The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) will reduce the number of driving lanes and add a new crossing treatment on a stretch of Cesar E Chavez Blvd where a woman was hit and killed by a driver one year ago.
PBOT won a grant last year through the Oregon Department of Transportation’s All Roads Transportation Safety Program (ARTS) that will fund a $2,232,000 project to reduce Cesar Chavez Blvd from four lanes to three lanes between SE Lafayette (just south of Powell) to SE Schiller. The project will also rebuild the traffic signal at SE Holgate (to protect driver left turns) and relocate the bus stop at SE Holgate closer to the crosswalk.
A three-lane cross-section (one in each direction plus a center turn lane) gives PBOT the ability to build safer crossings. They intend to add $550,000 in their own funding (from the Fixing Our Streets program which is funded through the voter-approved local gas tax) to add one new crossing. The plans are not finalized yet, but the crossing could come with a concrete median island, curb extensions, and a marked crosswalk and new lighting. The three crossing locations under consideration are SE Schiller, SE Francis and SE Cora.
The lack of safety on Cesar Chavez Blvd has been a hot topic for many years as fatal collisions with walkers and bikers have piled up.
In January, 2025, 71-year-old Tuyet Nguyen was walking across SE Cora and Cesar Chavez when she was hit and killed by someone’s car. In a brief description of the project, PBOT acknowledged the tragic legacy of Cesar Chavez Blvd. “The community is very interested in getting more crossings on SE Chavez. There have been several recent pedestrian fatalities on Chavez, including at SE Cora St.”
This project is still in development and PBOT is just beginning to reach out to the community for feedback. If you’d like to learn more, the project team plans to attend the Woodstock Neighborhood Association meeting on Wednesday, February 4th at 7:00 pm (on Zoom or at Woodstock Community Center, 5905 SE 43rd Ave).
Thanks for reading.
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I don’t know it could interfere with traffic on Powell and what if people divert to McLoughlin. Better check with ODOT first to make sure they won’t veto this too.
There have been 4th pedestrian deaths on 39th in the last 5 years, yet only one has spurred action from the city?
EXACTLY the point I was going to make. This street is a DEADLY STREET, but PBOT cannot conceive of making it a safe street. As I have repeatedly noted, PBOT Director Millicent Williams was terrified by spending a few minutes sitting at the bus stop where a driver killed Jeanie Diaz, yet she has done nothing to make that intersection safer. And since Diaz’s death, others have died on Chavez.
This street was designed to have one lane of motor vehicle traffic in each direction, and as long as PBOT keeps TWICE AS MANY LANES OF SPEEDING TRAFFIC as the street was designed for, along most of the street, it is an indication of PBOT’s priorities.
As I have repeatedly noted, PBOT could also use existing traffic lights to slow traffic, by having them AUTOMATICALLY turn red at shorter intervals. They could end turning on red. They could … oh why bother listing all the simple low cost/no cost ways to make the streets safer, when Director Williams doesn’t care if more people die on Chavez?
“Director Williams doesn’t care if more people die on Chavez?”
Is that even remotely fair?
Yes, it is. Caring in Portland is almost always performative. If you were a grieving friend or family member, you’d want action, not performance of caring, which is what Portland officials are mostly good at.
from a distance, inaction and a lack of care look awfully similar to me.
This is an article about PBOT spending money to make Chavez a safer street, so I’m actually not sure what you’re on about.
Look at the comment Lois responded to:
Lois responded:
Then adds more explanation.
It seems clear to me what Lois in “on about”.
I would love a crossing on Francis! Aside from the safety issue, maybe it would be a good start to making the street a greenway, as they considered a few years ago.
As soon as drivers exit the 3-lane area they hit the pedal to the metal and speed even more, so I feel sorry for people living just beyond the project boundaries.
Well, Chavez already goes down to two lanes at Schiller, so no worries on that end. And since the light at Powell is red about 35% of the time (BS estimate on my part), there won’t be too much flooring it into the 4-lane stretch.
But yes, Chavez from Powell to Sandy will remain a deathtrap for the foreseeable future (and the several blocks just north of Powell have always been one of the most harrowing stretches, IMHO).
Yeah, there is only one crossing – at Franklin b/c the Creston elementary school boundary extends into a sliver across Chavez. Then there is nothing until Clinton. Mostly b/c the streets to the east all dead-end from Kelly until Brooklyn, I imagine.
David, that’s the “We can’t ever regulate anything” argument, which is beneath you.
If Chavez is already dangerous (and it is), then efforts to make it safer are worthwhile, even if they don’t improve safety 100%.
There’s this weird neurosis about being able to pass. I think that’s what causes the pushback to road diets. Even if a 1+1+turn lane makes traffic flow more consistently, or at the very least the same, the popular thinking seems to be that ‘slow drivers’ “cause traffic” (all drivers cause traffic lol) and being able to pass them is a god-given right that cannot be taken away.
There’s a lot of evidence that 4 to 3 conversions reduce conflict points. Generally, they also have fairly similar capacity where some are successful at >20k ADT. That means that most of Cesar Chavez might fit that redesign.
I completely agree with you, and had PBOT proposed a project to put in a series of choke points all along the way, I would support the project; but building just one is not only asking for more crashes elsewhere, and clearly phase 2 in a later year followed by phase 3 years later and 4 further out calls for increasing funding through phases for PBOT, which I find blatantly cynical on their part – they are more interested in funding staff personnel in the future than in providing needed safety that is needed right now. They did it this way for years in East Portland and now they are doing it citywide.
I’m also surprised by the cost – it looks far higher than it should be – but no doubt that’s from my living in NC where our local costs are much lower for similar projects.
I would love to see a graphic showing the where the serious crashes and deaths have occured on Cesar Chavez over that last 5 years with this segment highlighted. I think this is very positive step, but my first impression is that it seems pretty modest and likely chosen because it has less traffic than other segments rather than less danger.
So, I did some digging and this is as close as we’ve got right now. https://geo.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=0f2128152a764143bac02c1a869a5a51
There’s a promising one from Oregon Walks but it was only 2017-2020 sadly. Seems like a gap in mapped data.
thanks!
Take a look at City of Portland’s “Vision Zero crash map” with data in 2026. You can access it from the Vision Zero Dashboard Guide:
https://www.portland.gov/transportation/vision-zero/vision-zero-dashboard
Traffic Counts (volume, speeds, etc.) can be accessed from here:
https://www.portland.gov/transportation/traffic-operations/how-we-gather-traffic-counts
Cesar Chavez north of Powell is >10,000 ADTVolume.
Cesar Chavez south of Powell is < 10,000 ADTVolume
ADT = Average Daily Traffic
Another consideration is adjacent land use and destinations. Crossings near schools, parks, and other destinations will factor into where treatments are applied, particularly if it can move multiple objectives forward (e.g. PedPDX, Safe Routes to School, Pedestrian Districts, High Crash Corridors, etc.).
As someone who used to live just north of Powell, I’ve got to argue that a crossing at Trader Joe’s makes the most sense. Gladstone catches most of the northern portion nicely, but that extra wide section with the dog-leg/chicane in Cezar seems to always have drivers speeding up and coming directly into conflict with people walking, biking, and driving out of the TJs parking lot. It’s the perfect location to slow down drivers and give pedestrians a crossing refuge.
Wish they would keep going all the way up to Hawthorne or Hollywood.
Also curious if we will get curb bulbs at other intersections. The three lane section to the south of TJs is still VERY fast because it feels so wide and so few people are parking on the street.
This is a great point. If I can make it to the meeting, I’ll do my best to bring this up.
Agreed! I live in the neighborhood and getting across 39th to/from the TJs is a nightmare. Fewer lanes and a marked crosswalk there would be amazing.
This is great news! I used to live right there. I still drive into the neighborhood though, and this will be an improvement.
I say build all three crossings!
Based on recent history, the most effective way for a person to influence the design of a street is to die there.
PBOT has admitted this, indirectly. Until there’s sufficient evidence that an intersection is dangerous, than it is unlikely to be improved. I remember hearing this on BP articles related to the SW development and surrounding infra updates
Way back in the middle of the last century, Long St. connected Cesar Chavez (formerly 39th) and 40th Aves. There used to be a crosswalk there as a result under Oregon law that allowed people direct access to the grocery store (previously Safeway before later becoming Trader Joes). See this 1948 traffic flow map from MultCo Library which includes Long Street.
Back in the late 1970s, Woodstock Neighborhood Association petitioned for the development of 4602-4710 SE CESAR E CHAVEZ BLVD to maintain an easement for pedestrian connectivity. You can see the easement today on Google Street View. The later widening of Cesar Chavez into the 4-5 lane we all now today has diminished use of this historic crossing and reduced neighborhood connectivity.
A mid-block crossing improves pedestrian safety by designating space for people to cross, provides direct access to a grocery store, reduces speed by limiting the road space (assuming a median island refuge is paired with a 3-lane configuration), and enhances visibility of pedestrians. If the community wants to see this crossing restored now would be the time to rally in support for it.