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PBOT launches Vision Zero dashboard with new data about the city's efforts to eliminate traffic deaths and improve road safety

Blog Post
Map of Portland showing the major streets of the High Crash Network in grey and, along these streets, blue, orange, or green lines to indicate where safety projects have been completed, started, or starting soon.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) introduces the Vision Zero dashboard, a new tool to help Portlanders better understand and track the bureau's efforts to eliminate deaths and serious injuries from Portland streets.
Published

(April 8, 2021) Today, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) introduced the Vision Zero dashboard, a new tool to help Portlanders better understand and track the bureau's efforts to eliminate deaths and serious injuries from Portland streets.

The new dashboard gives a visually rich snapshot of the variety of quantifiable street improvements, speed limit changes, educational events, and other efforts underway across the city to achieve the goal of zero traffic deaths. It answers some of the most common questions PBOT receives about the city's Vision Zero work. And it will be updated quarterly, so the public can see the latest information throughout the year, without waiting for annual reports.

In a series of maps and charts, the dashboard shows the wide array of activity that goes into reducing the chances of death of serious injury on our streets.

To explore the Vision Zero dashboard, start here:

How to use the Vision Zero dashboard


Safety improvements on the High Crash Network

This section of the dashboard looks at traffic safety projects built (or which started construction) from 2014 to the present. Ranging from rapid-flashing beacons to large safety projects that rebuild long corridors, such as SE Foster Road, this section gives you a citywide look at safety projects along our High Crash Network.

High-risk speeding dropped significantly after safety projects went in on corridors like SW Capitol Highway, and along NE Glisan Street and NE 102nd Avenue in East Portland. People driving 10 mph or more above the speed limit declined by 73-87% after safety improvements were installed.

This map is not a comprehensive list of all PBOT safety projects along our High Crash Network. It may not include safety improvements from routine maintenance or paving, nor will it show projects currently being planned or designed.

 
Screen shot from the Vision Zero dasbhoard, showing a map of Portland an where safety improvements have been built along the High Crash Network. High Crash Network streets are outlined in grey. Sections of these roads are highlighted in blue (indicating where projects have been completed since 2014), orange (where projects have started), or green (where projects are starting soon).
Screen shot of the dashboard section showing where safety improvements on the High Crash Network are complete (blue), started (orange), or starting soon (green).

Lowering speed limits

This section of the dashboard shows where speed limits were reduced in 2019 and 2020PBOT lowers speed limits because it supports our goals in two ways:

  1. Safe speeds lower the risk a crash will occur.
  2. When crashes occur, safe speeds make it less likely anyone will be killed or seriously injured.

For the most part, PBOT does not have the authority to change speed limits on city streets. PBOT makes requests for speed limit reductions to the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), which controls speed limits statewide.The detail in this section of the dashboard shows speed limits before and after the reduction, and the number of miles of Portland roadwhere speeds were reduced.

These changes already show signs of cutting speeding. A Portland State University study found Portland's residential speed limit change from 25 to 20 mph reduced the odds of people driving faster than 35 mph by 50%.

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/portland.bureau.of.transportation/viz/VisionZeroDashboard_16179023789280/VisionZeroDashboard_1
Screen shot of Vision Zero dashboard showing a map of Portland and indicating where speed limits were reduced in 2019 and 2020. Streets on the High Crash Network are indicated in thick grey lines. Sections of road where speed limits were reduced are shown in a differenct colors, from light yellow, indicating 20 mph, to a dark red tone, indicating 40 mph. A bar chart to the right shows the total miles of road with speed limits reduced, per year. It indicates 60.07 miles for 2019, and 38.26 miles for 2020.
Screen shot of the dashboard section showing streets where speed limits were reduced in 2019 and 2020, with the new speed indicated from a scale of light yellow (20 mph) to darker red (40 mph). A bar graph to the right shows the total miles of road where speeds were reduced each year.

Speed safety cameras

Portland operates cameras for speed enforcement on four corridors. Unlike cameras that police use -- typically in vans that move around the city -- these "fixed" speed-safety cameras are stationary, usually mounted to a pole. This section of the dashboard has a map showing where these camera are and the speed limits along those corridors. It includes a chart showing the total number of vehicles passing by each camera over time. It also shows the number of violations issued per month, per camera.

From the data, it's clear these cameras cut speeding significantly on these four corridors, and has reduced speeding over time. After cameras were in place for two to four years, overall speeding dropped by an average of 71% and top-end speeding decreased by 94%, compared with the period before cameras were installed.


Education and outreach

Each year, Vision Zero staff host and sponsor dozens of transportation safety education and outreach events. The map in this section shows where and how often we’ve held these events, and the range of partners PBOT collaborates with. As the data illustrates, many of these community events were held on or near High Crash Corridors, the city's most dangerous streets and where PBOT concentrates its traffic safety work.

The Vision Zero program has also distributedlawn signs with safety messages such as "It's time to slow down, Portland." This section of the dashboard shows where these yard signs were distributed, by ZIP code.

Screen shot of the Vision Zero dashboard with a map of Portland showing where Vision Zero outreach events occurred 2018-2020. The High Crash Network is indicated in dark grey lines. Different colored dots sprinkle every corner of the map to indicate what type of event was held and where.
Screen shot of the dashboard section showing where Vision Zero outreach events were held 2018-2020. Larger dots indicate more events held at that location. Different colors indicate different types of events.

Crash data from Portland Fire & Rescue

Community members regularly tell PBOT they'd like to see more recent data on crashes. PBOT's Vision Zero team uses official crash data from ODOT. This source is extremely detailed, but there is typically a lag of two years for data on injury crashes to be vetted, processed, and sent to us.

To provide the community with more timely data, especially during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, PBOT collaborated with Portland Fire & Rescue to get more recent data. Fire & Rescue's emergency responders are often deployed to the scene when a crash happens. While their data is not necessarily as detailed as ODOT's, Fire & Rescue's data does provide detailed location information, and whether crashes resulted in injuries. While incomplete, this information gives PBOT a high-level understanding of what types of crashes have happened in recent months on Portland streets.

Timely data can sometimes reveal patterns and correlations. The dashboard includes a chart showing monthly crashes in 2020, showing how traffic crashes fell dramatically during stay-at-home orders, and rose again as businesses reopened. This suggests a link between the amount people drive and the number of crashes.

Screen shot of dashboard bar graph showing weekly Portland Fire & Rescue crash responses, by week. Light grey line indicates the number of crashes weekly, as an average of years 2014-2019. Dark orange line indicates number of crashes weekly in 2020. Dark grey bars on some weeks, indicate blocks of time in 2020 during stay-at-home orders, and various stages of reopening or statewide freezes due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Screen shot of the section showing weekly crash responses by Portland Fire & Rescue. Light grey line shows weekly crashes as an average of years 2014-2019. Dark orange line represents weekly crashes in 2020. Vertical bars indicate various state orders related to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

What to expect

PBOT Vision Zero staff will update the dashboard quarterly. Depending on the availability of certain data, somesections may be updated less frequently.

As safety projects move to construction or completion, the dashboard will be updated accordingly.

Twice a year, PBOT will publish summaries translated into multiple languages, then work with community-based organizations to distribute them to a broader audience of community members. All summaries will be available on our main page here:

Vision Zero website

Subscribe to our Vision Zero email list for notices when the dashboard is updated.