In this email
- PBOT releases 2024 deadly crash report, with the latest annual figures in traffic safety
- Training the next generation of e-bike delivery staff in Portland
- Ask a PBOT expert
- Vision Zero Action Plan Progress Report
- Free upcoming bike events
- Community traffic safety event - March 31
- Portland Sunday Parkways 2025 season
- Speed limit changes
- High Crash Network projects
- Access the latest deadly crash data
- Remember to say crash, not accident
- Free Vision Zero materials and yard signs
- Personal safety community resources
- What we're reading
PBOT releases 2024 deadly crash report, with the latest annual figures in traffic safety
Traffic deaths drop by 16% in Portland, but deadly trends continue on high crash streets.
In 2024, 58 people were killed in traffic crashes on Portland streets according to the Portland 2024 Deadly Traffic Crash Report, a decline of 16 percent from a record high 69 traffic deaths in 2023 and the lowest count since there were 54 people killed in 2020. This is still significantly higher than the average 41 killed in the five years before the pandemic, 2015-19.
Read the Portland 2024 Deadly Traffic Crash Report
Training the next generation of e-bike delivery staff in Portland
Last month, staff from Portland Bureau of Transportation's (PBOT) Vision Zero and Safe Routes to School programs, and The Street Trust, teamed up to help Play Grow Learn, a local community organization dedicated to healthy opportunities for homeless, sheltered, and underserved youth, develop an e-bike delivery program. Play Grow Learn will hire youth to deliver locally grown organic farm vegetables to community members living in East Portland and Rockwood.
This partnership is an example of PBOT's commitment to support youth traffic safety education, as described in the Vision Zero Action Plan Update 2023-25. This program is made possible through funding and support from partner organizations: Oregon Department of Transportation, Multnomah County's REACH program, and River City Bicycles.
Learn more about Play Grow Learn
Ask a PBOT expert
Our Vision Zero inbox is filled with thoughtful questions from community members about traffic safety—and our team works hard to provide equally thoughtful answers. These exchanges often spark meaningful conversations, and we believe they deserve a bigger audience! That’s why we’re sharing some of these question and answers in our newsletter, edited for clarity and brevity, to highlight insights and ideas that benefit us all.
Question:Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) has been reducing lanes, e.g., five to three, all over. Did I miss something? Is our city going down in usage or population? Enough! I'm aware that police can't be everywhere to enforce speed limits, but this is not the road's fault.
Answer:As part of our Vision Zero commitment to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries on Portland streets, we use a Safe System approach that considers how we can design, build, and manage a transportation network that prioritizes the lives and health of all people using the system.
Roadway reorganizations play a crucial role in this approach by changing lane configurations, restriping, and/or building new safety infrastructure, e.g., bike lanes, sidewalks, bus platforms, to slow speeds and improve safety for all road users. Fewer motor vehicle travel lanes and shorter crossings make it safer and easier for pedestrians and people biking to cross.
Our traffic safety project evaluations show that when PBOT repurposes a vehicle travel lane for other uses, travel speeds tend to go down. We also see a dramatic decrease in top-end speeding (10 mph or more over the speed limit). For example, when we completed the SE Division Street Lane Reconfiguration Project (60th to 80th avenues), we found a 56% reduction in speeding and a 50% reduction in crashes in the first year while transit travel times remained relatively unchanged.
We understand that change can be difficult to adjust to, especially if you’ve been traveling on a certain street for years. However, we want to assure you that safety is at the cornerstone of all our work, and the data reflects that intention.
Learn more about our traffic safety project evaluations
Vision Zero Action Plan Progress Report
The annual Vision Zero Action Plan Progress Report updates the public on Portland Bureau of Transportation's work to advance the Vision Zero Action Plan Update 2023-25. This report communicates the work we’ve done in the previous calendar year and calls attention to areas that need more consideration. Updates from 2024 are now online.
Read the annual Vision Zero Plan Progress Report
Free upcoming bike events
Reducing driving is core to our Vision Zero work
We can eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries in Portland by significantly changing the design of our most deadly streets to slow drivers—as well as make it easier for people to get around without a car, something that is closely correlated with traffic deaths. Below are several free events Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) created to help make biking more desirable and easier to incorporate into your daily routines!
Commute Pop-up
Tuesday, March 25
Do you work and commute into downtown Portland? Join PBOT at the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building (1220 SW 3rd Ave.) for a commute pop-up from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. to learn about different options for getting to work—including biking, carpooling, and taking transit. Free coffee and cookies!
Learn more about the Commute Pop-up event
Basic Bike Maintenance Workshop
Friday, March 28
Learn about bike maintenance and bring your bicycle to get some hands-on experience doing repairs at the Midland Library (805 SE 122nd Ave.) from 3 to 5 p.m. PBOT staff will go over the major systems on a bike, learn how to do some simple adjustments, and have time to practice flat repair.
Learn more about the Basic Bike Maintenance Workshop event
New to Portland Ride: Lents
Thursday, April 3
Are you new to town or new to cycling in Portland? Join PBOT for an evening ride from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Lents neighborhood. On this 7-mile, slow-paced ride, we will visit several community-focused spaces, from community orchards and parks to local bike shops. Come with questions about getting around by bike!
Learn more about the New to Portland Ride: Lents event
Community traffic safety event - March 31
Join friends, family, and neighbors in the Multnomah, Hayhurst, and Maplewood communities for a community traffic safety event on Monday, March 31—the day students return to school after spring break. Adults interested in attending should RSVP and report to SW 50th Avenue and Vermont Street at 8 a.m. where they will encourages drivers to slow down and drive safely in the school zone. Build community, meet neighbors, and promote Safe Routes to School, helping kids and their families walk, bike, and roll to and from school and around their neighborhoods.
Learn more about this community traffic safety event
Portland Sunday Parkways 2025 season
Celebrate the joy of walking, biking, rolling, and playing on car-free streets with the Portland Bureau of Transportation during the 2025 Portland Sunday Parkways season, presented by Kaiser Permanente!
- Southwest Portland on May 18
- Northeast Cully on June 29
- East Portland on July 27
- Downtown Portland on Sept. 14
Portland Sunday Parkways transforms streets into vibrant community spaces, allowing people to physically take over the streets for biking, walking, rolling, and playing. As a beloved Portland tradition since 2008, these free events create a safe and welcoming environment for active living, community connection, and civic pride on Portland’s largest public space—its streets.
Learn more about the 2025 Portland Sunday Parkways season
Speed limit changes
The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is updating speed limits citywide to set safe travel speeds. Why? Because speed is a top contributing factor to traffic deaths. Safe speeds lower the risk of crashes, and when crashes occur, safe speeds make it less likely that people are killed or seriously injured. We track speed limit changes online.
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
Established 25 mph speed limit
- N Macrum Avenue from Columbia Boulevard to Fessenden Street
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:
30 to 25 mph
- N/NE Weidler Street from Ross Avenue to Grand Avenue
- NE Weidler Street from 16th Avenue to 24th Avenue
- SW Vermont Street from Oleson Road to 30th Avenue
- NW Miller Road from Cornell Road to Thompson Road
30 to 20 mph
- NE Weidler Street from N Grand Avenue to NE 16th Avenue
Learn more about speed limit changes in Portland
High Crash Network projects
Portland Bureau of Transportation prioritizes safety investments on our highest crash streets and intersections in areas with higher proportions of people of color and people living with lower incomes. In recent years, 67% of traffic deaths occurred on the High Crash Network. We track recently completed and currently under construction High Crash Network projects online.
Learn more about High Crash Network projects
Access the latest deadly crash data
Our 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. Staff update the dashboard regularly. Preliminary deadly crash data is updated monthly, while other data is updated quarterly or annually, based on availability.
Learn more about the Vision Zero dashboard
Remember to say crash, not accident
We want to change the way we talk about crashes and remind each other that they are predictable and preventable. A Vision Zero approach refuses to accept the idea that crashes are inevitable. That's why we're saying crash, not accident! Will you join us?
Learn more about why we say crash, not accident
Free Vision Zero materials and yard signs
Help educate the people in your community about Vision Zero, Portland's commitment to eliminate serious and fatal traffic injuries. Order and receive stickers, brochures, and fliers in the mail or pick-up a yard sign at the Portland Building. Materials are available in English, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Lao, Romanian, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.
Learn more about how to get free Vision Zero materials
Personal safety community resources
We want to help create a transportation system that allows all people to feel safe getting where they need to go. We put together free, accessible personal safety resources for community members, including how to report a non-urgent traffic safety concern, report bias and hate, participate in a self-defense workshop, and more.
Learn more about personal safety community resources
What we're reading
- The influence of heatwaves on traffic safety in five cities across Québec with different thermal landscapes (Injury Epidemiology)
- Pedestrian deaths decrease — but not everywhere (Axios)
- Seattle recorded zero bike deaths in 2024, per early data (Planetizen)
- ‘Walking school bus’ helps reduce chronic absenteeism, increases student safety (Big Island Now)
- Who should pay to fix the sidewalk? (Bloomberg CityLab)
- An e-bike transformed my family’s life (The Atlantic)
- The quiet power of car-free neighborhoods (Bloomberg CityLab)
- Americans drove 1.0 percent more in 2024 (Eno Center for Transportation)
- Widening highways doesn’t fix traffic. Here’s what can. (Scientific American)
Parts of this document were drafted with the support of ChatGPT. The content was edited and fact-checked by city staff.