behind, Portland City Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane wants to remind us that we are still a “Vision Zero” city and we need to get out there and start acting like it. Next month will be the 10th anniversary of when Koyama Lane’s council predecessors passed a high profile resolution that stated, “no loss of life is acceptable on our city streets.” Since then our Fatality Tracker has tallied 564 deaths on our streets.
Councilor Koyama Lane has been a persistent voice in support of Vision Zero since taking her seat in City Hall in January. And she told us she would be. In November 2024 she fought back tears at a rally in front of City Hall to mark the World Day of Remembrance for Victims of Traffic Violence. “This shouldn’t be normalized,” she said. “This isn’t a topic that we’re just supposed to talk about when we’re running for office… we will keep fighting.”
On Monday, Koyama Lane will return to the City Hall steps to host an event that will mix the seriousness of Vision Zero with a dose of celebration. Before a meeting of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee where Koyama Lane will introduce another Vision Zero resolution, she’ll join Mayor Keith Wilson, street safety advocates, and her council colleagues for an official city proclamation to make the week of May 19th, Portland Walk and Bike to School and Work Week.
“Whereas, creating a bike- and walk-friendly community grows the economy of Portland, advances traffic safety, moves us closer to our climate goals, and supports student learning outcomes,” reads the text of the proclamation. “And Whereas, increasing the number of people safely walking and biking to school or work can reduce wear and tear on our streets, mitigate traffic congestion, reduce noise and greenhouse gas emissions, and improve air quality.”
Koyama Lane wants to strike a tone that is urgent, yet hopeful. “Walking/rolling, biking and transit are the most joyful, healthy, connecting, and cost-efficient ways to get around our city,” reads a statement from her office. “Yet ten years into Portland’s commitment to Vision Zero, we still have a long way to go to ensure that walking/rolling/biking are safe, attractive, and convenient for everyone. We can get there, together.”
While Monday will mostly be an awareness-building effort aimed at increasing the public and political urgency around making streets safer ahead of what’s expected to be a very busy bicycling season; there is one significant piece of policy proposed in Councilor Koyama Lane’s resolution. She wants to re-convene a Vision Zero Task Force.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) created a Vision Zero Task Force as part of an action plan recommendation in 2017. The group’s members were a mix of high-ranking Portland Police officers, community and advocacy organization leaders, city staff, and elected officials. They met 11 times before being unexpectedly disbanded in 2021. At the time — a moment of massive upheaval and re-examination of policies citywide due to the racial justice protests — former PBOT Director Chris Warner said the move was needed to “evolve” the city’s Vision Zero engagement. The idea was to shift away from a traditional task force approach and launch in its place a, “model of community accountability that engages an even broader set of stakeholders.” Perhaps PBOT succeeded with that effort, but after the task force dissolved there was no longer a public and transparent venue to easily keep tabs the city’s Vision Zero efforts. Late last year, the Portland City Auditor gave PBOT mixed reviews in an assessment of Vision Zero work.
PBOT has succeeded in many elements of what it takes to make Vision Zero a reality. They’ve integrated the concept into their policies and projects (they also use the phrase ‘Safe Systems Approach‘ to clarify that Vision Zero is the goal, but ‘Safe Systems’ is how they will achieve it), and they’ve kept the concept relevant and in the public eye. But for most Portlanders, the only thing that matters when it comes to judging the city’s progress on Vision Zero is whether or not fewer people are being injured and killed on our roads. And with an alarming upward trend in traffic deaths every year since 2015 (except for this year), most Portlanders would say the program has failed.
Councilor Koyama Lane wants to turn the tide and raising the profile of the program and reconvening the task force are her first steps.
If city council passes her resolution, they’ll consider (since resolutions aren’t binding, they won’t be forced to) setting up a new Vision Zero Task Force that will be led by Deputy City Administrator (DCA) of Public Works and Public Safety Priya Dhanapal and co-led by the DCA of Community and Economic Development Donnie Oliveira. The task force will be, “staffed with key program and technical Bureau staff from across the City to collaborate on actions that support the City’s goal to eliminate traffic deaths.” The resolution also calls on PBOT to update the Vision Zero Action Plan and calls on the city to develop partnerships with external agencies including ODOT, Metro, TriMet, Multnomah County, and the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission. The DCAs would then report quarterly to City Council on their progress.
In a scarce funding environment at PBOT and other city bureaus, it will be interesting to hear how new city council members plan to tackle traffic deaths. Will they hide behind budget woes, or will they propose innovative approaches? Either way, at least Councilor Koyama Lane has called the question.
Walk and Bike to School and Work Week Celebration
Monday, May 19th, 8:30 am at City Hall Rotunda
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee meeting, 9:30 am in City Council Chambers (agenda not posted yet)
Join a ride to the event. More info here.
Thanks for reading.
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Resolutions?
Proclamations?
Meh…
Show me the political conviction needed to inconvenience homicidal drivers by mandating human-centric (as opposed to SUV-driver-centric) traffic systems. And just as importantly, show me the many hundreds of millions in real funding needed to BEGIN implementing vision zero traffic systems.
There’s quite a lot that PBOT can do to inconvenience drivers (homicidal or otherwise) that are relatively quick and very low cost – change signal timing to 20 or 25 mph, shut down extra lanes, remove all arterial and collector onstreet parking, impose a city-wide parking permit program – but as you say, they’ll need a lot of spine and political backing to do it.
You’re right. Unfortunately, after years of Vision Zero, PBOT (and other bureaus) still haven’t trained their staff not to park on sidewalks or in crosswalks, or use phones while driving, or similar things which I see constantly even as their vehicles prominently display their orange VISION ZERO bumper stickers.
Last week, PBOT told me it was OK for a contractor to unsafely constrict traffic with a portable toilet on the street on the Willamette Greenway Trail, because if he had a PBOT street use permit, that would be allowed. But he didn’t have one!
When I see the money and effort being spent on Vision Zero (which I support) then see how blatantly it’s ignored in practice–even by PBOT–it’s nuts.
PBOT staff re-building ramps routinely shut down major bikeways and then place caution “bikes in lane” signs that direct people biking to take a lane on a multi-lane stroad full of speeding and raging drivers. Pepperidge farm remembers when PBOT had a policy of requiring safe detour routes when construction shutdown major bikeways — and pepperidge farm is ****ing pissed.
Similarly, at one of the Sunday Parkway events in SE last year, PBOT placed several signs, every couple blocks east and west of where the ride crossed a busy street, to warn drivers of delays. They put the signs directly in the bike lanes, forcing bike riders (including everyone using that street to enter or exit the event route) into the vehicle lanes.
The stories of city workers and contractors blocking bike lanes are legion. I could tell you so many.
And I agree: the deference to motor-vehicle “flow” and lack of deference to bike travel speaks volumes about what city gov’t TRULY values.
Don’t forget gig passenger/delivery drivers and their “I have my hazards on so I can do what I want” attitude.
Sadly, as long as our streets don’t accommodate loading/unloading, it seems likely that bike lanes will continue to be used for that purpose. It’s not even clear to me that stopping to let a passenger out is illegal.
For a person with a truck load of folding signs the bike lane is strangely attractive. Without instruction that’s where the sign goes.
Here are four different worlds:
–the city council
–PBOT staff
–PBOT operations
–construction workers and private traffic control
The last two aren’t all that different, but contractors will be the last to ask, ‘what is a bike lane?’
So let’s just admit it’s a pipe dream and stop wasting effort on this. Let’s just start with basic enforcement again.
Just like it was a pipe dream in other countries that adopted VZ policy and reduced road deaths to a small fraction of the US?
Per 100k population:
US: 14.2
France: 4.7
Germany: 3.3
Australia: 4.5
Japan: 2.7
Sweden: 2.1
Spain: 3.5
UK which has crap bike infra and is hardly a socdem welfare state: 2.4
You forget one little tidbit, those countries actually enforce laws. During Covid we fell all over ourselves to be “woke” with enforcement and it was forgotten or thought to not be “fair” to those law breakers out there who were part of some socially constructed group.
At least we now have a DA who will prosecute criminals and not trying to be a social justice warrior like the last one.
Here are the stats pre-pandemic (2019), which don’t fit your narrative. Many of the developed countries have seen a consistent longitudinal reduction in road deaths. The US has seen a consistent increase.
Per 100k Population:
US: 12.7
France: 5.1
Germany: 3.8
Australia: 4.9
Japan: 3.6
Sweden: 3.1
Spain: 3.9
If you believe the US is just “too big” to be compared, which is an actual thing people argue, here’s the EU road deaths (4.6). Or maybe compare Canada at 4.7.
Per mile is a much better comparison, as it normalizes for trip length, something that is pretty much baked into our geography. The US still looks pretty bad, but it’s a better metric.
I seem to recall some folks arguing that red light cameras were racist.
Maybe if a human has to interpret the result, then photo enforcement is racist. If we automatically apply the fines to the vehicle’s registered owner(s) without interpretation of who might have been druving, then the race question goes out the window. You drive your car irresponsibly, that’s on you. You lend your car to an irresponsible person (or hire one) or don’t report a theft in a timely manner (say two business days), that’s on you. You modify your vehicle to avoid fines, you lose it.
Vehicle ownership is a massive burden of responsibility. It should be treated as such. Many of these problems go away when we start treating the responsible parties as if they were responsible. Of course we’ll get other problems, like angry fathers berating sons for the stupidities of youth. Nothing come for free.
Stph
MOTRG isn’t talking about the officers applying camera results in a racist manner, it was that cameras don’t catch a proportionate (to the population) number of people from different demographic groups. Therefore, your solution wouldn’t solve the problem.
That may be because (as other evidence suggests) people of different demographics don’t speed (for example) in numbers proportionate to their share of society. Or it may be because the cameras are racist.
But, for some reason, no one claims discrimination when young men get a highly disproportionate number of traffic tickets, or have to pay higher insurance premiums.
Well the cameras would have to be evenly distributed across all neighborhoods to make things work equitably. That’s a political fire box, so yeah, I take your point.
If you can install 10 cameras, and you put half of them in places where they are doing nothing except making things “fair”, you’re not really helping the people who need it most, which is those who drive on and cross the most dangerous streets.
Why would it be fair to someone whose life could potentially be saved by a traffic camera to instead put it in some already safe neighborhood?
That’s a weird and very driver centric way to think about equity. I think it makes more sense, practically and morally, to help those who need it most, regardless of who they are.
But we now have multiple DSA members (and others) on the City Council who are anti-enforcement……
Portland hasn’t adopted VZ policy. Thats the problem. All they’ve done is issue proclamations and talk about it.
Yes! You nailed it, Jake. PDX is all about performance, not doing the actual thing.
Portland doesn’t have the capability or competency to do it. We’re already 10 years in and it’s gotten worse. “we are going to want it harder” isn’t going to get it done.
Here you go:
Chicago’s “Race-Neutral” Traffic Cameras Ticket Black and Latino Drivers the Most
https://www.propublica.org/article/chicagos-race-neutral-traffic-cameras-ticket-black-and-latino-drivers-the-most
AKA I have an ideology based on a feeling and I need to periodically remind myself about it, but I’m not willing to provide any substantive information for other people to question that ideology.
“basic enforcement” is the biggest pipe dream of all
I kind of like this idea: Stop all of the performative BS and target the dangerous drivers. I see them all the time; why doesn’t PPB??
And this is the problem. Vision zero is not about inconveniencing drivers. By definition it is a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries while increasing safe, healthy, and equitable mobility for all. Feel free to focus on inconveniencing drivers by lane reductions on major though streets but then you don’t get to complain when that solution created congestion that pushed drivers onto neighborhood streets. Portland has failed at vision zero because they have forgotten the goal and instead pushed an anti-car agenda.
Certainly a lot of people here have a war on cars mentality, but the city? Why do you think they are anti-car?
Councilor Koyama Lane deserves kudos for being the leader on this.
We’ve needed this type of leadership for many years.
We’ve lost far too many of ourselves to traffic crashes. And many more to life-changing injuries.
I was at the World Day of Remembrance in November when Tiffany and four of her newly elected colleagues spoke strongly in favor of reducing traffic fatalities. I was encouraged, thinking that maybe we finally had leadership who could make a change. And indeed we do. Compared to 2024, there are 11 people walking, living and breathing in Portland who would have already been killed had we had the same fatality rate as we did in 2024. That’s 11 people going home to their families, laughing, working, walking, who last year would have been mourned instead.
If you are free on Monday morning, consider attending the events at City Hall as a show of support.
Whether or not you can attend in person, it’s worth sending a big “thank you” to Councilor Koyama Lane via one of her communication channels.
https://www.portland.gov/council/districts/3/tiffany-koyama-lane
councilor.koyamalane@portlandoregon.gov
Ted Buehler
Until Councilor Lane actually does something meaningful, not pointless speeches, creating task forces, or council resolutions, then she’s part of the problem with Portland and why nothing of substance is ever accomplished. Creating a Task Force is Portland speak for “lets talk about this for years and accomplish nothing”.
So, sorry, not a single kudo from me as she’s just being yet another tiresome politician. How many times in the past have committees and task forces been created that did nothing to help Portland citizens at large?
Hope she proves me wrong, but I won’t be holding my breath.
Send a kudos and say it’s also important to you that there’s action? Words cost you nothing.
For me, people actually have to earn the “kudo”, otherwise it is unearned and pointless.
So, no kudos, until there’s real action. Less talk from these politicians and more action.
Words have great value for me. I say what I mean and don’t give pointless affirmations. People must earn it before I say it.
I agree, Nick, that Clr Lane is coming from a sincere place. But the problem in Portland is that we feel something and then mistake our feelings for actions. We need to make actual changes to reduce road deaths, not feel sad about them.
Example: We pretty much have ZERO enforcement of speed limits and other regulations in Portland, yet some councilors want to cut funding for police (the only ones who can enforce the regulations). How is that going to advance Vision Zero?
That’s a good one: Vision Zero means zero enforcement of traffic laws.
This is from Teacher Tiffany/Councilor Koyama Lane’s Instagram page from Oct, 2024.
It’s worth a read if you are a skeptic and don’t believe that she is serious about making this task force effective. (Soren, jake9, SolarEclipse, dan, May S, etc.)
“As someone who bikes with my boys to school in the morning and rides my own Razor scooter to my job, advocating for safer streets is deeply personal to me. Our streets need to be designed for safety, not speed.
“People are driving enormous cars on roads that were never designed for vehicles of that type. We need to look to cities like Hoboken, NJ, who have made high numbers of traffic deaths a thing of the past through engineering. We need significant traffic calming measures on our streets, and we need common-sense safety engineering like intersection daylighting, curb bumpouts, and protected bike lanes. We have to take a multidirectional approach to this–that means we also have to make public transportation more appealing to prospective riders. Expanding programs like the Portland Streetcar Ride Ambassador program, which is a city-employed community-based deescalatory presence on public transit, would be a great start.”
https://www.instagram.com/teachertiffanyforthepeople/p/DCS85t4pRzf/
Also
https://www.instagram.com/teachertiffanyforthepeople/reel/DBrQE3ISXK1/
Look…I’m sure that Councilor Koyama Lane would very much like to see safer streets but I think Steve Novick also wanted to see safer streets when the first Vision Zero process was initiated. Instead of funding and implementing the many mitigations described in that plan we now have to go through a new process? Give me a break, Ted. The good intentions of councilors are worth almost nothing when they are unwilling to push for the funding and implementation of a very good existing plan.
I don’t doubt that she’s sincere and I understand how gov’t works and I think having a task force can be an important foundation for bigger steps to come… However I also think this doesn’t really read the room. As evidenced by these reactions, we are past feel good measures and we need real policies and projects. Look at how Councilors Smith and Green came out for their passion project (the SIPP sidewalk program). They are putting together a finance plan to actually build stuff!
Councilor Koyama Lane knows that the mayor’s budget for PBOT has a cut to Vision Zero-related spending that will delay key projects like intersection daylighting. It would have been really cool if she added some sort of budget amendment to this announcement to restore that cut.
Overall I think it’s great she is stepping up for VZ and identifying herself as the safety champion. We need that! But I think it’s very reasonable for folks to roll their eyes at yet another proclamation and task force.
Many of the mitigations and infrastructure improvements outlined in the original Vision Zero Plan were slow-walked, paused, or punted because city government was so very afraid afraid of annoying of drivers or inconveniencing public safety. Perhaps Councilor Koyama Lane could hold PBOT’s reluctant feet to the fire and ask why they punted or slow-walked many of the less-expensive mitigations in the original Vision Zero Plan.
I would love to see a councilor put some pressure on PBOT. When VZ was adopted, PBOT responded by identifying VZ projects based on needs, then slowly (or never) identifying funding for those projects. I learned this because I was advocating for a better design of the Greeley bike path. While it was being designed, a minivan was rear-ended on Greely and couple lives were lost. I requested PBOT use VZ as a means to advocated for improved/safer geometry and slower speeds. They took the time to explain that this is not a VZ project, in fact it was largely funded by money identified to improve freight projects. Because this was “freight money” the project catered to freight needs and VZ concerns were not considered. The way PBOT has integrated VZ mostly misses the point. VZ needs to be fundamental goal to every single project for it to work. To not incorporate it thoroughly means an endless (literally) wait for projects to be identified and funded, and ultimately, all the non-VZ projects will need to be re-built or modified as separate VZ projects in the future. PBOT has made sure that we will not make meaningful improvements to safety and they have removed any chance for VZ to be effective while maintaining a a facade of tracking and “working” on VZ goals.
…intersection daylighting…
This is a method that is already legal and fairly cheap. It’s even possible to get the city to fix your nearest corner if you are willing to badger them. They may try to shunt you off to operations dispatch to save paperwork but that’s their job, let them do it.
The city has a really unfortunate pattern of doing a sort of memorial fix on a place where a person was killed. How many times have we seen this? The US DOT says the value of saving a life is over $10 million. That’s a lot of ‘No Parking Here To Corner’ signs.
Since the city doesn’t pay that $10 million, but it does pay for the signs, whether they save a life or not, the budgetary math doesn’t look quite as compelling as you make it sound.
It would be interesting to know if anyone has ever calculated what the “expected life saving value” of a daylighted intersection is.
If I could think of a way to estimate the ELSV of daylighting an intersection I’d offer that. Subjectively, 20 mph on a greenway doesn’t feel safe because the field of view at an obstructed intersection doesn’t give me enough reaction time to avoid the motor vehicle operator who is going through stops in second gear. That’s why I’m riding a class three electric bike at 16 mph.
I’d like to believe that those 11 lives are a real indication of some change in the environment. Without more information I am skeptical. What has changed other than perhaps police enforcement? We’ve got largely the same streets and the same drivers as last year.
We don’t know what Mayor Wilson might have said to Police Chief Day, presumably to be passed on at roll call. The other moving part that could be city wide and more or less invisible would be a wholesale change in traffic light timing, something that I would support.
Ted is right to say that Portland has a lot to gain from the potential effect Tiffany’s words have, and it’s really great that she’s using real world examples of effective things that can be done with little to no money (e.g., daylighting like Hoboken).
It was also nice to hear Lauren’s testimony: “We always point to a lack of funding, but no amount of money is sufficient.” Car infra is insatiable. Just look at the IRQ project now estimated at >2 billion. But non-capital bike infrastructure is soooo cheap in comparison (e.g., pots and rocks). Most of what Portland needs is the political capital to allow road space to be changed, something that has been markedly absent for many many years. That’s what Tiffany and other members of the council need to provide. And I hope that we hear specifics soon.
Yep Robert, it’s also unclear that the current death/injury count is related to any level of enforcement or projects by PBOT. The national stats (another) are declining from the COVID spike as well (despite the US being a radical outlier compared to developed countries), but it is something we can celebrate, regardless of whether it’s ephemeral and regardless of the cause.
If Koyama-Lane is serious about this, why not pass something more forceful, and include some funding to pay for the task force?
Proclamations are cheap and easy and accomplish little.
I want to preface my comment by making it clear that I’m committed to listening to and learning from anyone who is willing to explain why a task force is the most appropriate and/or effective way to address Portland’s road fatality crisis. Until that happens, I remain skeptical that a task force is what the moment calls for. I worry that there are downsides to this approach. Also, our scrappy and dedicated local chapter of Families for Safe Streets was asked to testify in support of the resolution but were not included in any discussions on the resolution. I’m sitting with that as well.
Hi Sarah. I’m also skeptical that a task force is what’s needed right now.
Quick question: Do you know what Oregon Walks’ current position is regarding Vision Zero? I understand you’re a board member.
Here’s what prompted my question. I just listened to the first episode of The Schmidt Show PDX: https://schmidtshowpdx.com/episode/episode-1-oregon-walks
During Mike’s interview with Zachary Lauritzen, Vision Zero didn’t come up, so I took a quick look at the Oregon Walks website to see if I could find a position statement. No luck.
I haven’t been active with Oregon Walks for a few years and didn’t dig too deeply on the site, so it’s definitely possible I missed it. I did come across the Speed Kills Campaign page: https://oregonwalks.org/speedkillscampaign/
Thanks for any insight you might have.
She a councilor, she has the power to do this. Stop with the pontification and just get it done!
gazing into crystal ball . . .
It will be forgotten and nothing of substance will be done. Council resolutions mean nothing if they don’t put money, staff, and effort behind it.
When it comes to life and death results matter. Proclamations and talks on steps has not produced results in the past and it is highly doubtful that it will produce results down the line.
David has a fine list of things that could actually be done by PBOT, there could be massive crackdowns on specific streets of any unsafe, illegal behavior. There are tangible things that can be done. What JM’s champion of Vision Zero has actually done though is make a really neat event poster that I’m sure will come up again re-election time.
This is why voting them out is the way to prove how serious the public takes the constant vehicular slaughter. Vote them out and tell them it’s because they haven’t done the basics of keeping citizens safe. Repeat until people start to get the hint and realize they actually need to produce real results if they want to keep their elected positions.
I agree that the ballot offers the clearest path to victory; the problem is that the number of people who consider traffic safety to be a litmus test issue seems to be relatively small, at least judging by the candidates who keep winning elections. Traffic safety wonks tend not to do well.
That suggests other strategies might be necessary, including influencing the people who are able to win elections.
Maybe a ballot measure?
Maybe. I’m not sure what the ballot measure could be though unless it was term limits for elected officials. You’re not wrong in saying that its only a small amount of people who care about traffic safety since we see the same results year after year as the bodies stack. I’m not sure though if it needs to be a traffic safety wonk (at least as how I imagine one) who needs to run since there are plenty of people in PBOT and in consulting who would know how to bring about real change if directed. Thats the part the that’s missing right now and has been, the desire to simply say “no more”.
That is the main reason why I feel the activism is more performative now than anything from well-meaning people since the people in power simply aren’t listening. If all the policy makers care about are their cushy jobs, then deprive them of that and see how long it takes before they understand that people are needlessly dying because of them.
A ballot measure to close any street that experiences a traffic fatality until it can be proven safe, naturally. What do you mean you don’t think it would pass?
I think it’s a great idea and I hope the community rallies around getting that idea on as a ballot measure since it is a worthwhile and eminently obtainable goal. I don’t think it would pass at large, but it would provide hard numbers of how popular the idea is and provide a baseline to work with.
Thanks for including the link to the ride, Jonathan. Folks who haven’t clicked: meet at 7:45 am on SE Taylor just west of Cesar E Chavez, adjacent to the bus stop were a car driver killed Jeanie Diaz. We will leave at 8 am sharp. Feel free to bring signs or wear gear that makes it clear we are supporting REAL ACTION to make our streets, and sidewalks, safer.
I love that they were fine dropping a bunch of speed tables in the bike lane on lower Hawthorne, but won’t pour a single liter of cement to implement Vision Zero. It’s a joke. To PBOT and our council members, I say this: talk is cheap, where’s the infrastructure?
I predict….you won’t hear a single word about enforcement from Koyama-Lane….DSA is anti-police and anti-enforcement from what I have seen.
I also have loads of fatigue and frustration with proclamations, delayed plans and broken promises. But, I recognize that this is a standard approach to doing things in city government that sometimes achieves results. I am glad Councilor Koyama Lane taking this position and hope that other councilors support her.
Seattle had 10 traffic deaths in 2024 and we had 58! They are also on a multi-year downward trend.
They have more roundabouts and stop signs in the neighborhoods–also less dead ends. But also they make certain big roads much EASIER to drive cars on–more clearly marked, not cluttered up with inconsistent paint schemes. I-5 is HUGE! so is I-90.
Perhaps we should make driving safer and easier in certain places yet constrain it in most parts of the city. Rather than give a middle finger to drivers–who are 90 percent of the population.
Also King County doesn’t allow inebriates without license plates to drive, let alone on a bike path.
Keep it weird MultCo–now the entire world thinks you cray! Seriously people in India know Portland now–for lax enforcement. Lol, imagine thinking people will just follow rules because humanity is basically good. Tell that to an Indian, or a Chinese.
Reply to Soren, Mary S, Middle of the Road Guy, qqq, SolarEclipse, Jake9, etc.
Folks — things have changed a *lot* in Portland over the last six months.
Take a look at the BikePortland fatality tracker.
https://bikeportland.org/fatality-tracker
As of May 15, 2024, 20 people had been killed on the streets of Portland.
As of May 15, 2025, only 9 people have been killed.
I don’t think this is randomness of data. I think this is a big shift in favor of safety. At the end of the summer we’ll know one way or the other.
A few things have changed in the last 12 months that might have contributed.
1) Five incoming City Councilors spoke strongly about reducing traffic deaths at a November event.
https://bikeportland.org/2024/11/20/podcast-what-they-said-and-why-it-matters-world-day-of-remembrance-391492
2) Sarah Risser, through Families for Safe Streets has put up memorial signs at all of the traffic death locations.
https://bikeportland.org/2025/01/16/guest-article-a-journal-of-my-year-placing-signs-at-every-fatal-traffic-crash-site-392200
You folks seem to think that words don’t mean anything, that signs don’t mean anything. You seem to think it will require public directives, concrete, etc. to make a change. But we haven’t had any of those, and we have gotten a change.
Change can happen in other ways, too.
Changes can be behind the scenes. Possibly not even coordinated by elected officials, administrators and staff. Change can happen when elected leaders speak and say that they want change. There’s lots of ways that this can happen. It appears that something big has changed in Portland with regard to road safety in the last six months.
Instead of bellyaching over the formation of a task force, you could be more effective by saying “Yes, thank you for creating a task force. Please make it a strong task force, that will achieve quick and effective results.”
This is public policy/advocacy 101. It’s how most advocacy constituencies do it. I’m always a bit mystified at the resistance I get in the Portland bicycling constituency when I go against the bellyaching majority and propose a constructive action we all can do to move the needle a few points in favor of our goals.
We’re moving a direction we like. Let’s thank those who are likely responsible for the change, nd encourage them to continue their efforts.
Best,
Ted Buehler
I’m still not going to hold my breath. They are politicians. They lie, they obfuscate, the delay, they set up task forces.
Until they prove otherwise I’m not going to believe it. Afterall, lots of politicians in the past patted themselves on their backs at the promises they made and they broke.
So the only ones bellyaching are you and them until they step up and follow through now, not 6 months from now.
One thing that has changed is that cops are now back in the traffic enforcement business.
I think that describing “thanking public officials for creating a task force as effective advocacy is very 2005-era BTA. Ted.
I don’t know why you think you should direct those comments at me, based on my saying that I support Vision Zero but don’t like PBOT and other agencies not following the most basic Vision Zero policies.
PBOT should know not to block bike lanes leading to a Sunday Parkway ride with signs aimed at drivers (one of my examples). PBOT should not let contractors put a portable toilet in the street with no permit on the Willamette Greenway Trail (my other example).
At that same construction site, PBOT allowed the contractor to put up private NO PARKING signs along the street frontage, reserving public on-street parking for themselves. It took me FIVE MONTHS to get PBOT to tell the contractor to take it down (done Wednesday)/
PBOT was cavalierly allowing all this to happen even though PBOT (someone at a different desk who WAS watching out for the public) leased the contractor a 3000 sf vacant street r.o.w. specifically to minimize on-street issues caused by construction.
Right after PBOT leased that site, the contractor illegally removed trees that made it clear the street did not go through. Then a driver missed that it didn’t go through, and nearly drove his whole family into the river. i got the responsible person at PBOT to require some reflective signage to be put up to prevent that from happening. Then the irresponsible arm of PBOT didn’t enforce it, so it didn’t get done until I spent hours forcing it to happen.
On top of all that, PBOT (another good arm of it) was helping our neighbors investigating ways to increase safety on the street after a child was hospitalized when hit in the (shared) street. The cavalier arm of PBOT was totally undermining those efforts by PBOT (!) making the street more dangerous than ever.
When I criticize PBOT, one of the main reasons is the poorly-behaving PBOT staff are undermining the efforts of the competent PBOT staff–over and over and over. Somebody needs to stick up for THEM. I’ve spent literally hundreds of hours improving the street safety of my neighborhood–much of it related to improving conditions for people biking and walking. PBOT has been our best ally and our worst enemy.
Ironically, PBOT (yet another arm) said there was nothing PBOT could do to mitigate the reasons the child was hit–using among other things “ODOT crash reports” showing no crashes several years ago. But it’s not an ODOT road, and the crash didn’t involve a motor vehicle. Because I’ve read thousands of BikePortland articles and comments, I’ve got the ammo (but will have to spend hours more) to show this unknowing arm of PBOT info about shared street signage, reduced speed limits, etc. that have been developed by people from a GOOD arm of PBOT. I regularly argue with people at PBOT, armed with info from people at other desks at PBOT! i regularly give people at PBOT contact info of other people AT PBOT to talk to who will back my up about basic things like what code to use, because they’re too incompetent to know.
I always respect your comments, but I don’t appreciate your lecturing me, apparently because I don’t support everything PBOT does.
I know this is long and detailed, but it really explains what I think is a huge problem with PBOT and Vision Zero–that some of their own worst enemies are the poorly performing staff (for whatever reason) in their own bureau and at other bureaus.
Comment of the decade!!!
(COTW)
Isn’t it though? COTW to qqq.
Correction Portland’s pedestrian deaths were 22, Seattles 10.
I will be leading a bike ride on Monday from Holladay Park to City Hall.
meet around 7:45am
roll out 8:10 am
https://www.shift2bikes.org/calendar/event-21773
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/50783544
2.7 miles
Will the ride from Belmont Library in SE arrive before the NE Holladay Park ride? Or will we come coasting in afterwards? Either way, see you at City Hall!
Hey qqq, Midfke of the Road Guy, Fred, Mary S, SolarEclipse, jake9 —
Have we met? I hit BikePortland Happy Hour regularly. If you attend, let’s talk in person sometime. How about this Wednesday?
Also, Soren, Watts and David H, I haven’t seen you folks for *years*. You should come to BHH sometime so we can talk about these sorts of things again.
I’m genuinely curious as to how you folks are convinced that bellyaching and naysaying *will* move an issue forward. And how hosting, thanking, supporting, or attending a safety-positive leadership event *won’t* have a positive effect.
Also — hey — traffic fatalities are down 50% from this time last year. We should be thanking our new council profusely even if they are just keeping the status quo, right???
Hoping to have this discussion face to face sometime.
Best to all,
Ted Buehler
While I don’t think there’s any reason that a proclamation will advance the cause of traffic safety (and I don’t think I’ve been bellyaching about that), it is a fair question about what I think will work.
Focusing on Powell for a moment, I’d start with rapid flash beacons and zealous speed/dangerous driving enforcement.
Some of that might take money, which Kayoma-Lane could help provide.
In addition, Keith Wilson was involved with the most recent collective effort to bring increased sanity to Powell Boulevard, which has become moribund. Now that he is mayor, he might be willing to use some of his influence to revive that process.
So there you go. Three realistic, actionable ideas, all likely to do more than another proclamation, and two of which could result in specific, measurable, concrete improvements in safety on the street in the short term.
Hi Watts,
Thanks for the reply.
Sure, all are good ideas. Good be done concurrently or individually.
Here’s an example of how “task force” style problem solving will get you what you want. As well as solving similar problems elsewhere in the city.
Highly abridged.
~2015, newly formed BikeLoud did a big campaign to get diverted on Clinton.
~2017, the diverted went in.
But. ~2016, PBOT put together a greenway analysis document. Performance measures. How many cars are too many? Which tools in the toolbox can be applied. And they used these metrics to justify the diverters and other safety improvements on Clinton.
Then, ~2018 – ~2020, PBOT applied these same metrics to other greenways, and brought them into compliance. nW Johnson, nw Overton, nw Raleigh, Tillamook at Grant HS, and a few others.
It wasn’t particularly fast. But it has been very effective.
*****
You can get your Powell safety goal in several ways.
Probably the easiest is participating in the current rendition of Vision Zero, and giving them specific, quantifiable metrics and measures that can be used to improve them.
Or???
Just curious.
*****
(BTW, you had the trapeze bike trailer at the PP Kickoff parade in 2014, right? It was a great performance!)
Ted Buehler
I think if Council instructed PBOT to solve a particular problem, and gave them the resources to do it, you’d have a much higher chance of seeing an actual positive outcome than a “today is national safety day” proclamation like the one Koyama-Lane is proposing.
2014 feels like a lifetime ago!
“ I think if Council instructed PBOT to solve a particular problem, and gave them the resources to do it, ”
I have trouble understanding how the status quo and gatekeep folks have such a hard with understanding this. I understand they profit socially and perhaps monetarily from the endless committees and task forces, but deep down I wonder if they understand what you’ve mentioned.
The Council has a lot of spare time without having to oversee Bureaus. Each and everyone of them can and should be preparing programs and laws (as JM mentioned with the sidewalk proposal and funding) to get things done. Let actual, coherent and ready to go ideas be argued in front of the voting populace. Instead we get proclamations and real neat posters.
That didn’t take long to get real personal.
Ted, I’m honestly glad you have time to attend all those fun events and stay personally involved with those who you clearly consider movers and shakers.
Tell me again how the issue has moved forward in all those decades of focus groups and being selected to being on the committees that think real long and hard and yet…nothing…has…been…actualized!!
Clearly you don’t like your ideas or the self image you’ve crafted to be challenged and that is why we are getting such a meltdown of a pushback. Maybe do the rest of us the courtesy we do you and listen to different ideas and take our concerns seriously instead of just dismissing us as “naysayers” and you might start to realize why people are frustrated with the decades long pace the city council and its advocate enablers have taken that has no end state in anything resembling sanity in sight.
Did you even read my last response to you? If you want to talk to me, respond to it.
Hi qqq
Thanks for the reasoned response.
Sorry, I was busy yesterday evening and today. Hopefully can respond tomorrow.
I’m at
Ted101@gmail.com
Happy to talk about various routes to common goals off-site as well.
Ted Buehler
As an unapologetic “left NIMBY”, attending BHH is also one of the very last things I would want to do. Active transportation in Portland, apart from my personal annoyance with its decline, is also relatively low on the list of issues I care about.
Hi Soren,
Good to bump elbows virtually then.
Ted
Ted, I’m sure we have chatted in person at some point when I lived in Portland (1997-2015), your name sounds vaguely familiar – maybe at one of the BAC meetings in the Lovejoy Room? I moved about 2,800 miles east of Portland to an extremely mediocre community of 300,000 when I could no longer afford to live in East Portland. I last visited in 2017, it may be a year or two before I get out there again.
One of the realities about Portland is much what it does or doesn’t do influences lots of other cities and jurisdictions nationwide. It’s partly because Portland is still seen as a traditionally poorer blue-collar industrial West Coast city similar to Tacoma and Oakland, a bit more like Akron, Toledo, Scranton, Bridgeport, Wilmington, and numerous other mediocre Midwestern and East Coast industrial cities that have hit hard times. They are all looking for cheap “magic bullets” to get them out of their downward spirals and Portland is seen as a city that has somehow managed to grow in spite of the various negative issues that all cities have. For us bicycle advocates, if we can show that Portland put in this or that, and it somehow worked, then cities out here are more willing to try it than had SF, LA, Chicago, or Seattle had done it (no one here honestly gives a crap about NYC bike stuff outside of NYC – they might as well be on Mars or in Europe).
Hey, PBOT, let’s use cheap Jersey barriers to divert through auto traffic off greenways and maybe some other local streets. Want pavement to last longer? Keep most heavy vehicles off of it. Want to minimize the school drop-off melee? Keep SUVs and their ilk away from the fronts of schools. Limiting driving works powerfully towards Vision Zero.
I think this request would be stronger coming from the community. Perhaps work with your neighborhood association and make a formal request, with specifics about what street(s) you want blocked, where, and why? If the community steps forward and says “yes, we want this”, it may have a better chance of being implemented.
Neighborhood association == community …………. of mostly white and mostly rich homeowners in mh’s neighborhood
That’s the “old” neighborhood associations.
Also, anyone, regardless of the socially constructed group they are a member of, can join. No one is preventing them.
Then work with a different organization that is seen as a legitimate voice of the community.
Sadly this definition of rich is where we have arrived. In the past this would have been called an unenvied upper middle, from a satisfied perspective of the middle who might be living in a ranch house in eastern East Moreland and working at the post office. (My aunt).
She’s long out of that 1.2 mill home.
Now upper middle is seen as rich from the unsatisfied perspective of the “barely making it”.
Which also explains the exodus of medium-high earners from multico.
125k per annum is not rich! “Rich”means net worth 10 million.
Look, I get the skepticism here, but dismissing/attacking one of the few city councilors speaking up about traffic safety is a mistake. Is this action enough? Of course not, it’s hardly anything. And yet, keep this in mind: there are city councilors right now who don’t even know what Vision Zero is and only vaguely know about the seriousness of our road safety problem.
Politicians are people and we have to help them along this journey. We have to find our allies, which Koyama-Lane clearly is, and encourage them. Show them we have their back. Then push them further. She has a tough nut to crack–budget crisis + other councilors who aren’t engaged/knowledgeable about this topic we are so passionate about–but change with this new council won’t start with miraculous steps. I wish it would, but that’s not the reality. It will start with educating this new crop of electeds, getting them onboard with the urgency, then pushing them hard.
Will it work? Who knows? Should she do more? Yes! Maybe she is. If she’s not, let’s get behind her and push her be the champion. I doubt that yelling at her, saying this isn’t enough, dismissing this action, will help.
In the end, I imagine it will be a lot easier to get councilors to do what we want–allocate money to the SIPP program (Green + Smith project), to support road diets for high crash corridors, to get more automated enforcement installations, to support the installation of protected bike lanes (I’m looking at you Sandy) and more transit lanes (I’m looking at you 82nd Ave), to see more police enforcement–AFTER her colleagues have recommitted to being a VZ city.
Nope, not going to help them. They ran for office to do a job. I expect them to do it without me holding their hand. If they can’t handle it then they should never have ran for office in the first place.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I want action. Hollow words and yet more task forces and committees are so very tiresome and unwanted anymore. If Lane had a real plan then Lane would have announced “starting June 1 this and this and this is going to start being worked on. With my fellow councilors we have found the funds to do this, etc. etc. etc.”
I’m so tired of politicians, local, state, and federal. . . .
“They ran for office to do a job. I expect them to do it without me holding their hand. If they can’t handle it then they should never have ran for office in the first place.”
Absolute!! Well said. The days of the entrenched and elitist focus groups and citizen committees needs to wind down and come to an end. The councilors are paid a lot, there are a lot of them and they have less direct responsibilities than their predecessors.
I understand having a public meeting or a focus group to react to and fine tune an established, actionable plan to make the plan better or more responsive to a need. I do not understand having groups generate plans for the politicians to further develop. That has led to those with too much spare time/money having outsized access to policy as well as demonstrating that that method doesn’t work by Portlands outsize death count and general malaise.
The councilors were selected to lead and they really should. If you don’t like what they do, then vote them out next cycle.
Portland politicians are 50 percent virtue signalers, which is a special breed of person, narcissistic and difficult to derail from their preconceived notions backed up by their echo chamber social circles.