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Portland traffic deaths in 2025 are on pace to hit their lowest number since the COVID-19 pandemic, when deadly crashes soared.
New figures released to the City Council by City Administrator Michael Jordan show 39 people died in Portland traffic through Nov. 17, a lower figure than any year since 2021. At that pace, Portland would finish the full year with the fewest traffic deaths since at least 2019. (At least one person has died since Jordan published the report.)
The statistics tally all people killed on Portland roads, whether in cars, on bicycles or motorcycles, or walking across the street.
The 2019 figure of 50 deaths was the highest number of fatalities in a single year since 1996. They spiked further the following year, as drivers flouted traffic laws on roads emptied during COVID closures. The numbers kept rising, reaching a 30-year high in 2023, when 63 people died in the streets. The 2024 number was slightly lower, at 58, but still elevated.
The new figures will come as a relief to city officials, who have struggled to explain why traffic deaths set records year after year despite a multimillion-dollar traffic safety initiative called “Vision Zero” for its aim of eliminating all such fatalities. Officials have debated whether the fundamental problem was street design, speed limits, a dearth of traffic cops or—given the high proportion of unhoused people killed crossing the street—unsheltered homelessness.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation could not immediately provide comment on the decline.
Not all the news is happy: Pedestrian deaths saw the smallest decline, and people on foot now make up half of traffic deaths, a larger share than in any of the past five years.
Zachary Lauritzen, executive director of Oregon Walks, a nonprofit advocating for safer streets, credited city officials, including Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane, for taking traffic safety seriously.
“We’re encouraged to see a second consecutive year of declining traffic fatalities, especially such a significant drop from last year,” Lauritzen said. “Pedestrians continue to be overrepresented, but frankly, every life lost is a tragedy no matter how people are getting around.”
Lauritzen also urged city officials to approve dedicated bus lanes along 82nd Avenue—a decision that has sparked fierce debate in recent weeks. Such lanes, known as “business access and transit lanes,” would reduce car lanes but slow speeds and increase safety for people riding TriMet.
“With so many students and nondrivers depending on the state’s busiest bus line that runs the length of 82nd Avenue,” he said, “this decision is a test of what we are willing to do to save lives.”
