Looking southwest at the intersection of Northeast Cully and Killingsworth.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

51-year-old northeast Portland resident Alberto Canche-Mukel remains in the hospital with serious injuries after a traffic collision late last night.
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BREAKING: A bike rider is struck by a vehicle near 122nd and Division. Condition unknown. Will have updates shortly pic.twitter.com/f5dR4L0vyb

— Andrew Dymburt (@DymburtNews) June 22, 2017

Portland Police are responding to a serious injury collision that happened at the 2300 block of SE 122nd Avenue tonight.

The collision was between someone driving a car and a bicycle rider. The injuries to the bicycle rider have been described by police as “critical” and “traumatic.” The driver remained at the scene. No other details have been released.
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Duncan and his family in the hospital back in March.
(Photos courtesy the Duncan family)

It’s been almost a year since Brian Duncan’s life changed forever. On March 30th the 37-year-old was on his bike, rolling across North Rosa Parks Way at Delaware when another man, 84-year-old Louis Hellbusch, failed to stop his car for a red light.

The impact left Duncan paralyzed and facing a new direction in his life and that of his wife and three-year-old daughter. That new life now includes a new home — one built to handle Duncan’s lifelong needs.

Duncan was a board member of the Arbor Lodge Neighborhood Association and this crash reverberated throughout the community. Last September his friends and neighbors held a candlelight vigil to raise awareness of street safety in the close-knit north Portland neighborhood — which was the site of two traffic deaths in the six months following Duncan’s collision.

Today the Duncan family is supported by an A-list team that’s helping them build a new, ADA accessible home. The project is called Two Blocks North and they’ve already raised over $40,000, nearly one-third of their goal.

“Biking was a major part of our lives and that’s been taken away,” Duncan said in a statement released through the project. “I feel lucky to be alive but that doesn’t change the reality of our situation.”
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The intersection of Columbia and Midway. George Middle School is on the left in the background.

According to the Portland Police Bureau, the crash happened at around 7:45 am this morning at North Columbia Boulevard and Midway — right across the street from George Middle School. The Oregonian has confirmed that the boy is an incoming freshman at nearby Roosevelt High School and was headed to his first day of classes.

As you can see in the photos below, Columbia Blvd is a major industrial freight route with a wide, five-lane cross-section. And Midway is at an angled intersection. The street is so dangerous to cross and so close to a school that it has one of those walking bridges that goes up and over it (bridges that planners and engineers often see as symbolic of a failed street). The speed limit is 40 mph at this location. There’s a speed reader board a few tenths of a mile from the collision site which means that PBOT has been trying to slow speeds down in this area.
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View southbound on 15th with eastbound Weidler traffic on the right.

Here’s something you don’t hear about very often. In fact, I don’t recall this ever happening…

According to the Portland Police Bureau 50-year-old Donna Leslie was biking south on NE 15th this morning at about 7:15 am and was involved in a collision when she attempted to cross NE Weidler (map). 49-year-old David Kennedy was driving his car eastbound and police say he had the green light prior to the crash.

Leslie, a City of Portland employee who works in the Portland Parks & Recreation Bureau, was transported to the hospital via ambulance. The extent of her injuries are unknown at this time but police say they’re not expected to be life-threatening.

After hearing about this crash on Twitter, we followed up with PPB Spokesman Peter Simpson. Simpson said responding officers interviewed witnesses and conducted an investigation. “Multiple witnesses told police that Leslie was riding her bicycle southbound on 15th Avenue and failed to stop at the red light at Weidler,” Simpson shared with us via email. Based on this, officers issued two citations to Leslie: one for Careless Driving (with a crash, ORS 811.135) and one for Failure to Obey a Traffic Control Device.
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The scene of the crash. George was taken to hospital with what police describe as “non-life-threatening” injuries.
(Photos: Josh Berezin)

Sorry to be the bearer of more bad news, but there’s been another traffic collision that sent a person to the hospital.
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Brian Duncan was seriously injured while trying to cross Rosa Parks at Delaware last night. This is the view looking westbound just before the intersection.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

Since Sunday night we’ve been following two crashes that involve people who were riding bicycles in north Portland. The first happened late Sunday night (3/27) at North Lombard and Jordan Avenue. The most recent one happened just last night on North Rosa Parks Way at Delaware. Here’s the latest information we have on both of them…
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Crosswalk on Division between 142nd and 143rd.

There’s been yet another crash in Portland involving a vulnerable road user. It marks a very troubling start to 2016 that should force the city to do a gut-check about its commitment to Vision Zero.
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OregonLive.com coverage of Saturday’s fatal encounter.

I spent five years in daily newspapers. I get it. Everyone has an axe to grind; it is not your job to grind their axes for them.

When you use the word “accident” in a story about a man who allegedly decided to get drunk and zoom down an East Portland side street in a pickup truck, presumably getting a nice bounce over the speed bumps right before he killed a 17-year old on a bicycle, some people get upset.

Use “crash” or “collision,” they plead. Not “accident.”

I got these comments myself sometimes after I’d worked weekend shifts at my last newspaper, The Columbian, and for years I ignored them.

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SW Park Street, a bit south of the incident described.
(Photo: Marilyn M)

Here’s a troubling incident that doesn’t directly involve a bike, but certainly could have.

Less than a month after Portland became one of the first cities to legalize Internet-based ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, it calls into question the street culture that such services could be creating.

According to a local lawyer, it seems to qualify as a hit-and-run. Police are declining to investigate.

Here’s the account from reader John E. (emphases mine):

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