The Portland region is one of the safest in the country for pedestrians. But a new report also highlights dangers for pedestrians, particularly along 82nd Avenue in East Portland.
A report by a smart growth advocacy group says the Portland region's planning makes it one of the safest places to walk in the nation.
The Dangerous by Design report, from the Complete Streets Coalition, says that the region has a low pedestrian death rate, but there are also areas of neglect, which expose vulnerable populations to risk while trying to cross the street.
The report compares pedestrian fatalities with how many people walk on a daily basis, giving a rate of relative risk called the Pedestrian Danger Index. Scores ranged from a high of 244 in Orlando, Fla., to a low of 18.65 in Boston; the median index score was 69.
In the Portland region, the Pedestrian Danger Index from 2003-12 was 32.19, seventh-lowest among the 51 cities ranked.
Dangerous by Design map
View a map of all U.S. pedestrian fatailities from 2003-12.
According to the report, the difference between Orlando and Portland is the focus on pedestrian safety when designing roads.The study also showed that Portland has 1.12 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 residents from 2003-12, compared to the national rate of 1.56 per 100,000. That was tenth-best among the cities ranked.
Stefanie Seskin, one of the Dangerous by Design report’s authors, said that walking deaths can be averted with planning.
"The number one way to prevent fatalities is to proactively plan for pedestrians," Seskin said.
Planning walkable streets means including design elements such as wide sidewalks, curb extensions, refuge islands, crosswalk countdown signals and mid-block crossings.
One reason why Portland is safer than the rest of the country is that we have been planning for pedestrian and bike safety since the passage of the "Bike Bill" in 1971.
Lake McTighe, a transportation planner at Metro, said Oregon's "Bike Bill" mandates bike and pedestrian upgrades when streets are developed.
"Oregon is fortunate that it has a law that says for new facilities, new streets, or when you are increasing auto capacity for a street you have to include bike and pedestrian improvements," McTighe said.
While this is a good start for safety, it doesn’t cover existing roads that aren’t safe for pedestrians, said McTighe.
The most dangerous roads for pedestrians are arterial roads, which are wide, flat, open roads designed for automobile speed – which is the major factor in both automobile and pedestrian fatalities.
Arterial roads are streets such as 82nd Avenue, Burnside Street, Beaverton- Hillsboro Highway, Powell Boulevard, Division Street, and Sunnyside Road. The Dangerous by Design pedestrian fatalities map shows clusters of deaths near 82nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard.
These pedestrian fatalities don’t affect everyone equally: older adults, poor adults and people of color are more likely to suffer from traffic crashes. The national fatality rate for people 75 years or older is 3.96 per 100,000 – over twice the national rate for all pedestrian deaths.
Often the people who are killed while walking have no other choices for transit, McTighe said.
"They are dependent on maybe biking, or walking, or taking transit as their only option, it’s not a choice for them," McTighe said. "That's when the inequity is really glaring."
Aaron Brown, president of pedestrian advocacy group Oregon Walks, said that the most dangerous places to walk in Portland house the region's most vulnerable people.
"Statistically, the places where there are no safe places to walk on the street is east Portland, home to our city's largest vulnerable populations: young people, elderly people, and people of color,” Brown said. “These are the neighborhoods where it is not safe to walk your dog across the street.”
Designing complete streets – streets that are safe for both pedestrians and automobiles involves planning for both mobility of cars and livability of neighborhoods. Historically, streets have been built with only automobile transit in mind - pedestrians were once considered impediments to automobile transit, according to McTighe.
Both Brown and McTighe said the Regional Active Transportation Plan is key to increasing the safety of walking through community input and transportation investments.
The Portland region is ahead of the nation for pedestrian safety, Brown said, but our region still has far to go.
"This Dangerous by Design report has shown that efforts have paid off," Brown said. "But we should not be satisfied - every traffic fatality is a profound civic failure."