Just as I finished up my opinion piece a few minutes ago, I received a copy of the aforementioned memo from City Administrator Michael Jordan (read it below or view the PDF here). This is the memo I’ve expected since late last week. It’s being circulated in advance of two City Council meetings this week where the issue is likely to be discussed at length. The fact that CA Jordan felt he had to write this five-page memo is a testament to how heated the pushback to the City’s plans have become. The memo is a also likely an attempt to calm the nerves of City Councilors in hopes of winning their support.
Note that this memo has been leaked. It was not meant for the public. That means city administrators and the Mayor’s Office still have not issued any public statement or notification about their plans, despite saying they would do so back on August 1st.
I’ve pasted every word of the memo below for your convenience. I’m curious to hear what you think:
Office of the City Administrator
Michael Jordan, City AdministratorMemo: Transportation Infrastructure Changes in Northwest Portland
Date: August 11, 2025
From: Mike Jordan
To: Mayor Keith Wilson
CC: Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Council Vice President Tiffany Koyama Lane
Portland City Councilors
Deputy City Administrator Bob Cozzie
Deputy City Administrator Priya Dhanapal
Police Chief Bob Day
Portland Bureau of Transportation Director Millicent Williams
City of Portland Vision Zero Lead Dana Dickman
Portland Solutions Director Skyler Brocker-Knapp
Chief Communications Officer Laura Oppenheimer
The City of Portland is committed to addressing concerns about public safety in all its dimensions – including crime, public health, and transportation. Long-term solutions require us to balance the interplay between these different elements of safety, prioritizing the overall health and well-being of our community.
This memorandum provides background, context, and recommended actions regarding transportation changes at two locations in Northwest Portland near Couch Park: Northwest 20th Avenue between Everett and Flanders streets and Northwest Johnson Street between 15th and 16th avenues.
Planters were placed at these locations in 2019 to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists. However, these features have inadvertently escalated public safety concerns and impeded the city’s ability to respond.
Residents and business owners have reported increased narcotic use and sales, as well as assault and harassment toward pedestrians and cyclists. Meanwhile, public safety partners face challenges navigating the area to deter and respond to crime.
Our recommended changes – developed jointly by the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), Portland Police Bureau (PPB), and Portland Solutions – address escalating public safety concerns while preserving safe bicycle and pedestrian access. PBOT’s traffic engineering team is overseeing design and PBOT’s maintenance operations team (Structures and Traffic) will lead implementation, with safety and access as top priorities.
Problem Statement
For years, the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) has documented persistent public safety and livability issues in and around Couch Park, driven by a concentration of criminal behavior. In response to repeated community requests and feedback fielded through community meetings, Public Environment Management Office Problem Solver Meetings, and 911 calls, PPB has increased patrols to disrupt criminal behavior and monitor the area.In response to repeated community requests and feedback fielded through community meetings, Public Environment Management Office Problem Solver Meetings, and 911 calls, PPB has increased patrols to disrupt criminal behavior and monitor the area.
There is limited access to routes between West Burnside Street and Couch Park. The current traffic pattern prevents northbound travel on Northwest 20th Avenue beyond Northwest Everett Street. This limits patrol access on the blocks between Northwest Everett and Glisan streets from routine police presence.
Problem Solver Interventions
As part of the Portland Solutions program, the Public Environment Management Office (PEMO) delivers solutions to livability-related issues in public spaces by coordinating resources efficiently. Over the past two years, PEMO has:
- Increased pedestrian lighting adjacent to commercial and school properties
- Funded safety improvements to Couch Park
- Coordinated with area service providers including William Temple House, Rose Haven, Trinity Episcopal and affordable housing, to ensure their staff and guests/clients are safe and welcome despite predatory practices of those preying on people who are vulnerable.
Despite these interventions, persistent public safety concerns remain.
Existing Public Safety Conditions
The following is a summary of persistent public safety challenges in the affected corridors, based on reports from residents, businesses, schools, and public safety partners.
- Educational Impact: Two schools, Multnomah Learning Center and Cathedral School, remain adjacent to high-incident corridors. Emerson School relocated due to safety concerns.
- Residential/Commercial Impact: Stadium Fred Meyer’s parking garage has seen chronic vandalism, assaults, and drug-related activity.
- Business Closures: Persistent public safety concerns in the area have contributed to business and school closures or relocations, including Chipotle, Dutch Brothers, Banfield Veterinarian, Emerson School and others.
- Additional Hotspots: The I-405 viaduct underpasses (Northwest 15th-16th avenues) are not illuminated and experience drug dealing, solicitation and continued anti-social activities. Residents of the Pearl District and Northwest neighborhoods consistently report feeling unsafe using this block.
A recent site walk with PEMO, Central Precinct Commander, Northwest Community Conservancy and residents reinforced ongoing concerns regarding public safety in this block. Two weeks ago, a shed at the community garden adjacent to the block on NW 16th was set on fire and destroyed. PEMO is working to get the community garden activated, funding sidewalk illumination on this block and along NW 16th in partnership with PGE and ODOT. In this area, the request to reestablish two-way traffic has also been elevated.
These conditions, sustained over multiple years despite targeted interventions, have escalated the urgency of modifying the existing traffic configuration to support more frequent patrols and improved public safety.
You can find a general picture of crime statistics for the area on PortlandMaps.
Community Conversations and Outreach
NW Subdistrict Problem Solvers meeting has been convening every two weeks since September 2023 (approximately 40 meetings to date). Vandalism, public defecation, stolen vehicles, drug dealing, drug use and public nuisances are reported at each meeting. Attendees include a mix of residents, business owners, and property managers. There are also representatives from schools, nonprofits, business associations, and other public agencies. At the request of attendees, PEMO staff have conducted 30 site visits and coordination meetings in the area since September 2023. (This number does not account for meetings and calls with community conducted by other city staff on chronic safety issues.)Old Town/Pearl District Problem Solvers has been meeting since Spring 2022 (approximately 80 meetings to date). At the request of attendees, PEMO staff have conducted several additional site visits near the NW Subdistrict area.
Transportation Review
Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) data shows the NW 20th/Everett planters contributed to a reduction in crashes from nine in the five years of data before installation (involving conflicts between cars, pedestrians, and cyclists) to three (vehicle only) in the 4.5 years of data since installation. As heightened public safety concerns were identified, PBOT traffic engineers and the PPB Traffic Safety Division explored three options to address the needs at Northwest 20th and Everett.
- Maintain existing planters and traffic controls.
- Relocate planters and add an all-way stop.
- Replace planters with a raised crosswalk.
Initially, PBOT recommended the first option. However, given the increased access needs and the broader awareness of the extent of the public safety-related issues, PBOT ultimately recommended the second option.
Final Project Scope: Northwest 20th & Everett
- Install all-way stop at Northwest Everett and 20th Avenue, including advance “Stop Ahead” signing, stop bars, and additional signage as needed.
- Remove “Right Turn Only” sign for northbound traffic on Northwest 20th Avenue.
- Existing planters will be moved to the curb – one on the west side and one on the east side – to function as vision clearance for safety. This will result in the removal of one parking space on the northwest corner. “No Left Turn/ No Through Traffic” signs will be removed from planters.
- Restripe Northwest 20th for two-way traffic, including sharrows in the travel lanes.
- Add “Cross Traffic Does Not Stop” or similar signage at 20th and Flanders to mitigate for additional traffic crossing the Flanders Greenway at 20th Avenue.
- Restoration of two-way traffic on Northwest 20th.
Final Project Scope: Northwest Johnson between 15th and 16th avenues
Two-way traffic will be restored. This location is still in design with the following changes anticipated:
- Remove existing planter and “Do Not Enter” sign that prohibits westbound traffic.
- Remove “No Through Traffic” sign on NE corner.
- Restripe NW Johnson Street to allow two-way traffic, including sharrows in the travel lanes.
- Remove parking on both sides of NW Johnson Street
Once work orders are processed and ready to deliver, PEMO will send a mailer to all neighbors in seven delivery routes that touch both blocks about changes to traffic patterns.
PBOT will monitor speeds, volumes and crash data at both locations over time to determine if additional changes are needed to support safe travel in the area.
These recommendations are presented with the goal of preserving safe bike and pedestrian access while enhancing public safety, livability, and public health.
Michael Jordan
City Administrator
Michael Jordan
Portland Solutions Director Anne Hill and Deputy City Administrator of Public Works Priya Dhanapal will attend tomorrow’s (Tuesday, 8/12) meeting of the Bicycle Advisory Committee to discuss this further.
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.
They’ve been talking about these intersections and looking for solutions, including with dozens of site visits, for two to three years, and yet they didn’t even think to bring this to Bicycle Advisory Committee or Pedestrian Advisory Committee before they made substantial infrastructure changes that will likely have negative consequences for folks on bike and foot. The BAC conversation is only happening because we all disrupted their plans. I have a friend who lives a few blocks away from one of these diverters who hadn’t heard anything about the plan to remove it until it was written about here. That tells us a whole lot about their interest in “public” outreach.
What Jordan and Wilson have now learned: because of BikePortland, Bike Loud, and a bunch of very cranky bicyclists who work hard to get better infrastructure implemented, they can’t make changes like this without us noticing and complaining loudly.
I wish they had handled this better from the start, as they have lost a lot of trust.
Well said!
This memo is pure, unadulterated hand-waving bullshit 101.
Make a list of everything that was tangentially related to this decision to give the illusion of being thoughtful and deliberate.Make a list of all of the problems that will not be solved by this decision. Use data from PBOT about crashes to give the illusion of being data driven so that you can ignore the immense benefits of the diverters that are not measured. Crash data is worthless here.Don’t provide any meaningful objective data, because in two years, or whatever, you never obtained any.List a bunch of imagined stakeholders with vague descriptors to make them sound innumerable and very important. Ignore all of the stakeholders that would be opposed, were not complaineing and were not contacted. Use “project” language format to make it sound professional. Most importantly- assume that the intervention will solve the problem without staying a clear hypothesis and don’t propose objective measurements to test that hypothesis or meaningful outcomes.
These people are clowns. They think everyone is stupid and that councilors will be able to use this as cover. Michael Jordan should be fired immediately. I am so disappointed in how bad these people are at their jobs and the lack of principles or direction.
*I think some formatting was lost when this posted.
Still, it’s an excellent post. Thank you!
It smells like a solution with the problems backfilled after the fact. Their reasoning to remove the diverters makes no sense.
I had the same thought over the weekend, which will one day be part of the Criterion Collection, and I will use the money and influence to purchase my own little Mayor of Portland along with a cute, obedient city administrator sidekick.
https://bikeportland.org/2025/08/08/two-more-portland-city-councilors-express-opposition-to-diverter-removal-395843#comment-7549480
Shameless retrofitted bureaucratic sophistry.
In the biz, this is what’s known as “pretextual:” a reason given in justification of an action that is not the true reason.
I’ll also note that the City Administrator effective admits to violating public meeting law by noting that 40 meetings with stakeholders, including invited public, were held, despite not having advertised and opened to the general public these meetings. 2 1/2 years of “public” process to justify a “needed” change.
I don’t mean to hand over BikePortland’s scoop, but Sophie Peel at WW has been doing stories on public meeting skirting as of late – I wonder if sending her way could blow this up to a wider audience. Going from “effectively admits” to “actually broke the law” from Portland’s top unelected official would be big news, even putting the diverters in question entirely aside.
W have only little mini-oligarchy in Portland!
It seems pretty clear to me that Wilson is throwing a bone to the people mad about the shelters going into NW. That’s where the lack of process and trouble finding a clear rationale are coming from.
There’s a rumor that it’s a direct exchange: diverters for shelter.
Put another way: NW neighborhood association busybodies trade making street measurably less safe for pedestrians and cyclists so they can drive to Fred Meyer faster, and in exchange that won’t complain about something that for all intents and purposes will make some part of NW more sketchy. And I don’t say this because it’s bad to have shelters in neighborhoods like NW, I’m just basing it off my experience living near the shelter at Powell and Milwaukie-ish. I’d say on net it’s good it’s there, but I definitely have had the occasional sketchy interaction.
I live near the tiny house village at Powell and my experience was that when it opened, there were many fewer unpleasant interactions with homeless people, break-in attempts, etc. My experience has been that homeless people who were already in the neighborhood just had better access to services and it didn’t actually change that much.
I bike by often, and I don’t think the area got a lot worse as a whole, but I definitely preferred biking on Gideon before the safe rest village went in. Honestly mostly on account of the increased car traffic to and from the village though. But it was also not a very pleasant place before the village went in, I haven’t followed anything about a similar shelter being stood up in NW so can’t really comment on how it would compare to the Brooklyn one.
Yeah I think it did concentrate folks right near gideon who I think before had been living in rvs or encampments around Powell park (these are basically totally gone now), or under Hwy 99 by the start of the springwater (these still exist from time to time but not to the same extent that they did pre-safe rest village). I definitely ended up interacting with those encampments a lot more than I do the safe rest village.
With that said, by far the worst thing about the gideon overcrossing is the design of the overcrossing itself, because the elevators never work and it is annoying to carry your bike up the stairs.
I guess my routes didn’t really take me by Powell Park, so those encampments never really registered to me (I lived on 15th and Rhine), so I mostly noticed the increase in car traffic approaching the Gideon/17th crossing of Powell. And to be clear, I think the safe rest village there is basically fine, just it’s more stressful with the car traffic that residents and workers bring. And that would be easily fixed by making a protected lane extension to the intersection with 13th.
For NW, I think the sort of quid pro quo of “remove diverters and we’ll allow a similar safe rest village somewhere in NW” is just stupid. For the specifics of the area around Couch Park/the diverter on 20th and Everett, I imagine a nearby (but not directly adjacent) safe rest village would have a similar effect to the one near Powell. So the park and former sketchy areas will probably get a bit better, and some roads/approaches to the safe rest village might get a little more sketchy. The only reason to remove the diverters is to buy off a certain subset of advocates (NW neighbors busybodies, Freddies execs or whatever) at the expense of others (bike/ped folks).
Selling out safe streets to appease some residents angry about shelters is pretty despicable, especially since 1) it would completely unravel the argument that it was because police can’t properly patrol the area with the diverters and 2) it won’t stop them from continuing to complain about the shelters, it just means their carbrains are no longer slightly inconvenienced and we return to greenways that cease to function as intended by PBOT (this especially is the case for NW Johnson where car volumes were exceptionally high by I-405 before NWIM was implemented).
One interesting tidbit in the memo is how they acknowledge PBOT was not on board with any changes to the diverters at first.
This validates my sense that PBOT didn’t really support this plan from the start. I’d love to know how that interaction went! Was it just staff initially who were involved? I could see them saying, “Umm no. We want to keep them as-is.” And then later when leadership gets roped in, the tone changes to: “Oh yes, we can help you. Sorry for the misunderstanding.”
Might it be that PBOT isn’t a single unified tight organization, but instead made up of many people and internal organizations, some of which have always been pro-car and others pro-bike or even pro-walk? Maybe some want to do what’s best for the city (or think they know what’s best, which is quite different), and maybe others are there just to earn a paycheck?
When I worked for PBOT (2000-2006), there was never any complete unity in anything there. The organization was still made up 3 bureaus (Maintenance, Signals & Streetlights, and Engineering/Civil Design) plus numerous internal agencies, each with very diverse opinions among employees (there were even some hard-line open Republicans there who would have a portrait of George W on the wall, probably now with DT) about nearly everything, including preferred transport modes, city design, budgets, who throws the best parties, and the PBOT monks. We had some really amazing dedicated employees and a fair number of total deadweights who couldn’t wait to retire.
I’d say there are people at PBOT who fully support the mayor on this. I’d say there’s quite a few who fully oppose the mayor on this, but I doubt any will risk their jobs to do so. But most people at PBOT probably don’t give a crap, who likely realize that however the diverter issue gets resolved it won’t make much difference to the city and its mode split, that you are much more likely to have a bigger impact with projects in Districts 1 & 2 than in a tiny but noisy squeaky-wheeled sub-area within District 4.
I personally find it’s worth remembering that in an organization like PBOT, Water, & BES, it’s not the mayor, or the council, or the city administrator, or even the bureau director who controls each respective bureau, but the engineers who hold the purse-strings, who tend to make decisions with a 10, 20, or even 30-year horizon, and who aren’t particularly concerned who is mayor or president or whatever.
It’s important not to ignore the power dynamics in all organizations. JM’s narrative makes more sense to me: lower-level staffers at PBOT resisted the change until more powerful managers got leaned on – probably by the mayor’s office – and changed the bureau’s tune.
City employee here. The “purse strings” are still dictated by the budget and the engineers are bound to that, even if they are receptive to feedback. Make no mistake, Mike Jordan is the real mayor in regards to what each bureau does. Keith Wilson still has not even spoken to more than half the city employees in any way since taking office. Anything that has happened here was done under the direction of Jordan.
That’s really good to know. Seems pretty obvious that some moneyed interests in NW got to Jordan and now he’s scrambling for an excuse to ditch the diverters.
Probably a real conversation between Jordan and the Mayor:
“Hi Mike! It’s Keith. Hey, [insert names of moneyed people here] in NW are really cheesed off about the shelter I ordered. They are also mad about the diverters so can you come up with a reason to get rid of them? I need to maintain some level of goodwill with rich people.”
“You bet, Mr. Mayor!”
It’s pretty obvious from this memo that PBOT was told to remove the diverters, they pushed back and said no, and then were told “too bad, you’re removing them, give us a proposal for how that would work” and then they dutifully put together the plans for all-way stop at 20th & Everett and other changes. But Michael Jordan, instead of owning his (or the Mayor’s, hard to tell) decision, tries to imply that PBOT just somehow changed their mind and made this decision in collaboration with PEMO. Total BS.
While I appreciate the reasoning, I still don’t understand how this limits them from patrol access. Like, can they not change the sign to be like no entry except bikes and emergency vehicles? I personally wouldn’t mind if an emergency response was happening in a bike lane — that’s how it is handled in some places Europe.
I would also like to see what the statistics were before and after the diverter change. The data in the links seem to only provide data for 2024 — maybe I’m missing something. It indicates a number of property crimes, however it doesn’t demonstrate to me that before the diverters there were fewer crimes.
I was over by the diverter on NE Everett for a little over an hour last week. In that time, three or so police cars used the southbound lane on 20th to patrol. I heard that in the hours before I got there, several drivers turned left from Everett onto NW 20th (northbound) and used the southbound lane to get around the diverters. Presumably a police car could do that in an emergency.
“Like, can they not change the sign to be like no entry except bikes and emergency vehicles? ”
yesIt’s not like every police vehicle (and 60% of motorists) drive across double yellows and go around traffic calming measures every day when it suils them anyway.
edit: I just read B.Hawkins post below mine, so I am clearly not the only person who has noticed this.
There doesn’t even need to be a special sign allowing emergency vehicle access. Emergency vehicles and police vehicles can and do go into oncoming traffic lanes routinely when responding with sirens on, and these diverters have oncoming lanes that are never congested (these are local streets) and it is very easy to drive around them.
Can they drive in the wrong lane when routinely patrolling with lights and sirens off?
Why not? Everybody else does.
Maybe I should have specified “legally”.
Five pages written, but not a single shred of evidence offered that these diverters cause crime or drug dealing. PBOT put the same infrastructure two blocks from my house in NE Portland, but somehow they didn’t cause any crime here.
“not a single shred of evidence offered that these diverters cause crime or drug dealing”
That wasn’t the claim. It was that the diverters limited police response to crime, not that they caused the crime.
The diverters near your house may also limit police response to crime, but because there isn’t much crime going on, the impact is minimal.
A claim which is, once again, without evidence. In other words, baseless speculation.
Perhaps. I’m not sure what would constitute proof if hearing the experts on their job tell you their professional opinion was insufficient.
What sort of proof do you want?
Which experts? What are their names?
It’s not even that, it’s a claim that the diverter reduced the ability to patrol.
If a diverter is designed in a way that precludes emergency response, it can be redesigned. It doesn’t need to be removed
These particular diverters don’t even need to be redesigned. They are “semi-diverters” that allow emergency response since only half the street is blocked by the diverter.
Severely limiting our inalienable right to Tokyo drift on an entire residential street.
“it can be redesigned”
I wish PBOT told us why they didn’t recommend that.
Seems pretty obvious that they felt it was fine initially, and only “recommended” something else after being told their initial recommendation wasn’t what the folks at PEMO wanted to hear. And I don’t see any reason why an emergency vehicle wouldn’t be able to turn their lights on to go around the diverter, like everyone else is saying.
“wasn’t what the folks at PEMO wanted to hear.”
That doesn’t seem obvious to me. Maybe there’s other dimensions to this that you aren’t considering. As is usual here, folks know one side of the story and get outraged before learning all the facts.
I mostly think of the inverse: are the city’s arterials famously free from crime and narcotics use? Obviously no. Yes there is some nuance when a place is truly without eyes and stewardship, but there’s no real correlation.
I was informed by the city today that the Problem Solvers meetings don’t have agenda, attendee lists, or meeting minutes. It’s literally just movers and shakers getting together with the city to make back room deals.
The fact that the City Administrator references invite-only, anonymous meetings with no minutes or agenda as “public engagement” is genuinely outrageous. That is not how public engagement works!
Michael Jordan should have been fired and Id like to thank Councilor Kanal for being the only councilor that voted against the rehiring of this conservative and climate-change-denying* tevis toadie.
*this authoritarian ******* jammed through the Zenith Oil Train LUCS approval without council oversight
“jammed through the Zenith Oil Train LUCS approval”
Along with Carmen Rubio, as I recall.
Someone needs to sue them to open up their process.
He should have just had a text chain that would only get the light of day via FOIA requests.
This part is very disturbing. NW in Motion, the plan that led to the diverters, had publicly-accessible adisory committee meetings, open houses, focus groups, surveys, etc over multiple years. This new group is shadowy, invite-only, totally opaque. That’s not public involvement, and is not legal.
There’s an awful lot of “ordinary people” in those meetings too… It’s how regular folks who are not movers and shakers and can’t just call the mayor can get stuff done like get the trash pile in the park cleaned up.
“It’s how regular folks who are not movers and shakers and can’t just call the mayor can get stuff done like get the trash pile in the park cleaned up.”
Traffic safety infrastructure is equivalent to a trash pile?
Yes, that’s exactly what I said. Good one.
If the diverters get removed then we had better get a report in 6 months showing that crime in the area has precipitously dropped because of the eased ability to patrol.
Why do you find it so offensive that the city is listening to a group other than bike activists? You are not the only ones whose priorities matter. The neighborhood has at least as much right to its streets as a visitor who occasionally uses them.
You have the leverage of a loud minority and never shy away from using it. It comes across as self centered and poorly representative.
I’m not “offended.” I never said that.
Also, the way I “come across” is often mostly a function of biases people bring to me and my work. So there’s that.
*comes to the bicycling advocacy website* “Why’s there so much bicycling advocacy here?!?”
A tiny fraction of transportation space is given to people who prefer to not travel in a car and you whine that you can’t have every single inch. I find this to be an incredibly crass and unneighborly stance.
Backroom meetings that violate the law.
Neither you nor the tiny elite group that met illegally in any way represent the neighborhood as a whole.
I’m only offended at the secret nature of these decisions. If there are trade-offs with our safe streets policies, then those discussions should absolutely be held. Perhaps we have to make hard decisions, or perhaps a wider public engagement can identify some third way that satisfies everyone. But instead of that, we ostensibly have an opaque city office working with unidentified public stakeholders in a secret process to overturn a recent decision by the city done in full view of the public. It stinks to high heaven of special interests, backroom dealing, and pretextual justifications that absolutely deserve scrutiny.
This. Succincly said.
If I’m reading this correctly, and not being tongue in cheek, Michael Jordan is saying:
Is that right?
*Obviously I’m having to deduce this, but it seems right. He acknowledges that the planters have made road users safer (there was a reduction from 9 to 3 incidents at 20th and Everett), so it must be that he thinks making it less safe will push behaviors somewhere else.
If you have to fill in that many gaps, it should be clear that he has no rational argument; just a pile of non sequiturs that he throws out for people to repeat as if they might fit together as a coherent idea.
The irony is that too much car traffic is likely a contributor to crime in the area.
Please allow me to summarize the memo as follows:
“If we can’t drive thru these spaces in our cars, we cannot make them safe.”
That’s it, right? Can someone please tell me what else I’m missing?
Is it not possible for police and city workers and anyone else to WALK or BIKE thru these areas? How long does it take an officer to get out of his car and walk a block?
The removal of the diverters seems entirely disconnected from the goals that Jordan says he wants to achieve.
Fine. Hey Keith: Have the courage to tell everyone, publicly, that this is the case. You’re the mayor and promised hard choices would be made; explain them to all parties and live with the outcry if you truly think this is best for the city. Cyclists might actually be convinced!
Otherwise you’re just a a back-room hack like Teddy.
Yeah cct I’d actually be impressed with Wilson if he was willing to be explicit in why he’s allowing this decision. That kind of transparency actually speaks to me a lot more than the status quo, even if I might not like the outcome.
There’s clearly no evidence that divertors cause crime or are limiting response by PPB. Saying this just digs him in a deeper bullshit hole. Everyone sees those diverters are easily navigable by even the largest cop van (semi?).
If Wilson wants to eschew any direct interaction with ped/bike/safety advocates and use a spokesperson at PEMO, or “operational efficiency” or whatever bureaucratic euphemism as a means for his end goals, cool. We all know ped/bike/safety advocates are peanuts compared to whatever guy with money. It’s realpolitik.
Except, this is what we elect leaders to do: make the hard choices, ignore special interests, and do the thing that makes the city better. Wilson can burn his bridges with safety advocates and keep his job, and maybe even get re-elected. But these sort of shady decisions have a lasting effect in slowly undermining his base. If we’re getting Hales and Wheeler 2.0, let’s find out sooner than later.
We elected a trucking magnate, as I recall, and cyclists are the special interest in this scenario.
Why can’t the PPB officers patrolling the area be on bikes??? That is the best way for cops to get around in dense areas anyway, and clogging the streets with police cars does nothing to repair the PPB’s very troubled relationship with the community. Reducing safety for cyclists and pedestrians so that officers can drive around in police cars is NOT the right solution.
How many police officers on bikes are needed to cover the same territory of one officer in a single police car?
Do you really think Portland, with its anti-cop reputation, is going to be able to recruit enough bike riding officers to cover Portland?
I expect a reasonably fit police officer on a bike could cover the area in about the same amount of time as one in a car. I used to “cover” that area on my bike during my commute. One in a car goes about as fast as one on a bike. Of course, that assumes the patrol is about pedestrian-initiated crimes. A bike would lose out against a motivated (i.e. doesn’t care about safe passage) criminal driving a car or truck. Presumably, an officer on a bike would also have the magic of radio to mitigate that advantage.
PPB could even equip their officers with innovative equipment like one of these new fangled “e-bikes”.
Obviously any officers on bikes require additional of support for things like CAD/computer/database access, report writing, suspect transportation, personal needs (meals/breaks, restroom access), etc. but for the most part there are issues that can be readily addressed by any empowered manager.
If PPB isn’t welcome at Fire Station 3 there’s plenty of vacent real estate available for PPB to establish a non public facing sub-precinct in NW Portland for a couple of shared desks with computes, restroom access, break room stuff (coffee pot, microwave, dorm fridge) at what would be a fairly modest cost.
The whole bogus argument is that this is a concentrated high crime area that needs special intervention. They specifically call out the area between Burnside and Glisan. I’m sure they could cover the 5 blocks on a bike. In fact, it’s my belief that bike patrols would be a lot more effective than cop cars for this kind of police work.
“The whole bogus argument is that this is a concentrated high crime area that needs special intervention.”
Why is that argument bogus? Is the claim of high crime false, or the idea that it needs special intervention?
The bogus argument is that the diverters have anything to do with the crime.
Both claims are bogus. There may be a lot of crime here sometimes, but it’s unremarkable compared to any part of Burnside from N/SE 20th to N/SW. 20th. I mean are you saying there is worse crime at stadium fred meyer than at the plaid on MLK and Burnside? Even more ridiculous is the claim that the diverters should be removed in response.
The PPB is using electric bikes now, so one bike can cover the same area as one car very easily.
(1) I am not suggesting doing this for all of Portland.
(2) In this specific area, bikes can go as fast as cars, so additional headcount would not be needed. Even without diverters, the streets are not designed for high-speed driving.
(3) Every study shows that in high-crime areas (whether violent crime or nuisance crime), putting officers on foot and on bikes in the community is much more effective than having them drive around in little fortresses.
(4) If the primary police coverage were on foot or bike, it would be easy to change the sign to “Do Not Enter-Except Emergency Vehicles” for the rare instance when backup coverage with a police car is needed. The police car would then follow the normal safety rules for emergency vehicles that need to violate traffic laws to respond to an urgent situation.
(5) This seems to be an excuse to assign one officer to cover not only Nob Hill, but also the Pearl and maybe downtown in a single patrol. While they want neighbors to think that Couch Park is an area of focus for the bureau, the fact that they insist on unimpeded car access suggests otherwise.
I see tons of drivers go around planters but for some reason people can’t seem to figure out how to get around them. Police do important work but they shouldn’t be following GoogleMaps to get around.
It’s laughable that this memo says there is “limited access between W Burnside and Couch Park”. I count 4 streets open to cars between W Burnside and a block from Couch Park. Are cops somehow not capable of taking a one block detour in a regular patrol? Does every dead end street in the city require through access for all cars at all times to satisfy public safety?
There is not a shred of useful evidence, nor is there any demonstration of an open and public process. 2 years of private, public records law breaking, invite-only meetings does not constitute public engagement, and it’s insulting to see that insinuated.
Also: what does a fire at a community garden on NW 16th (is that a typo? What community garden is this even referring to?) have to do with traffic circulation 4 blocks away? This memo acts like the general sketchiness of some parts of NW/Pearl sprung up out of the blue from this one diverter. Anyone with a brain knows otherwise. There is no way this will do anything of substance to improve any of that. If it was just a waste of money it’d be bad enough, but it’s also going to make biking in NW worse for everyone, and it’s not going to do a damn thing in making the neighborhood more safe.
When I lived in the neighborhood several years ago there was a small community garden basically under the 405 overpass. I never saw anybody using it, and I walked by all the time with my dog. I assume that’s what they’re talking about.
Ah thanks. Looks to me like it’s maybe between Kearney and Johnson at 16th? Looking around on street view makes me think the shed in question is closer to Kearney, so I have hard time believing that the NW Johnson and 16th diverter would have played much of a role in response there, even if it were some make believe world where an emergency vehicle couldn’t make it through these semi-diverters.
comment of the week!
How do the police manage to patrol the rest of the one way streets around Portland??
The memo itself was poorly edited, which indicates to me it was entirely staff-driven with no community input whatsoever, not even by business associations. It also looks like it was cut-and-pasted together from emails from several different writers using different writing styles, including engineers at PBOT.
There’s a very old saying, “The ship of state is the only kind of ship that leaks from the top”, and very likely both the mayor and city administrator authorized its leaking and the timing of the leak, the person(s) who did the leak, and to whom.
Lots of words, few facts, minimal data. If this is the argument for removing the diverters, consider me unconvinced. I think I could be convinced! I’d even be willing to accept one of them being removed on a trial basis if there was an A/B test condition they wanted to consider. But no. I don’t think they have a leg to stand on.
I don’t think Jordan meant for this to come off as if residents and business owners reported increased assault and harassment towards pedestrians and cyclists, but its probably the most honest thing in here.
If only there was some kind of group that could could advice to the City Manager, maybe a group of people who not only walk and bike in the city, but are activist and have a pulse of how other pedestrians and cyclist are feeling.
Maybe Jordan could put something together like that? We could call it a council, maybe a Bike Advisory Council he could go to? Just a thought.
The “challenges navigating the area” are mainly due to the long blocks and NW Everett and Glisan being one-way streets. Return those streets to two-way traffic, problem solved. That is, if the city is truly interested in public safety and not just making driving more convenient for well-to-do residents of the northwest district. (Raised crosswalks would be nice too.)
Huh, sounds like PBOT WAS involved. Bummer.
No, it sounds like PBOT initially said no to this, and then was told they had no choice and needed to play ball and figure out a way to make it work.
I live in Northwest and pass through the intersection of NW Everett & 20th regularly (on foot and bike). I’m familiar with the diverter at NW Johnson & 15th, but don’t go through that intersection too often.
I see homelessness, drug use, mental health issues, litter, and the results of criminal activity (broken glass from apparent car break-ins, empty packages that were likely stolen from doorsteps, etc.) throughout Northwest often, but they tend to be concentrated to particular areas. The area around the Fred Meyer is definitely one of the hotspots, likely due to the access to food options (but my own observations would suggest the criminal activity is much more concentrated on NW 20th PL and not as much on NW 20th AVE – but I have no data to support that). But that’s not to say it doesn’t happen at Couch Park, because it does. As well as on NW Hoyt, and outside the McDonalds at Burnside/19th (though something’s changed and it does not seem as prevalent as it had been at that location), and on many other streets.
However these problems are not unique to Northwest Portland; there are many pockets of our city where the same homelessness, drug use, criminal activity are occurring (I tend to see it primarily near groceries stories and along streets with limited activity or ground-floor activation, but not exclusively).
Other people have already alluded to this, but the letter from the City Administrator does not provide any evidence for a direct link between the diverters and the anti-social behaviors and criminal activity that the City is trying to prevent. The diverters happened to be installed a year before all these issues become much more prevalent on our streets (2019), so I can understand why people think there is a correlation. But these same issues occur in many other parts of the Portland where diverters aren’t in place.
If the City does proceed with the removal of the diverters, I’d like them to commit to monthly reports on criminal activity, police calls, traffic volumes, traffic safety, etc. We cannot make decisions in vacuums and should always strive to use data to inform our decision-making. The same should be said about monitoring data to help us understand the impacts (intended or otherwise) of a policy change, or in this case a change in traffic management. If the City has a target for the number of criminal activities that they’d like to get down to, they should tell us what that is (before removing the diverter) and we (residents and community activists) should work collaboratively with the City to achieve that (along with protecting roadway safety).
I am intrigued by some who theorize the removal of these diverters is a direct quid pro quo for the homeless shelter. If that’s the case the City should state that outright. Nothing wrong with a quid pro quo as long as they are upfront and transparent.
However in my opinion Mayor Wilson should ignore the concerns from the public and implement the shelter. Just do it! We need it. All parts of Portland should get shelters, and Northwest should not be exempt or treated any differently.
Ha ha – city gov’t can barely tie its own shoes. A commitment from the city isn’t worth the crayon it’s written with.
I agree that if the City removes a traffic safety feature based on an assertion that it facilitate the reduction of crime, then a monthly demonstration of that should be required. In fact, they should perform increased patrols for 6 months where the police drive around the diverters to establish a baseline. Then they can shift the diverters, add temporary 4-way stop signs, and monitor for another 12 months. At that point, if crime rates were not impacted, then they restore the barrels. If crime rates went down, they make the 4-way stop signs permanent. If there was no change, then they go back to the drawing board and come up with a new plan to try.
If I had to put a wager on this, I would guess that increased patrols with or without moving the diverters will have a pretty modest impact on crime rates. Moving or removing the diverters is a total red herrring- the only impact they have is slowing down high speed police responses, normal patrol are not impacted now, and will not be significantly easier or faster with the diverters out of the way. The real question is: will drive-by patrols make a dent in the crime rate? That can and should be tested now, with the diverters in place
Memo to Mayor: Removing bicycle infrastructure without any (legal) public meetings is so commissioner-form-of-government. Suggestion: stop digging deeper.
“Removing bicycle infrastructure without any (legal) public meetings is so commissioner-form-of-government. ”
We gave took this power from city council members and gave it to the mayor and his unelected appointees. I’m not sure why you expected something different.
Sounds like that highway sure causes a lot of problems. Perhaps the solution is to tear it down – no highway, no unlit underpass; and so no drugs, solicitation, or anti-social activities.
Or maybe – and bear with me here – install some lighting in the underpasses? Nah, too simple. (But also tear down the highway and replace it with an elevated metro line and bike/ped path over the Fremont Bridge.)
I moved out of the neighborhood in 2017 and I remember the underpasses being a problem then – it’s so weird to blame this on the diverters! I don’t understand why cops think a highway underpass is hard to access? Or why, for that matter, they think patrolling is the best deterrent.
Homelessness, drug abuse, and untreated psychosis are a national-level crisis: difficult and expensive for our federal government to solve, much less for any individual community.
This memo presents the case that removing these diverters will help address these interlinked crises. I always try to read arguments charitably… but for crying out loud this is really weak reasoning.
Maybe on the margin, removing the diverters would improve average *response times* to some crimes. But it’s not like two-way traffic is going to better shelter people, or treat their mental illness!
And then there is the opportunity cost: from the memo’s own figures, we should expect roughly three times as many crashes!?! That’s considered balance?
Mr. Jordan and the shadowy “community” group writing this policy seem to have left a bunch of other solutions unexplored, and are putting way too much hope in this plan.
I’m left wondering if Mr. Jordan *knows* this crap is weak (in which case he’s signing his name on crap in order to satisfy someone else who is pulling the shots) or if he *doesn’t realize* this crap is weak (in which case… well, I’ll let you figure out what I mean).
What a waste of time and money.
Jordan knows and thinks diverter removal will improve NW. There’s not too much concern with the strength of the arguments, so long as they give enough cover to get the job done. What surprises me is that this is best they could muster.
Yeah, I’d be very surprised if he’s unaware of how little evidence is contained in his argument. It simply needs to be sound-bited through the TV media, and most people will take it for face value since it’s coming from an office. Few voters will care/be aware of the background. However transparent, the memo presents a false but plausible argument to the general public, and that’s all Wilson needs to prevent the quid pro quo from being analyzed by anyone outside the street safety network.
We need to get SD on the KATU story ASAP! “Do diverters prevent the police from adequately addressing crime?” PBoT news release, advocate sound bite, driver, neighborhood spokesperson, cut to ad.
Here’s their justification, in simple terms:
so to summarize, the police are so lazy and so refuse to be under civilian control that unless we pat their heads and tell them what good boys they are and then remove literally all obstacles in their path, they wont do their jobs?
“because of traffic diverters, cops do not drive down the street”
Not even! They drive southbound down the street on patrol! They can go around the diverter in an emergency! They just can’t patrol southbound AND northbound on that one street!
Pretty neat that before I read this memo, my opinion was “evidence based safety improvements are being torn out because of NIMBY complaints using the pretext of public safety (excluding traffic safety from the definition of public safety, of course” and this memo more or less outlines a process wherein NIMBY complaints were used to justify removing effective public safety interventions.
I also like the total lack of forethought here:
“…probably at some point PPB needs to adapts it policies and tactics to that new infrastructure landscape, why not start now?”
Right!? PPB is like “our police hand book on apprehending criminals is based on “COPS” episode #152 filmed in Dallas, Texas in 1997. Therefore, we need to make the Portland landscape more like the one used in the 3rd car chase so that we can implement effective policing.”
City Administrator Michael Jordan acknowledges that the diverters have reduced crashes involving pedestrians, cyclists, and cars from 9 to 3 involving only cars in 4.5 years. Removing the diverters will presumably result in a return to the prior crash pattern. So it’s a tradeoff between safety for pedestrians and bicyclists versus quality of life issues. I don’t discount the neighborhood impact of those issues, but crashes often have a major impact on the individuals involved. The Administrator is making a choice that may be good for nearby residents and businesses but is not good for everyone else.
Next person hit by a car in these streets will be able to sue the city for knowingly increasing the crash risks.
They’d have a stronger argument than most, but they’d still be unlikely to prevail on the merits. As long as the street is designed to some reference spec for safety, the courts will say the city is acting with due diligence. Ironically, threats of litigation like this can often be hurdles towards going off script to build safer streets, rather than motivation to do so.
On a bike tour about 10 years ago I enjoyed how relatively comfortable biking around was in Portland compared to most of the rest of the ~25 cities I passed through. As a result I have been interested in moving to Portland for a while to continue my career in planning. I’ve learned a lot about how the sausage is made in Portland’s transportation network through these posts and everyone’s comments, along with the archived Broadway posts; probably more than I have in many hours of independent research preparing for a move there.
It seems like you have to fight for years to get anything done, produce a lot of beautiful PDFs and do a lot of advanced traffic analysis, countless listening sessions with the people privileged enough to attend the meetings, trawl through public feedback data that people use as a sounding board for some pretty awful opinions… but undoing it happens with no democratic process, data, or transparency, virtually overnight. I have seen the same thing happen here at the local level in Western Massachusetts and it is infuriating, but we have nowhere near the same strength of a bike community to push back. I hope that your reporting on this can result in some course correction by the time I get out there.
Despite bullshit like this, PDX is a great city for biking.
Definitely not platinum, however.
PDX is great for biking because the Mt Hood freeway was killed. Without that, PDX is mid-tier at best with very little actual biking infrastructure.
While I thank the kitty gods relentlessly that we are not burdened with another freeway, there’s tons of good biking outside of SE the quality of which depends little on whether or not SE is destroyed by a freeway. I’m also not sure I would call the absence of a freeway ‘biking infrastructure’.
Thanks Karl, it’s great to get outsider perspective. Sure you don’t want to move to Northampton? Probably one of my favorite cities to bike in MA. The MCRT is also getting really close to ridable.
I’m not buying it: That improving road safety by calming traffic increases crime and antisocial behavior. I need more evidence to be convinced. Did the diverters encourage an act of arson that would not have happened otherwise? I’m highly skeptical. I see Dana Dickman is copied. I will be both concerned and disappointed if our VZ lead quietly sits back and lets this play out without making a statement of their own. I’ve been under the impression that Portland VZ defers to the police and/or is reluctant to take a stance against any of their practices which increase road danger (high-speed chases, for example). To remove diverters is to signal road safety concerns are not important. Now is the time to stand up and speak out VZ staff. To not do so will only further convince people that our VZ program is not a sincere or effective one
I was convinced a long time ago, unfortunately. They aren’t serious – these efforts are purely *performative.*
Maybe I’m nitpicking here, but while I do believe the diverter on 20th was installed in 2019, the diverter on Johnson was installed in 2021. And while there certainly are issues along 405, those issues predated 2021 (indeed, I’m very confident in saying they were worse in 2020 before the diverter than they are now after the diverter).
Yes they got the date for the diverter on NW Johnson wrong. It was 2021, not 2019. And yes, maybe a nitpick but to me it exemplifies the lack of respect and rigor they’ve taken to this entire episode. Like, come on man, get your facts straight.
Johnson hasn’t gotten as much scrutiny, but it is telling that with the primary complaint being “darkness” the solution of “lights” are not proposed, but instead the solution is “more cars in the darkness.”
Who’s “NW Subdistrict Problem Solvers”? that’s been meeting every two weeks. I take my bike out of the back of my apartment complex on 20th between Burnside and Everett most days and some nights to bicycle – through the diverters and often through Couch Park- to the gym, stores, restaurants, and other recreation in the NW district. I’ve never sen a notice about any “NW subdistrict problem solvers” meeting.
I would likely not go to restaurants and businesses on 21st as much without this diverter.
Also, I see families with kids regularly walking to and from Couch park on 20th between the diverters and the park. If feels safer, quieter, happier and is definitely less polluted than if there were more cars.
Additionally, an “all- way stop” at Everett and 20th is just a waste of money– Everett’s already one way and there’s a light half a block back at 20th place that gives natural pauses in the traffic.
If the police want to patrol 20th and Couch Park, the best, easiest, and most cost effective way is on a bicycle. (By the way, I feel much less “at risk” from the unhoused folks in Couch Park than I do from the police, and I’m a 5’2″ white woman)
Doesn’t the City have a Budget Deficit? Why are they making excuses to destroy something that works?
or a motorcycle? Or a camera? Or just walk the beat? If there is so much crime here, cops should be walking here.