Portland likes its bikes. It likes its walkability. It’s cars? If you are judging by the transportation projects PBOT has invested in to improve Portland streets…not so much. Outer SE Division has always been a sore subject for transportation planners in the city of Portland. It is a “high-crash corridor” that claimed the lives of 20 people in a dozen year period prior to the project lauded as a fix for the dangers of this thoroughfare, and it was named, rather predictably, the “Outer Division Safety Project.” The idea was to build transportation infrastructure between SE 80
Making roads unpredictable and adding strange markings and changing traffic patterns is distracting for drivers. Not only do you have to watch the traffic around you, you have to watch out for pedestrians (some drugged up) walking out in front of you, bicyclists flying through stop signs, and now drivers have to watch out for the PBOTstacles (PBOT-obstacles).
I'm glad the business owners are fighting back! Community organizing works.
This will soon be 82nd Avenue unless we can convince Millicent Williams to actually talk to the business along it. David & I attended the EPAP meetings which were sparsely attended so I'm sure many of the businesses had no idea what they were about to endure. EPAP was focused on pedestrian and bicycles. The idea behind all of these road diets (in my opinion) is to get cars off the roads. However, it does not take into account the number of days of rain we get or the number of aging and disabled people in Portland. They also don't consider the number of sidewalks we do have that are occupied by the homeless that pedestrians can't actually use! ☺
As someone does roadway engineering for a living, I would like to correct a few things in this article.
Road Contracts - By law, projects over a certain size require full public bidding. So no, former Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty couldn't "decide" to give a friend this project. All the bid documents and the bid award documents are public records and can reviewed at any time. If you are alleging there was malfeasance of any kind in the bidding process, there are both state and federal rewards for uncovering said malfeasance.
Road Diets - Road diets aren't based on European road usage, they are based on two separate realities that converge onto the idea of road diets. 1) There is only a certain width of right-of-way available for roadway infrastructure. Therefore, if one type of use takes most or all of that width, other uses, including those that have other benefits, are squeezed out. 2) Research has shown that the standards first setup for highways are exceedingly dangerous when applied to urban streets - obviously to those not in cars, but also the drivers of those cares themselves. (I want to be clear in stating this is for urban streets with multiple uses happening. The wider roads and shoulders are safer for rural roads and highways.) A good starting point to understand this is the Grist article "Here’s why narrower streets are safer". It points to studies explaining the relationship between narrower (and fewer) lanes make roads safer for everyone. Between these two things, you end up with is a finite width of roadway and a growing number of studies and examples (including from Europe) that show a narrower area for vehicles and more area for other users (bikers/walkers) not only is safer for everyone, it encourages people to use modes of transport other than cars. (A great visual of this is Not Just Bikes' video "Even Small Towns are Great Here".) If you think its some mamby-pamby liberal thing, please spend some time learning about Strong Towns, a city design advocacy organization started by Charles Mahron, a died-in-the-wool libertarian, who wanted to make cities both self-sufficient and safer. As he found out, the way we used to make cities and roads actually was better financially and way safer. The results of returning cities to what works from a safety and fiscally conservative standpoint looks a lot like what you get with road diets.
Vision Zero - I have a lot of issues with American idea of Vision Zero. Its expensive, its intrusive and it doesn't work. I also don't care for the term "vehicular violence" either. However, the idea that accidents never are skewed to one set of users or another is just wrong. Ever since man has had laws, there has been an understanding that certain things are more dangerous, just by existing, and that out of control in someway, that thing would do violence. The idea that either being careless or not attentive enough about a thing means they are more responsible is written into some of the oldest laws on the planet, see Exodus 21:28-29 as and example. The point being that as a pilot of 2-3 ton vehicle, you should be way more careful of others who are not. That means, yeah, driving slower, and not using your car as rolling living room. That also means if you are mid-slurp in that shake or fiddling with your radio and plow a pedestrian because you were distracted, you should be held to higher standard, whether or not you intended to do "violence". Other countries have laws where operator of the larger vehicle has the burden of safety and responsibility if something happens. Its not some weird conspiracy to tie the greater ability to hurt to greater levels of responsibility.
Accident rates - Automobile accident rates are going up everyone and the reason isn't some version Vision Zero. The CNBC article "More people are dying on U.S. roads, even as cars get safer. Here’s why it’s a tough problem to solve" walks through basics. But again, there are ways to fix this problem. Enforcement is a huge part of it, especially for speeding and distracted driving. But its not happening because someone used a buzzword.
The medians on Division are mess, true. Its the sad result of trying not to do more European-style streets. Without being in the room, I can tell you there was a tug-of-war in the design team between those trying to get more stuff in the space and those trying to keep cars flying along. If have the former and the latter, you have to limit how people can move, which is what the medians do. (I know, I've been part of that tug-of-war before.) There could be a completely safe Division for everyone without medians, but its going to look a lot more European and drivers won't be able yack on the phone and suck down a large coke while going 40mph in a Suburban.
Of course accidents increased.
Making roads unpredictable and adding strange markings and changing traffic patterns is distracting for drivers. Not only do you have to watch the traffic around you, you have to watch out for pedestrians (some drugged up) walking out in front of you, bicyclists flying through stop signs, and now drivers have to watch out for the PBOTstacles (PBOT-obstacles).
I'm glad the business owners are fighting back! Community organizing works.
This will soon be 82nd Avenue unless we can convince Millicent Williams to actually talk to the business along it. David & I attended the EPAP meetings which were sparsely attended so I'm sure many of the businesses had no idea what they were about to endure. EPAP was focused on pedestrian and bicycles. The idea behind all of these road diets (in my opinion) is to get cars off the roads. However, it does not take into account the number of days of rain we get or the number of aging and disabled people in Portland. They also don't consider the number of sidewalks we do have that are occupied by the homeless that pedestrians can't actually use! ☺
As someone does roadway engineering for a living, I would like to correct a few things in this article.
Road Contracts - By law, projects over a certain size require full public bidding. So no, former Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty couldn't "decide" to give a friend this project. All the bid documents and the bid award documents are public records and can reviewed at any time. If you are alleging there was malfeasance of any kind in the bidding process, there are both state and federal rewards for uncovering said malfeasance.
Road Diets - Road diets aren't based on European road usage, they are based on two separate realities that converge onto the idea of road diets. 1) There is only a certain width of right-of-way available for roadway infrastructure. Therefore, if one type of use takes most or all of that width, other uses, including those that have other benefits, are squeezed out. 2) Research has shown that the standards first setup for highways are exceedingly dangerous when applied to urban streets - obviously to those not in cars, but also the drivers of those cares themselves. (I want to be clear in stating this is for urban streets with multiple uses happening. The wider roads and shoulders are safer for rural roads and highways.) A good starting point to understand this is the Grist article "Here’s why narrower streets are safer". It points to studies explaining the relationship between narrower (and fewer) lanes make roads safer for everyone. Between these two things, you end up with is a finite width of roadway and a growing number of studies and examples (including from Europe) that show a narrower area for vehicles and more area for other users (bikers/walkers) not only is safer for everyone, it encourages people to use modes of transport other than cars. (A great visual of this is Not Just Bikes' video "Even Small Towns are Great Here".) If you think its some mamby-pamby liberal thing, please spend some time learning about Strong Towns, a city design advocacy organization started by Charles Mahron, a died-in-the-wool libertarian, who wanted to make cities both self-sufficient and safer. As he found out, the way we used to make cities and roads actually was better financially and way safer. The results of returning cities to what works from a safety and fiscally conservative standpoint looks a lot like what you get with road diets.
Vision Zero - I have a lot of issues with American idea of Vision Zero. Its expensive, its intrusive and it doesn't work. I also don't care for the term "vehicular violence" either. However, the idea that accidents never are skewed to one set of users or another is just wrong. Ever since man has had laws, there has been an understanding that certain things are more dangerous, just by existing, and that out of control in someway, that thing would do violence. The idea that either being careless or not attentive enough about a thing means they are more responsible is written into some of the oldest laws on the planet, see Exodus 21:28-29 as and example. The point being that as a pilot of 2-3 ton vehicle, you should be way more careful of others who are not. That means, yeah, driving slower, and not using your car as rolling living room. That also means if you are mid-slurp in that shake or fiddling with your radio and plow a pedestrian because you were distracted, you should be held to higher standard, whether or not you intended to do "violence". Other countries have laws where operator of the larger vehicle has the burden of safety and responsibility if something happens. Its not some weird conspiracy to tie the greater ability to hurt to greater levels of responsibility.
Accident rates - Automobile accident rates are going up everyone and the reason isn't some version Vision Zero. The CNBC article "More people are dying on U.S. roads, even as cars get safer. Here’s why it’s a tough problem to solve" walks through basics. But again, there are ways to fix this problem. Enforcement is a huge part of it, especially for speeding and distracted driving. But its not happening because someone used a buzzword.
The medians on Division are mess, true. Its the sad result of trying not to do more European-style streets. Without being in the room, I can tell you there was a tug-of-war in the design team between those trying to get more stuff in the space and those trying to keep cars flying along. If have the former and the latter, you have to limit how people can move, which is what the medians do. (I know, I've been part of that tug-of-war before.) There could be a completely safe Division for everyone without medians, but its going to look a lot more European and drivers won't be able yack on the phone and suck down a large coke while going 40mph in a Suburban.
Fun fact: Raimore Construction - Jeff Moreland and Andre Raiford are the principals in this business. Andre Raiford's niece is Teressa Raiford. Here's a picture of them together: https://www.theskanner.com/news/northwest/21954-development-wraps-black-history-and-career-education-into-preservation-project
Everyone knows everyone in this town.