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Flowers still lined a stretch of Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard three weeks after a gold Lexus slammed into 15-year-old Fallon Smart, making her the eighth pedestrian to die in Portland traffic this year. Portland police have blamed a speeding motorist who swerved into a turn lane to go around a car that had stopped for Smart, who was crossing Hawthorne legally.
After Smart's death Aug. 19, friends and neighbors painted white stripes at the unmarked crosswalks where and near where a driver struck her.
In the days that followed, Portland motorists would strike three more pedestrians, one fatally. Among the seriously injured was a Roosevelt High School freshman crossing North Columbia Boulevard on his way to his first day of school.
Those deaths raise questions. Here are some answers.
How many pedestrians have died this year in Portland traffic?
As of Sept. 2, eight pedestrians and four bicyclists had died in collisions on Portland streets. A ninth pedestrian died Sept. 4 on Southeast Division Street.
Is that number going up?
Not really. In 2015, seven pedestrians and one bicyclist had died as of Sept. 2. The previous year, 10 pedestrians and one bicyclist died as of Sept. 2, 2014.
Total traffic fatalities statewide are up, but pedestrian fatalities are up and down.
So far in Oregon, 330 people have died in traffic collisions, as of Sept. 5. About 12 percent have been pedestrians—38 people. Last year, as of Sept. 5, 285 people died on Oregon roads. About 18 percent were pedestrians, for a total of 51 people.
Isn't Portland's new gas tax supposed to be helping?
The initiative Portland voters approved in May is supposed to fund safety improvements along notoriously dangerous roadways. The language of the initiative said that the Oregon Department of Transportation could begin to collect a 10-cents-per-gallon tax on Portland's behalf as soon as this month.
But computer complexities at ODOT are preventing it from collecting the money. That means motorists won't start paying the tax—and Portland won't have the money to spend—until January, state officials say.
What is the city doing to make streets safer?
Last month, the Portland Bureau of Transportation installed cameras to catch speeders 24/7 along Southwest Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. Portland hopes to install more speed cameras on other roads that have a lot of crashes.
The city also wants to lower speed limits on some streets.
Even though the city is responsible for repairing most streets in the city, state officials at ODOT control speed limits on all city roads. That means when Portland officials want to lower speed limits to make them safer, they need state permission. The process for doing this is slow and favors motorists. Portland would like to shorten the process and change the state's rules to allow it to consider how bicyclists and pedestrians use the streets.
What else do advocates say we should do to curb deaths?
They want the city to wrest control of state highways like Southeast Powell and Southwest Barbur boulevards away from ODOT. The state's transportation department has much more restrictive design standards favoring motor vehicles, says Rob Sadowsky, executive director of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance.
In a nutshell, the state prioritizes infrastructure that eases traffic for motorists, not other users—and advocates believe the city can reverse that, with policies such as "road diets" to reduce traffic lanes.
Why can't the city just paint more crosswalks at dangerous intersections?
It would take a lot of money to stripe all of the thousands of unmarked crosswalks in Portland. But there's another reason: liability. While pedestrians have the right of way even in unmarked crosswalks, not all crosswalks are created equal. The city doesn't want to suggest to pedestrians that a spot is safe by laying down white paint if it's not a preferred crosswalk.
"At some locations, a painted crosswalk alone actually makes the intersection more dangerous, by inspiring a false sense of security in pedestrians," says City Commissioner Steve Novick.
Willamette Week