In this email
- When will the Portland 2024 Deadly Traffic Crash Report be available?
- Vision Zero in the community
- What is the state of biking in Portland? Take survey before March 7
- Watch our Vision Zero traffic engineer on social media
- Recent and upcoming changes to speed limits
- High Crash Network projects
- Vision Zero Dashboard: Monthly, updated deadly crash data
- Remember to say crash, not accident!
- Free Vision Zero stickers, brochures, fliers, and yard signs
- Personal safety resources
- What we're reading
When will the Portland 2024 Deadly Traffic Crash Report be available?
Each winter, Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) evaluates and analyzes the previous calendar year's deadly traffic crashes in Portland and reports on local trends.
Understanding the circumstances and factors associated with the loss of each of these lives is core to our work. The people who have died on Portland’s streets were children, parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, neighbors, and friends. Their lives were cut short. Their loss has left gaping holes in the hearts of those who knew them and loved them.
PBOT is expecting to publish the 2024 report next week. To create the report, the Vision Zero team uses finalized and preliminary traffic death data from the Oregon Department of Transportation and Portland Police Bureau.
Learn more about the Annual Deadly Traffic Crash Report
Vision Zero in the community
Vision Zero uses layers of protection to keep people on our streets safe from traffic death and serious injuries. In our Safe System approach, these layers are safe speeds, safe streets, safe people, safe vehicles, and post-crash response. While crash data suggest that certain factors have an outsized impact on traffic safety, e.g., impairment, speed, street design, and vehicle size, we also focus on education and raising public awareness to build those layers of protection.
"Safe people" means we share responsibility
"Safe people" means we all have responsibility for the safety of ourselves and others as we travel on Portland streets. Our Vision Zero Action Plan Update 2023-25 lists several "safe people" actions that will help us create a transportation system that allows all people to feel safe getting where they need to go. We've already completed a few of these actions; for example, we finished the Beyond Traffic Safety: Building community belonging and safety in public spaces report and toolkit last year. This is a resource that both Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) and the community can use to identify ways to incorporate a sense of personal safety into capital projects and public space programming.
Engaging with groups who are disproportionately impacted by traffic violence
Recently, we made progress on an action that directs us to engage with groups who are disproportionately impacted by traffic violence: community members experiencing homelessness. According to the most recent deadly traffic crash report, community members experiencing homelessness comprise an estimated 0.6% of Multnomah County’s population yet made up 19% of traffic deaths in Portland in 2023. These statistics speak to the extreme risks of persistent exposure to traffic, often on high-speed streets.
Low visibility is also a deadly factor for pedestrians and particularly for people experiencing homelessness, who may be more likely to walk, bike, roll, or take transit to get where they need to go at night. Consider this: between 2020 and 2023, 83% of all pedestrian deaths occurred in low-light conditions (dusk, nighttime, and dawn). That's why PBOT is working to improve visibility for people walking, biking, rolling, and taking transit—both through short-term solutions like distributing handheld lights and long-term investments in better street lighting.
Light up the night for safety!
Providing community members with solutions that address visibility is a critical step in preventing traffic deaths. So, guided by policy and data, Vision Zero staff and volunteers took to the streets this winter to distribute handheld lights to people walking, biking, rolling, and taking transit at three of Portland's highest-crash intersections: E Burnside Street and NE 122nd Avenue, NE 82nd Avenue and Jonesmore Street, and NE 122nd Avenue near Glisan Street.
Although conditions were bitterly cold, people on the street were thankful for the lights and optimistic in their utility. Many said the lights would make it easier for them to be seen in the dark. Right away, people attached the lights to their bikes, carts, and backpacks or purses, making themselves more visible to others on the street. People driving by showed their support, waving as they passed by “slow speeds save lives” signs, a reminder of the importance of safe driving.
Long-term investments
Our efforts to increase visibility on the street go well beyond distributing handheld lights. PBOT is investing more than $16.5 million in street lighting improvements on Portland’s highest-crash streets and intersections. This includes funding from Fixing Our Streets, Portland’s voter-approved 10-cent gas tax and heavy vehicle use tax. Thanks to these investments, PBOT manages over 50,000 LED streetlights citywide. These LED streetlights provide better illumination and use 50% less energy than older lights—helping everyone get where they need to go safely.
Learn more about Vision Zero's Safe System approach
What is the state of biking in Portland? Take survey before March 7
Portland is known as a bike-friendly city, but do Portlanders feel the same way? Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) wants to know what you think about bicycling, whether you currently bike or not. Our short survey (takes about 5 minutes) will help inform future planning and community engagement at PBOT. All answers are anonymous, and you can enter for a chance to win a $50 Visa gift card at the end of the survey!
Be part of this important research project and help improve Portland by taking the survey, coordinated by NW Opinions, before it closes on Friday, March 7.
Take the bicycling survey before March 7
Watch our Vision Zero traffic engineer on social media
Meet our Vsion Zero traffic engineer, Marisa! Her job is to investigate and respond to deadly crashes, review our crash data, deliver traffic improvements on the High Crash Network, and coordinate across the bureau with other engineers to ensure we are working toward our Vision Zero goal to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries on Portland's streets.
Recently, Marisa was out on N Portland Road, where Portland Bureau of Transportation's (PBOT) Maintenance Operations group had just finished installing a concrete Jersey barrier road partition to create a path for pedestrians. This path will help people traveling to and from the new N Portland Road shelter site, which we recently wrote about in our December newsletter. In the video, Marisa measures the pathway to ensure it meets the 6-foot criteria. This is a low-cost, quick-delivery safety treatments PBOT identified to improve the half-mile street segment between the shelter site and nearby essential services.
Watch the video and learn more about the N Portland Road project
Recent and upcoming changes to speed limits
Speed is a top contributing factor to traffic deaths
The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), as committed to in the Vision Zero Action Plan Update 2023-25, is updating speed limits citywide to set safe travel speeds. Why? Because speed is a top contributing factor to traffic deaths. At least 42% of deadly crashes in recent years involve speed. And as people travel faster, the risk of death or serious injury rises dramatically. For example, a pedestrian struck by a person driving at 40 mph is eight times more likely to die than a pedestrian struck at 20 mph.
Recent changes
Locations where PBOT reduced the speed limit in the past three months:
30 to 25 mph
- N Argyle Street/Way from Interstate Avenue to Columbia Boulevard
- SE 92nd Avenue from 91st Place to Reedway Street
- SW Huber Street from Capitol Highway to 35th Avenue
Upcoming changes
Locations where PBOT recently received approval from the Oregon Department of Transportation to reduce the speed limit in the past three months. PBOT will post new speed limit signs in the upcoming months:
35 to 30 mph
- NE Holman Street/105th Avenue from Sandy Boulevard to Airport Way
30 to 25 mph
- SW Vermont Street from Oleson Road to 30th Avenue
- NW Miller from Cornell to Thompson roads
- NE Fremont Avenue from SE 102nd to 122nd avenues
- SE 92nd Avenue from Lincoln Street to 91st Place
PBOT speed limit map
PBOT's speed limit map shows the locations and extents of speed limits on Portland's streets—excluding freeways. (Please note that it may be several months before the map displays the updated speed limits due to limited staff capacity.)
Learn more about PBOT's speed limit map
High Crash Network projects
The Portland Bureau of Transportation prioritizes safety investments in Portland's highest-crash streets and intersections. These 30 streets with the most serious crashes represent 8% of Portland streets yet account for 62% of traffic deaths in recent years. The High Crash Network also disproportionately intersects with communities with higher proportions of people of color and lower median incomes.
Recently completed projects
- Brentwood-Darlington Multimodal Improvements
- Central Eastside Access and Circulation
- 82nd Avenue Critical Fixes: Street Lighting
Projects under construction
- NE Killingsworth Safer Crossings Project
- SW Fourth Avenue Improvement Project
- 82nd Avenue Critical Fixes: Klickitat to Lambert and Beech and Ash crossings, Major Maintenance
- Marine Drive Fatal Crash Intervention (NE 33rd Avenue to 185th Drive) *no project webpage
Learn more about the High Crash Network
Vision Zero Dashboard: Monthly, updated deadly crash data
The Portland Bureau of Transportation's Vision Zero Dashboard provides an overview of traffic safety improvements from the past five to 10 years—as well as data relating to our performance measures.
The Vision Zero team updates the dashboard regularly. Preliminary deadly crash data is updated monthly, while other data is updated quarterly or annually based on availability from our program partners, including the Portland Police Bureau.
Learn more about the Vision Zero Dashboard
Remember to say crash, not accident!
We’re inviting our community to change the way we talk about crashes. We want to shift the broad cultural perception that crashes are inevitable and remind each other that they are predictable and preventable. A Vision Zero approach refuses to accept traffic violence as a byproduct of “just the way things are.” So, will you join us?
Learn more about why we say crash, not accident
Free Vision Zero stickers, brochures, fliers, and yard signs
Help educate family, friends, neighbors, your school, or your organization about Vision Zero, Portland's commitment to eliminate serious and fatal traffic injuries.
- Order and receive in the mail stickers, brochures, and fliers.
- Pick-up a yard sign from the Portland Building front desk
Learn more about how to get free Vision Zero materials
Personal safety resources
We want to help create a transportation system that allows all people to feel safe getting where they need to go. Check out our webpage full of resources that address personal safety on our streets, including information about how to:
- report a non-urgent traffic safety concern,
- sign-up for a personal safety workshop,
- report a bias incident or hate crime,
- stand up against street harassment, and more.
PDX 311 is available to help with any local government questions or service needs. Staff are fluent in English, Spanish, Romanian, and Tagalog and have resources for additional languages.
Learn more about personal safety resources
What we're reading
- What if we thought of our daily commute as a team sport? (Behavioral Scientist)
- Does car dependence make people unsatisfied with life? Evidence from a U.S. national survey (Travel Behaviour and Society)
- Walkability isn’t just good urban planning: It’s a public health intervention (The Urbanist)
- How a century-old traffic policy made streets deadly for pedestrians (Fast Company)
- Mode switch: How cities are engineering the bicycle revolution (Esri Blog)
- Denver paid people to bike in ‘a fascinating psychological experiment.’ Here’s what 6 riders learned (Denverite)
- What can cities do to protect public spaces from vehicle attacks? (Bloomberg CityLab)
- Why right turns on red are bad for traffic safety (Planetizen)
- “When you design roads, that is public health.” (Harvard Public Health)
- Deadly decade: U.S. traffic deaths soar by 30% since 2014 (The National News Desk)
Parts of this document were drafted with the support of ChatGPT. The content was edited and fact-checked by city staff.