TREC SEMINAR: "Safe Speeds Save Lives: How Portland is Managing Speeds for Safety"

Introduction

In this blog post I summarize the TREC seminar presentation Safe Speeds Save Lives: How Portland is Managing Speeds for Safety by Matt Kelly with the Portland Bureau of Transportation which occurred May 15th, 2020. Then I provide a brief reflection related to transportation planning and policy.

Summary

Matt Kelly kicks off the presentation by framing Portland’s streets as unsafe. He goes forward with a summarization of research of why this is - which includes changes in vehicle designs, street designs, and human bias. Some of the key points for why roadways are progressively becoming less safe include:

• Higher percentage of larger and heavier vehicles on streets

• More powerful cars on the streets correlates to higher speeds 

• Wide roadways and facilities indicate “this is a place to go fast”

• Current laws and rules facilitate higher speeds 

• People overestimate their level of driving in regard to safety 

Kelly then identifies what unsafe streets mean for communities and why local government has a duty to correct these issues where they can. Fundamentally, crashes impact people differently, pedestrians and cyclists are the clear losers and larger vehicle owners are winners. We know in Portland walkers, rollers, and transit users are disproportionately low income making there clear equity ties within relation to roadway users. The city has a responsibility to ensure roadway’s most vulnerable users are safe. However a lot of these aforementioned points about why streets are so unsafe fall outside of local government jurisdiction (i.e. bigger and faster vehicle designs). However, Local governments do have teeth when it comes to roadway designs and roadway elements that have been shown to reduce some safety concerns. 

Elements used by the city of Portland to help change driving behavior include: 

• Reducing road widths or street reallocation

• Left turn calming devices

• Traffic calming measures (speed bumps, bulb-outs, etc.)

• Speed limit reductions

• Speed cameras

Portland is also taking a more programmatic approach to safe driving. Which includes traffic safety classes instead of ticket payment and reduced “income-appropriate” tickets. 

Reflection

As for as the current roadway safety concerns go, Portland is not unique. Eric Dumbaugh & Robert Rae talk about this in the article, Safe Urban Form: Revisiting the Relationship Between Community Design and Traffic Safety. They do conclude that roadway design is a major contributor for preventable deaths and note that this is especially true when thinking about arterial thoroughfares. However, they suggest moving retail away from these types of facilities in order to dodge the problems associated with incompatible uses which may be further increasing separation from car user and walker/roller and may potentially lead to even more pedestrian hostile environments.  

Additionally, East Portland has seen safety concerns and multiple deaths even when there’s a lot less of these types of businesses present on the arterial thoroughfares. So we can infer that it’s not just a problem when those things meet. City of Portland uses research like this when incorporating safety measures and effectiveness. One of the latest measures that have caught wind is speed reduction - and it’s well known that speed reduction does saves lives. 

Drawing from the Lubitow and Miller article, Contesting Sustainability: Bikes, Race, and Politics in Portlandia regarding sustainability policies and the notion that when one priority operates as infallible there is a certain level of threat other priorities are expendable which can amount to inherent inequities. For example, East Portland houses the poorest population of Portland and houses a disproportionate number of  BIPOC community members in regards to the overall city. The City of Portland in an effort to reduce death and injury have reduced speeds along the some of the major thoroughfares of East Portland from 40 mph to 30 mph, a 25% change. These include, Stark, Glisan, and Division – the major east west arterial thoroughfares used by East Portland’s residents. This may overly burden driver-residents in an area that is underserved by alternative and quick mode options. This is not an argument against speed reductions which do save lives, however it is an argument that more needs to be done so these people are not overly burdened by cheap projects that are easily passed.