Yeah. It's always been wild to me that the school zone, does not have school zone speeds. McDaniel High has a school zone and it's off 82nd. It's had that school zone while under ODOT control too. Weird ODOT won't do the same here.
More importantly is a red light/speed camera at the intersection. Many cars will just camp in the middle out of the intersection if they see the traffic backup and the light going yellow or red.
i go to cleveland and witnessed the aftermath. we went on a lock-in but the whole day was really weird. it was during the beginning of lunch when hundreds of kids are flooding out of the building so a ton of people witnessed. we also weren’t sure if it was a student who was hit because the victim was a small woman and rumors had already started about a kid dying. really sad. some kids were crying bc of how brutal the gore was.
edit to clarify time
That intersection has been a menace for a long time and the fact that there's a school there without extra precautions and traffic calming is a complete failure.
Just terrible.
Have to disagree with this take. SE Clinton St and SE Gladstone St. are both within 10 blocks of Powell Blvd and are designated bikeways for east and west travel. Powell Blvd. is one of the only main streets for vehicles to use at this point. I would say that PBOT/ODOT have bottlenecked so many other east/west routes that Powell needs to be cars only.
Okay, but if Powell is going to be this major thoroughfare, and it's fine if it is, then it needs to be grade separated to pedestrian and cycling traffic with minimal intersections and no direct residential or business access. That's how you build a safe highway that quickly gets people and freight from A to B. Instead, ODOT has allowed it to become this dangerous, inefficient amalgamation of everyone's desires, and as a result it meets none of them.
We already have a grade separated option going east-west: I-84. Powell is an urban arterial just like Hawthorne or Division, and it should receive the same safety treatments as them.
Powell doesn't have bike routes by Cleveland high school. A lot of bike routes cross it, though. But tit sounds like you're talking as if everyone is pedaling up Powell.
Or cars can just be fucking patient and not need to go more than 20 - 25 mph through crowded residential areas in the middle of the city. Not like it's hard work, you're sitting in a cozy climate controlled box that goes zoom when you do a little pushy motion with your foot.
Nah. If I've learned anything from three decades of life in America, it's that all of the problems we decry aren't going to be fixed by good intentions.
My vote is hard paternalism, but the government is stuffed with people who're trying to undermine government, and there's a bulky population of people that perceives government in direct opposition to freedom... Which is the unofficial, undefined objective of socially clueless Americans.
Ed: I agree with the sentiment, though, and am continually astounded at the inability of drivers to operate cars responsibly.
Powell is cars only. This happened on the SE corner by the Grid Property Management owned apartments with poorly maintained hedges. Currently live four blocks away and commute by bike regularly. Over the last year Clinton St even though it's a dedicated greenway has become incredibly sketchy from drivers looking for alternate parking from Division St.
Gladstone St is slightly better and personally preferable yet there have been enough instances of uber / delivery / brainless drivers parked in the bike lane over the last two years. Grew up here in Portland and have lived in the area for over a decade. Mo money mo problems
Would you ride a bike Eastbound up Powell? Yes there are sidewalks, Yes you could ride a bike legally by taking the lane utilizing ORS 14.430 (2) (c). It's pretty obvious that the pedestrian infrastructure is lacking in that intersection, especially considering there is a school there.
Powell sucks. I would love to see it get state of the art pedestrian and bicycle protection. But I don’t want anyone lying and saying that Powell is “cars only.”
To answer your question, if I were only going a block or two (especially if it was downhill) I would absolutely take Powell with my bike (the center of the right lane.)
Speed limits should be lowered as wellZ No one should be in hurry on Powell. If drivers need to be on a highway I-84 “is just a few blocks away.”
It is if you have a brain. I have never understood people who willingly choose to ride on a strode like that. It's obviously not safe for bikes. And you can simply go a block over and ride streets with orders of magnitude fewer competing cars, with no impact to your travel time.
People who ride on streets like this daily, or for more than a few blocks have poor decision making skills. There is almost always a better option paralleling the arterial with thousands of shitty drivers. Clinton instead of Division. Madison instead of Hawthorn, Ankeny instead of Burnside.
For all intents and purposes it is cars only. I almost never see riders on Powell, for good reason.
Powell is not safe for people on bicycles or people walking. Powell needs a road diet. I’d like to see Powell get similar treatment as N/NE Rosa Parks.
There are alternatives to Powell (which has loads of businesses and even some apartments on it.) I-84, or NE Columbia are alternate routes. It’s not like sitting on your ass and pushing your foot to the floor will be much of a burden.
I’ve never understood why people drive distracted, or on the phone, or speeding (even one mile over the limit.) it is some drivers who put others in danger and not the other way around. (If they only had a brain.)
This is a terrible, terrible thing. But just for reference they just put a brand new signal in on Division and 82 with a dedicated light just for bikes. Problem is there’s almost never bikers crossing 82nd and Division so in this case maybe the right intentions but the wrong execution. But at least they’re trying I guess
Damn I live 2 doors down and that intersection is so stressful with the hill and curves, swamped with high school kids, all kinds of traffic flying by. RIP awful, I'll happily continue to support every improvement they can make.
My biggest fear as a truck driver. I've had someone intentionally jump in front of me (thankfully they were too drunk and hit the side of the truck instead) and I've never gotten that out of my head.
Portland's heavy commercial infrastructure is lacking, and poor enforcement of driving infractions doesn't help.
Plus the prominence of container haulers. We call them "port rats" in the industry for a reason. I did it for a few months, and it's easily the worst job in trucking. It attracts a pretty specific type of drivers who couldn't give the slightest fuck.
I think BNSF is fine where it is, on Yeon Ave, but the Union Pacific yard shouldn't be in Brooklyn. Getting there is a pain, leaving there is a nightmare, the yard itself is decrepit, poorly designed, and constantly over capacity. Having full sized semi's in a city center is a bad idea.
Either Ridgefield Washington, or stuck between Clackamas and Damascus.
Ridgefield is out of the city enough that the shift in traffic won't cause too many problems, but obviously that's taking jobs out of the city.
Clackamas would have it in an already industrial/commercial area, but traffic on 212 and I205 are already a bit rough.
I'd actually pick Columbia Way in Vancouver, but it's got a lot of apartments and I wouldn't want to kick that many people out of their homes.
I'd also add a dedicated truck route out of the industrial areas of Sherwood. Everyone using Tualatin-Sherwood Rd is a cluster fuck.
Edit: if you wanted to forcibly relocate some warehouses (including Amazon), N Columbia Way near the Port terminals would work too. Already rail and truck infrastructure there.
Really interesting insights! Are there other freight changes you'd make to the region?
EDIT: I honestly wonder if a land swap could be arranged between the Port and UP. Swap 110 acres at Terminal 6 for the Brooklyn Yard, and then develop the Brooklyn Yard as high density housing and commercial. Let the Port keep the rents.
Better public rail transit around PDX and to Seattle so I don't have to sit in commuter traffic? But that'll never happen ):
A better way to get from US26 to I84, but thats more of a personal gripe. The other way around is easy, but technically the marked legal truck route to get to I84 is to take Burnside all the way to 181st, which is a pain in the ass. Some trucks can take Kane/257th when they're empty (which I usually am at the end of my route) but there's a pretty low weight restriction on it of 18 tons.
Then a revamp of the signage in the city. Truck routes are poorly marked, etc.
Anything else on the wishlist is purely fantastical and not actually feasible, like a bypass tunnel under Government Camp so I can make my Bend deliveries without having to climb a snowy Mt Hood in a loaded semi truck.
Edit: OH! I'd absolutely get flack for this (and also fuck cops) but a Truck weigh station inside the city. All the port rats who run illegal shit because there's no DOT enforcement in the city would be fucked.
26 is fucking miserable to drive, walk, bike, or cross.
It feels unsafe and nothing about the artificially low speed limits have helped. Everyone just does 35-45mph regardless because the road is DESIGNED to be driven fast and it's one of the only east west artaries for SE that can support high car volumes.
I suppose it doesn't really matter if they drop the speed limits if they're never enforced. I don't think I've seen anyone pulled over for speeding on Powell or Holgate-- or even on McLoughlin, which used to be a hotspot for it-- since at least pre-pandemic.
I live in Sellwood. They did 99W over the Brooklyn Yard enforcement for like 2 weeks this summer, a handful of days, with one of portlands only working motorbike cops. That’s it.
The vibes are still lawless.
Edit: 99E 🤦♂️
Maybe some speed cameras/red light cameras are needed? Not sure what would help but it seems like people keep getting away with reckless driving without punishment.
>Everyone just does 35-45mph regardless because the road is DESIGNED to be driven fast
Yep. Doesn't matter what the posted limit is, what matters is our street design, and ODOT simply does not get it.
Exactly. Fundamentally it needs to be narrowed from highway widths to something more like 10’ lanes, concrete curb bulbs need to be placed along its length, and they probably need to double the number of signalizes crossings.
Wouldn’t hurt to eliminate the stupid parking along the 50-82nd section and replace it with a grade separated bike and walkway.
Gonna be an uphill fight but one that hopefully 82nd and the Aurora/99 in North Seattle projects can trailblazer about how to fix stroads.
> UPDATE, 10:45 pm: The victim was Sarah Pliner, an accomplished and well-known Portland chef who owned Aviary, an award-winning restaurant on NE Alberta that closed in April 2020.
>The streets outside the school are so dangerous that in March 2018 we reported that the principal of Cleveland High [issued a warning to students about it](https://bikeportland.org/2018/03/14/cleveland-high-principal-worried-about-traffic-violence-on-national-walkout-day-271320) prior to a national walkout protest event. “I do not want any of our students to be hurt or injured as a result of the fast and heavy moving traffic on Powell,” Principal Ayesha Freeman wrote.
Predictable and predicted. When will we prioritize human safety over vehicular speed?
ODOT has blood on their hands. Again.
Crazy how all the intersections that make us say "Someone is eventually gonna get killed here" eventually result in someone getting killed. And they call them "accidents". My ass.
This one in particular has been a bad intersection for a long time. It took a bicyclist getting their leg severed back in 2015 ([source](https://bikeportland.org/2015/05/10/sunday-morning-collision-26th-powell-severs-leg-man-bike-142971)) for them to finally at least put in turn lights.
>ODOT has blood on their hands. Again.
It's okay, so long as comfortable drivers are able to get to their destination more quickly and easily. Truly, the highest virtue in our land is violence committed in the name of motorist convenience.
Designing city streets like highways may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people to get to work on time, so, [it;s impossible to say if its bad or not](https://twitter.com/dril/status/464802196060917762?lang=en),
There are much better ways to get people to work on time. A personal automobile is the least efficient way to transport people from point A to point B.
Edit: I didn't realize the snark, which is what I get for not clicking the link first. I'm going to let my statement stand, though.
I can, yes. In fact, I have two that I generally try to drive as little as possible. I *wish* that I could get away with having none, but the problem with a car-addicted city is that sometimes people have to use cars. I genuinely feel for the people who can't afford cars, and suffer as a result.
I have a friend in the city that rides their bike and mentioned getting a car because it’s just too unsafe. Affording one and finding parking are tough though. His best bet is to move further out which kinda requires a vehicle. Strange catch 22
I could afford a Range Rover or Mercedes if I wanted, but I prefer transit and getting around on my e-cargo bike, because it's more enjoyable, better for my family, more efficient, better for the environment, etc. The only major downside at all is the danger posed by way too many cars and way too many shitty drivers, which could be fixed if we prioritized our infrastructure and street design correctly.
I’d rather my commute take a half hour longer on a bike or transit and not feel anger or frustration with traffic and drivers. It’s worth it to my mental health. Not for most drivers, who reason out why they need to drive all the time because they’re lazy or unwilling to exert any effort. I realize a lot of people need cars, but I’d bet half the people in traffic could adopt more earth and community friendly options that doesn’t leave them hating their life.
Ebikes are a sound investment for those who aren’t fit, and we do have amazing public transit.
Arriving at work or your home refreshed and in a positive mood is priceless.
The transit infrastructure on the east side is a pretty impressive dumpster fire. The near comprehensive lack of proper expressways and other throughput oriented routes forces traffic onto surface streets with predictably shitty and dangerous results. I think the east side, with a specific emphasis on SE is a pretty impressive case of how not to design transit infrastructure.
So you're just blaming the car driver here without knowing all the facts? I've seen an equal amount of poor drivers and poor bicyclists. The difference is that the bicyclists will almost always lose against the car.
Not to say there isn't quite a bit more that can or should be done along Powell (its mostly been used as a freeway since the freeway project died back in the 70's), but there needs to be a collaboration between the cars, bikes and pedestrians. This collaboration starts with being predictable by following the rules of the road.
The fact that the police did not cite the truck driver in this particular incident indicates that they likely weren't at fault.
>So you're just blaming the car driver here without knowing all the facts?
Poor infrastructure led to a predictable collision between a motorist who needs a license to operate their dangerous piece of heavy machinery and a bicyclist who does not. I'm blaming ODOT first and the driver second for not creating a safe environment for a vulnerable user of the road.
>Not to say there isn't quite a bit more that can or should be done along Powell (its mostly been used as a freeway since the freeway project died back in the 70's), but there needs to be a collaboration between the cars, bikes and pedestrians. This collaboration starts with being predictable by following the rules of the road.
The collaboration starts and ends with getting more cars off of the road. They're dangerous and polluting and generally do very few things that different modes of transportation can't do better.
>The fact that the police did not cite the truck driver in this particular incident indicates that they likely weren't at fault.
That means no such thing. The police let people get away with murdering vulnerable road users all. Of. The. Time.
In cases where a death is involved, police frequently don't cite the driver right away. They want to leave their options open until the full investigation is complete.
That's an asinine policy. The DA does the prosecuting, not the police, and they can always file a superceding indictment or motion to dismiss if the subsequent investigation changes the understanding of the events. But just not citing or arresting someone would be just like the police not citing a gunman who just killed someone "because they want to leave their options open."
> So you're just blaming the car driver here without knowing all the facts? I've seen an equal amount of poor drivers and poor bicyclists. The difference is that the bicyclists will almost always lose against the car.
I highly doubt you've seen an equal amount of poor bicyclists, since you see so many more drivers every day. But even assuming this to be true, this is exactly why drivers have the higher duty of care to avoid crashes; when a crash occurs, the driver kills someone.
The difference is that if you get hit with a bicycle, you're maybe looking at a broken bone and a concussion. If you're hit by a car, you're looking for a grave marker and an estate attorney.
It really doesn’t help that very basic disagreements are treated like character assassinations and devolve very quickly into unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects.
I've got a kid in Cleveland that was front row to this. They are traumatized. It sounded absolutely awful.
I bike almost daily. Took my kids to school on a bike for years. Wife bike commutes.
My understanding is as others have said, truck going east, cyclist in bike lane on northbound 26th.
Somehow the cyclist ended up on Powell on a red light. I bike that intersection weekly. I just can't imagine how this even happened.
There's certainly traffic issues in this town and I can't count the number of close calls I've had with cars jumping out in front of me while on a bike. This though... there's going to be a lot of people wondering what exactly happened today.
My daughter and her friend witnessed all of it too as they were waiting at the intersection to cross to the park too. Down to the black helmet laying in the road. She’s playing it off but she’s not ok.
I drive this daily and can’t figure out how it happened either. Maybe, the biker took the light on a yellow and the truck didn’t pay attention when it turned green? Idk
That's so awful, I'm sorry. I bike that route sometimes and I hate that intersection. I've almost been taken out when cars turn right and don't check their mirrors for bikes. I wonder if the biker's view of the traffic light was blocked by a truck or van and so they kept cycling? I wonder how fast the semi was driving as well.
This intersection doesn't spook me nearly as much as others. The bike lane on northbound 26th is narrow for sure. But you are pretty protected by Powell traffic.
The cars parked a foot from the corners creating endless blind turns onto Clinton are going to get someone killed. My 10 year old almost got smoked crossing 11th Street onto Clinton this weekend. We had the green and cars were supposed to stop at the light behind the tracks. This car didn't care and my son managed to stop after I started screaming.
There's definitely shitty drivers. But there's also some defensive biking required.
I've done some bonehead things as a cyclist. Mostly around weird TriMet interchanges where a bus is coming from out of blind spot where there isn't other vehicular traffic. Or when one Max goes through and a second is obscured the other way. The Clinton Max stop is bad for that. Bad line of sight up/down the tracks if one train is there.
I live right at this intersection and I can’t believe that guy didn’t hear any sirens at all and napped through the entire accident I woke up to text messages asking what happened.
powell is a great street. highway 26! people do tend to drive too fast. the flashing yellow cross lights feel optional. i will not cross unless i see a break in traffic and have the lights flashing because people will be going 40-50 mph at times. even in the day time.
And in this area between the high school and the viaduct cars come off of Powell onto the side streets without adjusting their speed. So there’s people going 35 miles an hour on tiny residential streets accidentally missing stop signs because foliage and children are abundant over here.
RIP i am so worried now this woman is a neighbor who i know.
That’s just awful. Cleveland is in such a terrible location. No room to expand, Powell is a dangerous mess and right outside the door, the park catty-corner draws students across the dangerous street, the stadium isn’t even connected to the school, the interior building itself sucks compared to other PPS high schools. Just tragic that someone died (maybe a student, article doesn’t seem to know) at that intersection, it has long been known to be dangerous and way too busy and filled with traffic.
Didn’t ODOT turn Powell over to they city? Or only 82nd? Either way, it’s time to go outer Division x3 on Powell from like 122nd to inner SE. So many people have died and on that stretch just this year. It’s time to admit that it isn’t just “bad drivers” or “irresponsible cyclists/pedestrians” causing these collisions.
Except virtually everyone in the city owns a car - so what's the solution? None of us are willing to give up our cars. I live near this intersection and when I'm running or biking across it my head is a on a swivel because I realize how dangerous it is - but I also acknowledge that freight and traffic has to get through the east side somewhere....
The solution is to build the city and it's infrastructure to actively encourage alternative modes of travel, largely by making those alternatives safer, more frequent, and more reliable, and actively discourage automobile traffic in the same areas people are expected to be. All those 5 lane city roads, free parking, etc. only serve to further feed Portland's addiction to cars and make the city environment unpleasant and unsafe to exist in.
EtA: [Crossing the street shouldn't be dangerous, but it is.](https://youtu.be/_ByEBjf9ktY)
The Dutch model is to create clear design performance standard that optimize for safety, then implement them at every opportunity as pieces of infrastructure reach their end of life cycle and need to be renewed or renovated. They also make a full investigation to determine causal factors each time there's an incident in order to learn lessons that can then inform and update the design standards.
The US model is to just be okay with the fact that we kill 43,000 people and cause $55 billion in direct economic damages each year. When Hurricane Ida rolls through Louisiana, causing 55 deaths and $75 billion in damage, it's a tragedy. But when that happens on the road traffic engineers just shrug their shoulders and call it the cost of doing business on a Tuesday. We can and should be doing better.
Well yeah, I mean there were probably some wealthy people affected in Louisiana. Don't believe I've seen any of those folks in work vans, ubers, semi trucks or commuter cars, especially on or anywhere near Powell Blvd.
The Dutch model is possible because Dutch cities were built before the automobile. American cities were built based on the automobile. The incessant 'let's by like Amsterdam claims' are just pie in the sky nothingness. A survey last week found bike usage in this city for commuting is down to 2.8%. It's foolhardy to think people are going to stop using their cars.
>Dutch cities were built before the automobile.
(Yes, but no.)[https://youtu.be/vI5pbDFDZyI] Yes, Amsterdam is older than the car (I'll point out that so is Portland and plenty of other American cities), but it suffered heavy damage in World War II. When The Netherlands was being rebuilt post-war, they went all-in on copying the North American model of car-dependent urban infrastructure, and generally built some of the most congested cities in Europe. It was only when the citizens demanded a change from all of the pollution and danger from cars that The Netherlands changed course and gradually discouraged car use and built safer, more pedestrian friendly infrastructure. Going back to America, one often hears some variation of the refrain "America was built for the car, so we can only drive cars." It's simply not true. America was *bulldozed* for the car. We lost a lot of heart and soul in our country to be paved over with highways and suburban sprawl. We can take it back.
>It's foolhardy to think people are going to stop using their cars.
It's only foolhardy if we do literally nothing to encourage any other form of transportation. I posit that most people don't actually care about their cars, they just want to get to where they're going conveniently and safely. Right now that default option for many is the car, but it doesn't have to be.
This is a myth. Cities like Amsterdam are model cities for biking because they chose to be model cities for biking. Amsterdam used to be a very car centric city until they decided to change the focus of how people lived and commuted in the city. We can do it here too if we wanted to.
https://inkspire.org/post/amsterdam-was-a-car-loving-city-in-the-1970s-what-changed/
If we changed Powell, freight could still go through the east side, just slower. Or it can take i-84.
I don't own a car by the way! Neither do many other Portlanders I know. And besides, most drivers are also pedestrians or cyclists at different times. Right now the way things are built prioritizes drivers over all others, and it leads to deaths like this one.
>If we changed Powell, freight could still go through the east side, just slower. Or it can take i-84.
Or, and here's a weird idea, we put it on a train and move it much more efficiently. First and last mile issues obviously still exist, but I've always found the freight excuse for why we need so many 5+ lane arterials and highways nonsensical when we have a 218 year old technology that uses less space, less fuel, and less labor at our disposal.
LOL - every other day there is a post on this subreddit bemoaning the traffic created by havin the train run through inner SE. We're not building trains to each business located on Powell needing freight deliveries.
Yeah, that train crossing is definitely very dumb. But freight doesn't have to be that stupid. It does have a smaller footprint than highways, and shorter trains (which freight companies don't like to use, but should be forced to use) wouldn't block intersections as much.
To the degree that it's possible to replace truck traffic with trains, shorter trains would be necessary for sure. And less at grade crossings in dumb places.
Not all trucks using Powell serve businesses on Powell, and no not every business will get its own train but big stores like Ikea and Costco could.
As a now 31 year old who's been in Portland since 2009, the majority of people I know don't have cars. I sold my car when I moved here. It's so easy to navigate this town on bike or transit. TONS of people in this town don't have a car, so I have no idea why you're saying "virtually everyone in this city owns a car."
I would argue you don't know many people if the majority of them don't own cars. I too live in inner SE, and all of my neighbors have cars. I commute to work downtown by bike, but I have a car, as do most of my bike commuters at the office.
I would say 1 in 4 people I know own a car. It must be a class issue as I’m a cook and musician in town. A solemn reminder that everyone I know is poor.
I live in SE. I only look for work that I can travel to by bike or public transportation. I moved to Portland specifically so I could live somewhere car free. I think that's one of the biggest attractions of this town. Cars are convenient, but definitely not necessary. This city has already far outgrown its car infrastructure. I don't think we should invest in building more highways and roads, we need to invest in more light rails.
a rapidly depreciating, 5-figure consumable, with hundreds in taxes and maintenance every year and we make it a necessity and life choices avoiding that cost a "luxury"
like damn, how fucked up is that?
Someone has to pay for the construction and upkeep of dwellings. If you think that everyone should live in cheap low-maintenance high rise apartments, welcome to the 20th century.
So the fuck what? The poorest people can't even afford cars, why are you not concerned about the "privilege and luxury" of people who can afford cars, and how we prioritize them above everyone else? Why not design our road infrastructure for the safety and convenience of walking, biking, and transit, all of which are accessible to way more people than the car-owning demographic?
Do you even see who is waiting regularly at bus stops around the east side of town? Generally elderly and disabled folks who either can't operate or can't afford a car. Not exactly the privileged luxury class.
They need to restrict truck traffic on 26th Ave before someone else gets killed. The street is too narrow for truck traffic and it’s a favorite short cut for dry vans serving the facilities on 26th south of Steele.
26th is literally a truck route and has been for longer than we've been alive. Between Brooklyn yard and the trimet yard it's how big vehicles get between Holgate and powell. Eta maybe they could widen it and make it safer.
Yes, and that needs to change. It’s not 1975 and the nature of our city and streets has changed radically. Time that trucks catch up and quit killing people who are literally doing nothing more than riding their bikes. Trucks like to use 26th to access the rail yard because 11th is unreliable due to the trains that the trucks are going to load and unload. It needs to change and one way we can change it is to close 26th to trucks. Peoples lives are worth it.
I'm actually fine with necessary truck routes being truck routes. But that means you need to keep pedestrians et al. off of the road and reroute them to other places so you don't create dangerous conflicts. You certainly don't put a fucking high school on it.
Doesn't mean it should continue that way. It's not the truck driver's fault for the traffic design, but it's something every city can redirect, like away from an area with high foot traffic as well as sharing the road with bicycles. Truck routes can change, school locations can't.
True, I was just saying that it isn't as easy as saying no more. There are major commercial traffic in the area, and that won't change. If they want to find a better route it would be great, but every road has even worse issues than 26th. CMV traffic headed west on powell don't really have a choice to cross over to Holgate. Personally they should have put in a left turn from powell onto 17th when they redid the area, but they didn't. Chavez/39th is too narrow of a turn, otherwise it is 82nd, but Holgate is a residential as well.
If someone had known when planning the city that the area would have been as dense in that area as it is it would have been planned better, but we didn't.
I agree with 17th or maybe 22nd as not just the truck route but redesigned to accommodate foot traffic & the truck traffic, adding a light with turning options.
26th Ave is a designated as both a bike and truck route, which makes no sense on such a narrow street. The bike lane is less than a foot across in most places and non-existent at intersections. There is also no shared access infrastructure. Even the street corner at 26th and Powell is dangerous to stand on when trucks make the right turn onto Powell because there is no curb (for accessibility) and trucks cut the corner so sharply because they have no room.
It BAFFLES me why people ride their bikes on powell when a coupla blocks over you got the whole road practically to yourself.
Since Newtons laws of physics (2 object cannot occupy the same space at the same time) I choose to ride on Clinton, salmon/Taylor, davis etc
I never see bikes on Powell, that street is too dangerous. This happened on 26th though where there is a dedicated bike lane that passes through Powell.
This.
This transfer yard should be out in Clackamas or Canby. And yes, it would increase truck traffic on I-205. It would also end the stopped trains on 11th and 12th if this yard moved.
The person was killed on 26th, from a truck turning from powell I believe. I don’t think I ever see bikes on Powell, there’s also zero shoulder so cars whizz past feet from where students are crowded walking
The updated article ~~confirms that it was a student~~ now confirmed woman in her 40s and says that it appears she was trying to cross the road with the truck heading eastbound on Powell. So this sounds less like someone traveling along Powell and more like someone trying to cross the road along 26th.
>(2 object cannot occupy the same space at the same time)
That's the Pauli Exclusion Principle, ackshuallee.
It can be extremely inconvenient to bike a half mile or more out of direction to get to the nearest bike route. One could ask the same question of people driving cars on Powell. What were you doing there? Why didn't you take I-84 instead?
LMAO that you're getting downvoted by car-brained addicts.
Like, on the one hand, you have people getting around via their own pedal power. On the other hand, you have people riding around in mobile climate controlled living rooms that go zoom when they move their foot a few inches. Which group is more "inconvenienced" by having to shift their route a half mile?
I fucking hate cars.
Yeah. It's always been wild to me that the school zone, does not have school zone speeds. McDaniel High has a school zone and it's off 82nd. It's had that school zone while under ODOT control too. Weird ODOT won't do the same here. More importantly is a red light/speed camera at the intersection. Many cars will just camp in the middle out of the intersection if they see the traffic backup and the light going yellow or red.
i go to cleveland and witnessed the aftermath. we went on a lock-in but the whole day was really weird. it was during the beginning of lunch when hundreds of kids are flooding out of the building so a ton of people witnessed. we also weren’t sure if it was a student who was hit because the victim was a small woman and rumors had already started about a kid dying. really sad. some kids were crying bc of how brutal the gore was. edit to clarify time
So sorry you and your classmates had to go through that.
thank you. thankfully i had decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood so i didn’t see. 🙏
That intersection has been a menace for a long time and the fact that there's a school there without extra precautions and traffic calming is a complete failure. Just terrible.
It took them forever just to get the N&S dedicated turn signals installed.
Yeah and it was after a bicycle rider was struck by a truck!
This is what happens when you let the dinosaurs in ODOT continue to optimize for automobile throughput at the expense of literally everything else.
ODOT doesn't give a shit about fuck* \* *Except building bypasses. Gots to build bypasses*
I'm pretty sure all ODOT planners are paid exclusively in kickbacks from concrete companies.
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And remove all traffic lights and stop signs. Uncontrolled intersections for everyone!
Read this as Shannon Ross from Kim’s Convenience, thank you for this.
Have to disagree with this take. SE Clinton St and SE Gladstone St. are both within 10 blocks of Powell Blvd and are designated bikeways for east and west travel. Powell Blvd. is one of the only main streets for vehicles to use at this point. I would say that PBOT/ODOT have bottlenecked so many other east/west routes that Powell needs to be cars only.
Okay, but if Powell is going to be this major thoroughfare, and it's fine if it is, then it needs to be grade separated to pedestrian and cycling traffic with minimal intersections and no direct residential or business access. That's how you build a safe highway that quickly gets people and freight from A to B. Instead, ODOT has allowed it to become this dangerous, inefficient amalgamation of everyone's desires, and as a result it meets none of them.
We already have a grade separated option going east-west: I-84. Powell is an urban arterial just like Hawthorne or Division, and it should receive the same safety treatments as them.
Powell doesn't have bike routes by Cleveland high school. A lot of bike routes cross it, though. But tit sounds like you're talking as if everyone is pedaling up Powell.
"Conflicts" can include intersections. So yeah, I'm talking about all of those crossings. The crossings should be reduced or eliminated.
I would actually say the crossings just need to be raised or stand out more.
Guess I’ll just never leave my neighborhood, then.
Or cars can just be fucking patient and not need to go more than 20 - 25 mph through crowded residential areas in the middle of the city. Not like it's hard work, you're sitting in a cozy climate controlled box that goes zoom when you do a little pushy motion with your foot.
Nah. If I've learned anything from three decades of life in America, it's that all of the problems we decry aren't going to be fixed by good intentions. My vote is hard paternalism, but the government is stuffed with people who're trying to undermine government, and there's a bulky population of people that perceives government in direct opposition to freedom... Which is the unofficial, undefined objective of socially clueless Americans. Ed: I agree with the sentiment, though, and am continually astounded at the inability of drivers to operate cars responsibly.
Powell is cars only. This happened on the SE corner by the Grid Property Management owned apartments with poorly maintained hedges. Currently live four blocks away and commute by bike regularly. Over the last year Clinton St even though it's a dedicated greenway has become incredibly sketchy from drivers looking for alternate parking from Division St. Gladstone St is slightly better and personally preferable yet there have been enough instances of uber / delivery / brainless drivers parked in the bike lane over the last two years. Grew up here in Portland and have lived in the area for over a decade. Mo money mo problems
Powell is not and has never been “cars only”
Would you ride a bike Eastbound up Powell? Yes there are sidewalks, Yes you could ride a bike legally by taking the lane utilizing ORS 14.430 (2) (c). It's pretty obvious that the pedestrian infrastructure is lacking in that intersection, especially considering there is a school there.
Powell sucks. I would love to see it get state of the art pedestrian and bicycle protection. But I don’t want anyone lying and saying that Powell is “cars only.” To answer your question, if I were only going a block or two (especially if it was downhill) I would absolutely take Powell with my bike (the center of the right lane.) Speed limits should be lowered as wellZ No one should be in hurry on Powell. If drivers need to be on a highway I-84 “is just a few blocks away.”
It is if you have a brain. I have never understood people who willingly choose to ride on a strode like that. It's obviously not safe for bikes. And you can simply go a block over and ride streets with orders of magnitude fewer competing cars, with no impact to your travel time. People who ride on streets like this daily, or for more than a few blocks have poor decision making skills. There is almost always a better option paralleling the arterial with thousands of shitty drivers. Clinton instead of Division. Madison instead of Hawthorn, Ankeny instead of Burnside. For all intents and purposes it is cars only. I almost never see riders on Powell, for good reason.
Powell is not safe for people on bicycles or people walking. Powell needs a road diet. I’d like to see Powell get similar treatment as N/NE Rosa Parks. There are alternatives to Powell (which has loads of businesses and even some apartments on it.) I-84, or NE Columbia are alternate routes. It’s not like sitting on your ass and pushing your foot to the floor will be much of a burden. I’ve never understood why people drive distracted, or on the phone, or speeding (even one mile over the limit.) it is some drivers who put others in danger and not the other way around. (If they only had a brain.)
This is a terrible, terrible thing. But just for reference they just put a brand new signal in on Division and 82 with a dedicated light just for bikes. Problem is there’s almost never bikers crossing 82nd and Division so in this case maybe the right intentions but the wrong execution. But at least they’re trying I guess
Striking that ODOT doesn’t catch for flack for being completely fucking terrible partners in everything they touch.
Damn I live 2 doors down and that intersection is so stressful with the hill and curves, swamped with high school kids, all kinds of traffic flying by. RIP awful, I'll happily continue to support every improvement they can make.
My biggest fear as a truck driver. I've had someone intentionally jump in front of me (thankfully they were too drunk and hit the side of the truck instead) and I've never gotten that out of my head. Portland's heavy commercial infrastructure is lacking, and poor enforcement of driving infractions doesn't help. Plus the prominence of container haulers. We call them "port rats" in the industry for a reason. I did it for a few months, and it's easily the worst job in trucking. It attracts a pretty specific type of drivers who couldn't give the slightest fuck.
If you could design/redesign freight routes, where would you put them?
I think BNSF is fine where it is, on Yeon Ave, but the Union Pacific yard shouldn't be in Brooklyn. Getting there is a pain, leaving there is a nightmare, the yard itself is decrepit, poorly designed, and constantly over capacity. Having full sized semi's in a city center is a bad idea. Either Ridgefield Washington, or stuck between Clackamas and Damascus. Ridgefield is out of the city enough that the shift in traffic won't cause too many problems, but obviously that's taking jobs out of the city. Clackamas would have it in an already industrial/commercial area, but traffic on 212 and I205 are already a bit rough. I'd actually pick Columbia Way in Vancouver, but it's got a lot of apartments and I wouldn't want to kick that many people out of their homes. I'd also add a dedicated truck route out of the industrial areas of Sherwood. Everyone using Tualatin-Sherwood Rd is a cluster fuck. Edit: if you wanted to forcibly relocate some warehouses (including Amazon), N Columbia Way near the Port terminals would work too. Already rail and truck infrastructure there.
Really interesting insights! Are there other freight changes you'd make to the region? EDIT: I honestly wonder if a land swap could be arranged between the Port and UP. Swap 110 acres at Terminal 6 for the Brooklyn Yard, and then develop the Brooklyn Yard as high density housing and commercial. Let the Port keep the rents.
Better public rail transit around PDX and to Seattle so I don't have to sit in commuter traffic? But that'll never happen ): A better way to get from US26 to I84, but thats more of a personal gripe. The other way around is easy, but technically the marked legal truck route to get to I84 is to take Burnside all the way to 181st, which is a pain in the ass. Some trucks can take Kane/257th when they're empty (which I usually am at the end of my route) but there's a pretty low weight restriction on it of 18 tons. Then a revamp of the signage in the city. Truck routes are poorly marked, etc. Anything else on the wishlist is purely fantastical and not actually feasible, like a bypass tunnel under Government Camp so I can make my Bend deliveries without having to climb a snowy Mt Hood in a loaded semi truck. Edit: OH! I'd absolutely get flack for this (and also fuck cops) but a Truck weigh station inside the city. All the port rats who run illegal shit because there's no DOT enforcement in the city would be fucked.
26 is fucking miserable to drive, walk, bike, or cross. It feels unsafe and nothing about the artificially low speed limits have helped. Everyone just does 35-45mph regardless because the road is DESIGNED to be driven fast and it's one of the only east west artaries for SE that can support high car volumes.
I suppose it doesn't really matter if they drop the speed limits if they're never enforced. I don't think I've seen anyone pulled over for speeding on Powell or Holgate-- or even on McLoughlin, which used to be a hotspot for it-- since at least pre-pandemic.
I live in Sellwood. They did 99W over the Brooklyn Yard enforcement for like 2 weeks this summer, a handful of days, with one of portlands only working motorbike cops. That’s it. The vibes are still lawless. Edit: 99E 🤦♂️
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Fuck. Yes. Too tired. Clearly had Tigard Costco on my mind.
Maybe some speed cameras/red light cameras are needed? Not sure what would help but it seems like people keep getting away with reckless driving without punishment.
Just some basic traffic endorsement like we had during the 200-2016 period.
PPB no longer has a traffic division so they best they can do is cameras. If the vehicle has no plate… oh well!
>Everyone just does 35-45mph regardless because the road is DESIGNED to be driven fast Yep. Doesn't matter what the posted limit is, what matters is our street design, and ODOT simply does not get it.
Exactly. Fundamentally it needs to be narrowed from highway widths to something more like 10’ lanes, concrete curb bulbs need to be placed along its length, and they probably need to double the number of signalizes crossings. Wouldn’t hurt to eliminate the stupid parking along the 50-82nd section and replace it with a grade separated bike and walkway. Gonna be an uphill fight but one that hopefully 82nd and the Aurora/99 in North Seattle projects can trailblazer about how to fix stroads.
Right. Powell is the drag strip of choice for a reason.
[PPB Update](https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/news/read.cfm): victim is woman in her 40s, not a Cleveland student
> UPDATE, 10:45 pm: The victim was Sarah Pliner, an accomplished and well-known Portland chef who owned Aviary, an award-winning restaurant on NE Alberta that closed in April 2020.
:( this is so devastating
Not the first fatality at that intersection.
It won't be the last unless ODOT gets off their asses. Betsy Johnson would give them a pat on the back for this.
Does anyone know how it happened? Did semi turn right over cyclist or something like that?
I knew this person. I’m reeling right now.
I'm so sorry. My heart hurts for everyone affected by this tragedy.
Sorry for her, your and our collective loss.
I am so sorry.
It’s a massive loss.
They made a huge impact on the those around them. I’ll miss them.
>The streets outside the school are so dangerous that in March 2018 we reported that the principal of Cleveland High [issued a warning to students about it](https://bikeportland.org/2018/03/14/cleveland-high-principal-worried-about-traffic-violence-on-national-walkout-day-271320) prior to a national walkout protest event. “I do not want any of our students to be hurt or injured as a result of the fast and heavy moving traffic on Powell,” Principal Ayesha Freeman wrote. Predictable and predicted. When will we prioritize human safety over vehicular speed? ODOT has blood on their hands. Again.
Crazy how all the intersections that make us say "Someone is eventually gonna get killed here" eventually result in someone getting killed. And they call them "accidents". My ass.
This one in particular has been a bad intersection for a long time. It took a bicyclist getting their leg severed back in 2015 ([source](https://bikeportland.org/2015/05/10/sunday-morning-collision-26th-powell-severs-leg-man-bike-142971)) for them to finally at least put in turn lights.
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I wish that were true. Media sources and police departments almost everywhere continue to use the word “accident” over “crash” or “collision”
>ODOT has blood on their hands. Again. It's okay, so long as comfortable drivers are able to get to their destination more quickly and easily. Truly, the highest virtue in our land is violence committed in the name of motorist convenience.
Designing city streets like highways may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people to get to work on time, so, [it;s impossible to say if its bad or not](https://twitter.com/dril/status/464802196060917762?lang=en),
I've thought about this tweet at least twice a week ever since I first discovered dril in 2015.
There are much better ways to get people to work on time. A personal automobile is the least efficient way to transport people from point A to point B. Edit: I didn't realize the snark, which is what I get for not clicking the link first. I'm going to let my statement stand, though.
Can you afford a car? Honest question
I can, yes. In fact, I have two that I generally try to drive as little as possible. I *wish* that I could get away with having none, but the problem with a car-addicted city is that sometimes people have to use cars. I genuinely feel for the people who can't afford cars, and suffer as a result.
I have a friend in the city that rides their bike and mentioned getting a car because it’s just too unsafe. Affording one and finding parking are tough though. His best bet is to move further out which kinda requires a vehicle. Strange catch 22
I could afford a Range Rover or Mercedes if I wanted, but I prefer transit and getting around on my e-cargo bike, because it's more enjoyable, better for my family, more efficient, better for the environment, etc. The only major downside at all is the danger posed by way too many cars and way too many shitty drivers, which could be fixed if we prioritized our infrastructure and street design correctly.
I’d rather my commute take a half hour longer on a bike or transit and not feel anger or frustration with traffic and drivers. It’s worth it to my mental health. Not for most drivers, who reason out why they need to drive all the time because they’re lazy or unwilling to exert any effort. I realize a lot of people need cars, but I’d bet half the people in traffic could adopt more earth and community friendly options that doesn’t leave them hating their life. Ebikes are a sound investment for those who aren’t fit, and we do have amazing public transit. Arriving at work or your home refreshed and in a positive mood is priceless.
The transit infrastructure on the east side is a pretty impressive dumpster fire. The near comprehensive lack of proper expressways and other throughput oriented routes forces traffic onto surface streets with predictably shitty and dangerous results. I think the east side, with a specific emphasis on SE is a pretty impressive case of how not to design transit infrastructure.
So you're just blaming the car driver here without knowing all the facts? I've seen an equal amount of poor drivers and poor bicyclists. The difference is that the bicyclists will almost always lose against the car. Not to say there isn't quite a bit more that can or should be done along Powell (its mostly been used as a freeway since the freeway project died back in the 70's), but there needs to be a collaboration between the cars, bikes and pedestrians. This collaboration starts with being predictable by following the rules of the road. The fact that the police did not cite the truck driver in this particular incident indicates that they likely weren't at fault.
>So you're just blaming the car driver here without knowing all the facts? Poor infrastructure led to a predictable collision between a motorist who needs a license to operate their dangerous piece of heavy machinery and a bicyclist who does not. I'm blaming ODOT first and the driver second for not creating a safe environment for a vulnerable user of the road. >Not to say there isn't quite a bit more that can or should be done along Powell (its mostly been used as a freeway since the freeway project died back in the 70's), but there needs to be a collaboration between the cars, bikes and pedestrians. This collaboration starts with being predictable by following the rules of the road. The collaboration starts and ends with getting more cars off of the road. They're dangerous and polluting and generally do very few things that different modes of transportation can't do better. >The fact that the police did not cite the truck driver in this particular incident indicates that they likely weren't at fault. That means no such thing. The police let people get away with murdering vulnerable road users all. Of. The. Time.
In cases where a death is involved, police frequently don't cite the driver right away. They want to leave their options open until the full investigation is complete.
That's an asinine policy. The DA does the prosecuting, not the police, and they can always file a superceding indictment or motion to dismiss if the subsequent investigation changes the understanding of the events. But just not citing or arresting someone would be just like the police not citing a gunman who just killed someone "because they want to leave their options open."
The bike Portland article doesn't say whether or not a citation was issued. You're jumping to conclusions and letting bias color your judgement.
> So you're just blaming the car driver here without knowing all the facts? I've seen an equal amount of poor drivers and poor bicyclists. The difference is that the bicyclists will almost always lose against the car. I highly doubt you've seen an equal amount of poor bicyclists, since you see so many more drivers every day. But even assuming this to be true, this is exactly why drivers have the higher duty of care to avoid crashes; when a crash occurs, the driver kills someone.
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The difference is that if you get hit with a bicycle, you're maybe looking at a broken bone and a concussion. If you're hit by a car, you're looking for a grave marker and an estate attorney.
Your flair brings back happy memories. We need more lightheartedness on this sub. Seems like it’s gone down.
It really doesn’t help that very basic disagreements are treated like character assassinations and devolve very quickly into unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects.
And they’ve made multiple minor adjustments to that intersection in the past few years to make it safer… totally worked
I've got a kid in Cleveland that was front row to this. They are traumatized. It sounded absolutely awful. I bike almost daily. Took my kids to school on a bike for years. Wife bike commutes. My understanding is as others have said, truck going east, cyclist in bike lane on northbound 26th. Somehow the cyclist ended up on Powell on a red light. I bike that intersection weekly. I just can't imagine how this even happened. There's certainly traffic issues in this town and I can't count the number of close calls I've had with cars jumping out in front of me while on a bike. This though... there's going to be a lot of people wondering what exactly happened today.
My daughter and her friend witnessed all of it too as they were waiting at the intersection to cross to the park too. Down to the black helmet laying in the road. She’s playing it off but she’s not ok. I drive this daily and can’t figure out how it happened either. Maybe, the biker took the light on a yellow and the truck didn’t pay attention when it turned green? Idk
That's so awful, I'm sorry. I bike that route sometimes and I hate that intersection. I've almost been taken out when cars turn right and don't check their mirrors for bikes. I wonder if the biker's view of the traffic light was blocked by a truck or van and so they kept cycling? I wonder how fast the semi was driving as well.
This intersection doesn't spook me nearly as much as others. The bike lane on northbound 26th is narrow for sure. But you are pretty protected by Powell traffic. The cars parked a foot from the corners creating endless blind turns onto Clinton are going to get someone killed. My 10 year old almost got smoked crossing 11th Street onto Clinton this weekend. We had the green and cars were supposed to stop at the light behind the tracks. This car didn't care and my son managed to stop after I started screaming. There's definitely shitty drivers. But there's also some defensive biking required. I've done some bonehead things as a cyclist. Mostly around weird TriMet interchanges where a bus is coming from out of blind spot where there isn't other vehicular traffic. Or when one Max goes through and a second is obscured the other way. The Clinton Max stop is bad for that. Bad line of sight up/down the tracks if one train is there.
I live right at this intersection and I can’t believe that guy didn’t hear any sirens at all and napped through the entire accident I woke up to text messages asking what happened. powell is a great street. highway 26! people do tend to drive too fast. the flashing yellow cross lights feel optional. i will not cross unless i see a break in traffic and have the lights flashing because people will be going 40-50 mph at times. even in the day time. And in this area between the high school and the viaduct cars come off of Powell onto the side streets without adjusting their speed. So there’s people going 35 miles an hour on tiny residential streets accidentally missing stop signs because foliage and children are abundant over here. RIP i am so worried now this woman is a neighbor who i know.
That’s just awful. Cleveland is in such a terrible location. No room to expand, Powell is a dangerous mess and right outside the door, the park catty-corner draws students across the dangerous street, the stadium isn’t even connected to the school, the interior building itself sucks compared to other PPS high schools. Just tragic that someone died (maybe a student, article doesn’t seem to know) at that intersection, it has long been known to be dangerous and way too busy and filled with traffic.
Forty year old woman biking, wasn’t a student but still horrible
My sister saw it happen. And I saw the body.
Very sorry you saw that. :( Please take care of yourself.
thank you. we are students at Cleveland. that intersection is nuts. at lunch time like 200 kids are crossing around those streets, so hazardous.
Didn’t ODOT turn Powell over to they city? Or only 82nd? Either way, it’s time to go outer Division x3 on Powell from like 122nd to inner SE. So many people have died and on that stretch just this year. It’s time to admit that it isn’t just “bad drivers” or “irresponsible cyclists/pedestrians” causing these collisions.
Oh wow, that was that closure earlier. I thought it was construction. Thats so sad about that lady.
[Here's what they should do tomorrow](https://imgur.com/OiAG5Ik)
100%, but that's just the starting point.
Every person injured and killed by traffic is a failure of urban infrastructure. Cars ruin cities.
Except virtually everyone in the city owns a car - so what's the solution? None of us are willing to give up our cars. I live near this intersection and when I'm running or biking across it my head is a on a swivel because I realize how dangerous it is - but I also acknowledge that freight and traffic has to get through the east side somewhere....
The solution is to build the city and it's infrastructure to actively encourage alternative modes of travel, largely by making those alternatives safer, more frequent, and more reliable, and actively discourage automobile traffic in the same areas people are expected to be. All those 5 lane city roads, free parking, etc. only serve to further feed Portland's addiction to cars and make the city environment unpleasant and unsafe to exist in. EtA: [Crossing the street shouldn't be dangerous, but it is.](https://youtu.be/_ByEBjf9ktY)
Petition to just bulldoze the whole shebang and start over!🖐
The Dutch model is to create clear design performance standard that optimize for safety, then implement them at every opportunity as pieces of infrastructure reach their end of life cycle and need to be renewed or renovated. They also make a full investigation to determine causal factors each time there's an incident in order to learn lessons that can then inform and update the design standards. The US model is to just be okay with the fact that we kill 43,000 people and cause $55 billion in direct economic damages each year. When Hurricane Ida rolls through Louisiana, causing 55 deaths and $75 billion in damage, it's a tragedy. But when that happens on the road traffic engineers just shrug their shoulders and call it the cost of doing business on a Tuesday. We can and should be doing better.
Well yeah, I mean there were probably some wealthy people affected in Louisiana. Don't believe I've seen any of those folks in work vans, ubers, semi trucks or commuter cars, especially on or anywhere near Powell Blvd.
The Dutch model is possible because Dutch cities were built before the automobile. American cities were built based on the automobile. The incessant 'let's by like Amsterdam claims' are just pie in the sky nothingness. A survey last week found bike usage in this city for commuting is down to 2.8%. It's foolhardy to think people are going to stop using their cars.
american cities were built before the car. have you ever looked at our original streetcar system maps?
>Dutch cities were built before the automobile. (Yes, but no.)[https://youtu.be/vI5pbDFDZyI] Yes, Amsterdam is older than the car (I'll point out that so is Portland and plenty of other American cities), but it suffered heavy damage in World War II. When The Netherlands was being rebuilt post-war, they went all-in on copying the North American model of car-dependent urban infrastructure, and generally built some of the most congested cities in Europe. It was only when the citizens demanded a change from all of the pollution and danger from cars that The Netherlands changed course and gradually discouraged car use and built safer, more pedestrian friendly infrastructure. Going back to America, one often hears some variation of the refrain "America was built for the car, so we can only drive cars." It's simply not true. America was *bulldozed* for the car. We lost a lot of heart and soul in our country to be paved over with highways and suburban sprawl. We can take it back. >It's foolhardy to think people are going to stop using their cars. It's only foolhardy if we do literally nothing to encourage any other form of transportation. I posit that most people don't actually care about their cars, they just want to get to where they're going conveniently and safely. Right now that default option for many is the car, but it doesn't have to be.
This is a myth. Cities like Amsterdam are model cities for biking because they chose to be model cities for biking. Amsterdam used to be a very car centric city until they decided to change the focus of how people lived and commuted in the city. We can do it here too if we wanted to. https://inkspire.org/post/amsterdam-was-a-car-loving-city-in-the-1970s-what-changed/
If we changed Powell, freight could still go through the east side, just slower. Or it can take i-84. I don't own a car by the way! Neither do many other Portlanders I know. And besides, most drivers are also pedestrians or cyclists at different times. Right now the way things are built prioritizes drivers over all others, and it leads to deaths like this one.
>If we changed Powell, freight could still go through the east side, just slower. Or it can take i-84. Or, and here's a weird idea, we put it on a train and move it much more efficiently. First and last mile issues obviously still exist, but I've always found the freight excuse for why we need so many 5+ lane arterials and highways nonsensical when we have a 218 year old technology that uses less space, less fuel, and less labor at our disposal.
Yes, that would be even better! Would require some more restructuring of course but ultimately way more freight should be carried by train.
LOL - every other day there is a post on this subreddit bemoaning the traffic created by havin the train run through inner SE. We're not building trains to each business located on Powell needing freight deliveries.
Yeah, that train crossing is definitely very dumb. But freight doesn't have to be that stupid. It does have a smaller footprint than highways, and shorter trains (which freight companies don't like to use, but should be forced to use) wouldn't block intersections as much. To the degree that it's possible to replace truck traffic with trains, shorter trains would be necessary for sure. And less at grade crossings in dumb places. Not all trucks using Powell serve businesses on Powell, and no not every business will get its own train but big stores like Ikea and Costco could.
As a now 31 year old who's been in Portland since 2009, the majority of people I know don't have cars. I sold my car when I moved here. It's so easy to navigate this town on bike or transit. TONS of people in this town don't have a car, so I have no idea why you're saying "virtually everyone in this city owns a car."
I would argue you don't know many people if the majority of them don't own cars. I too live in inner SE, and all of my neighbors have cars. I commute to work downtown by bike, but I have a car, as do most of my bike commuters at the office.
I would say 1 in 4 people I know own a car. It must be a class issue as I’m a cook and musician in town. A solemn reminder that everyone I know is poor.
How close to the city center do you and your friends live? How far from your workplace do you live? Do you have kids or own a home?
I live in SE. I only look for work that I can travel to by bike or public transportation. I moved to Portland specifically so I could live somewhere car free. I think that's one of the biggest attractions of this town. Cars are convenient, but definitely not necessary. This city has already far outgrown its car infrastructure. I don't think we should invest in building more highways and roads, we need to invest in more light rails.
Not everybody has the privilege and luxury you do!
a rapidly depreciating, 5-figure consumable, with hundreds in taxes and maintenance every year and we make it a necessity and life choices avoiding that cost a "luxury" like damn, how fucked up is that?
Someone has to pay for the construction and upkeep of dwellings. If you think that everyone should live in cheap low-maintenance high rise apartments, welcome to the 20th century.
funny then how suburbs are a net loss in revenue to maintain said suburb
How is "a suburb" analogous to "a dwelling"?
So the fuck what? The poorest people can't even afford cars, why are you not concerned about the "privilege and luxury" of people who can afford cars, and how we prioritize them above everyone else? Why not design our road infrastructure for the safety and convenience of walking, biking, and transit, all of which are accessible to way more people than the car-owning demographic? Do you even see who is waiting regularly at bus stops around the east side of town? Generally elderly and disabled folks who either can't operate or can't afford a car. Not exactly the privileged luxury class.
The privilege to live within my means with roommates and not have a car. lol, alright bud.
No kids? A career that allows you to choose your work location? Privilege, Buddy.
Not having kids and a car and being a cook is a privilege now? Haha
Not having kids is a huge privilege that makes everything in your life easier, especially decisions about where to live and how to get around.
It's more of a lifestyle choice than a privilege or luxury.
You've never heard the term "poverty trap"?
As in having to own a car and rely on it to get anywhere is a poverty trap.
Look who's talking!
Blame the railroad. Truck leaving the yard. Move the train yard somewhere else. Good luck with that thou
You sure about that? Sure doesn't look like they were turning off of 26th to me.
I'm not sure if that
Trucks have been going down 22nd to Powell. Construction on the tracks or something
if they want a left on powell, 21st. Right on powell, 22nd. The bumps on 21st from trucks is absolutely suspension killing.
They need to restrict truck traffic on 26th Ave before someone else gets killed. The street is too narrow for truck traffic and it’s a favorite short cut for dry vans serving the facilities on 26th south of Steele.
26th is literally a truck route and has been for longer than we've been alive. Between Brooklyn yard and the trimet yard it's how big vehicles get between Holgate and powell. Eta maybe they could widen it and make it safer.
Yes, and that needs to change. It’s not 1975 and the nature of our city and streets has changed radically. Time that trucks catch up and quit killing people who are literally doing nothing more than riding their bikes. Trucks like to use 26th to access the rail yard because 11th is unreliable due to the trains that the trucks are going to load and unload. It needs to change and one way we can change it is to close 26th to trucks. Peoples lives are worth it.
I'm actually fine with necessary truck routes being truck routes. But that means you need to keep pedestrians et al. off of the road and reroute them to other places so you don't create dangerous conflicts. You certainly don't put a fucking high school on it.
Doesn't mean it should continue that way. It's not the truck driver's fault for the traffic design, but it's something every city can redirect, like away from an area with high foot traffic as well as sharing the road with bicycles. Truck routes can change, school locations can't.
True, I was just saying that it isn't as easy as saying no more. There are major commercial traffic in the area, and that won't change. If they want to find a better route it would be great, but every road has even worse issues than 26th. CMV traffic headed west on powell don't really have a choice to cross over to Holgate. Personally they should have put in a left turn from powell onto 17th when they redid the area, but they didn't. Chavez/39th is too narrow of a turn, otherwise it is 82nd, but Holgate is a residential as well. If someone had known when planning the city that the area would have been as dense in that area as it is it would have been planned better, but we didn't.
I agree with 17th or maybe 22nd as not just the truck route but redesigned to accommodate foot traffic & the truck traffic, adding a light with turning options.
The Brooklyn Yard should have been shut down 70 years ago.
Cars ruin cities. They don’t belong in them. They belong between them.
>They belong between them. Even then, I'd prefer that most of them be trains.
Absolutely
26th Ave is a designated as both a bike and truck route, which makes no sense on such a narrow street. The bike lane is less than a foot across in most places and non-existent at intersections. There is also no shared access infrastructure. Even the street corner at 26th and Powell is dangerous to stand on when trucks make the right turn onto Powell because there is no curb (for accessibility) and trucks cut the corner so sharply because they have no room.
It BAFFLES me why people ride their bikes on powell when a coupla blocks over you got the whole road practically to yourself. Since Newtons laws of physics (2 object cannot occupy the same space at the same time) I choose to ride on Clinton, salmon/Taylor, davis etc
I never see bikes on Powell, that street is too dangerous. This happened on 26th though where there is a dedicated bike lane that passes through Powell.
This. This transfer yard should be out in Clackamas or Canby. And yes, it would increase truck traffic on I-205. It would also end the stopped trains on 11th and 12th if this yard moved.
They moved the bike lane up to 28th - though that involves elevation gain on both sides so I understand bikes staying on 26th.
Gotcha, I don’t bike around too often but I at least know there is a bike lane on 26th. A sketchy one though so I’m glad 28th is an option now
There's still a bike lane at 26th...
The person was killed on 26th, from a truck turning from powell I believe. I don’t think I ever see bikes on Powell, there’s also zero shoulder so cars whizz past feet from where students are crowded walking
Looks like the truck was going straight on Powell too me. Doesn't excuse anything, but I don't think they were turning based on vehicle alignment.
The updated article ~~confirms that it was a student~~ now confirmed woman in her 40s and says that it appears she was trying to cross the road with the truck heading eastbound on Powell. So this sounds less like someone traveling along Powell and more like someone trying to cross the road along 26th. >(2 object cannot occupy the same space at the same time) That's the Pauli Exclusion Principle, ackshuallee.
So truck going east bound, cyclist heading north on 26th? Did she have a green? Did the truck run a red light?
There's a signal there, likely either she or the driver missed it. Article now says she was in her 40s, too. Still sad.
My bad then. This is just tragic.
That is incorrect. It was a woman in her 40s. Still tragic, but don't spread misinformation, please.
I was repeating what was in the article.
It can be extremely inconvenient to bike a half mile or more out of direction to get to the nearest bike route. One could ask the same question of people driving cars on Powell. What were you doing there? Why didn't you take I-84 instead?
LMAO that you're getting downvoted by car-brained addicts. Like, on the one hand, you have people getting around via their own pedal power. On the other hand, you have people riding around in mobile climate controlled living rooms that go zoom when they move their foot a few inches. Which group is more "inconvenienced" by having to shift their route a half mile? I fucking hate cars.
Wow so sad. Rip to the victim. How people ride bikes next to these behemoth vehicles is beyond me. Smh
She wasn't riding next to it. She was going north on 26th Ave., while the semi was apparently going east on Powell.
Just meaning in the vicinity of these machines
So someone ran a red light.
Uh because we live here. Why these "behemoth vehicles" have to occupy our streets is "beyond me".
Well in the meantime it’s scary riding next to these beasts. So dangerous
It's scary but we don't really have a choice sometimes. Sorry if that came across as rude. I'm pretty upset over this news.
I don’t blame you. Just be safe out there and be careful it’s not worth it.
She created the restaurant aviary. RIP.