Fixing 82nd Avenue

The Oregonian‘s InPortland section today carries an article by Su-Jin Yim on safety hazards on 82nd Avenue in East Portland. “The 82nd Avenue of Roses”, as citizens trying to improve the street have termed it. Planting roses and adding name caps on street signs are but one part of a larger strategy to encourage redevelopment and rethinking of the street and adjacent businesses.

Commissioner Sam Adams provided more information on 5/31/07 about the street’s hazards on his site.

“About 60-70% of our entire City’s vehicle-related injuries and fatalities occur on less than 5% of the intersections in the city. A disproportionate share of these intersections lie on E 82nd Avenue. To give you an idea as to the magnitude of the problem on 82nd, in 2005 this stretch of road experienced a combined total of 4,862 crashes for all modes of transportation–including 16 crash fatalities.”

Portland Office of Transportation held three open houses for residents and business owners/workers to share suggestions in designing improvements.

It’s good to see attention to this area, spearheaded by Ken Turner, General Manager of Eastport Plaza and President of the 82nd Avenue of Roses Business Association. But disturbing to read in the O‘s article today, “don’t expect a comprehensive, multiyear effort…..The agencies, after holding open houses to get feedback from residents, hope to make quick, relatively cheap improvements in the next one to two years. That might include adding red light cameras, striped crosswalks and public education campaigns to slow down.”

Is it not reasonable to expect a comprehensive, multiyear effort to improve this street? Why do such huge safety issues have to wait for the additional funding being proposed by Commissioner Adams? I can’t help but wonder if such a poor safety record and high level of fatalities were documented in SW Portland or in the NW District, whether organized citizen pressure would result in quicker, more extensive prioritization of city money to fix the problems. They aren’t going to go away in one or two years. I’m reminded of the latest budget hearing in Council chambers, when I reported the Council added $85,000 for traffic signal improvements at SW Bertha/Capitol in response to citizen lobbying – despite knowing the intersection isn’t on the list of the top 25 most dangerous in Portland. Certainly, we want our City Council to be responsive to citizens, and we want there to be some point in citizens showing up to testify and lobbying for needed improvements in their neighborhoods. But don’t we also want budget priorities set by evidence of need? What is the point of City staff spending time on researching data and formulating a list of the top 25 most dangerous intersections, if the City Council then doesn’t systematically work through the list when allocating funding for fixes?

The Planning Bureau is currently engaged in an “East Portland Review” with citizens around and east of 82nd. I hope one outcome will be a comprehensive plan (or even a plan to do a comprehensive plan) for 82nd Avenue, with identified funding for improvements. The street tends to be the dividing line when organizing City projects, though, so perhaps a separate plan with focus on the street and adjacent land uses is needed – similar to the Hollywood/Sandy plan that was funded and completed a few years ago, with improvements now being installed.