Friday’s Oregonian has an article about the City lowering speeds on Capitol Highway.
While we’re all in favor of lowering speeds for safety, we also note that article indicates the City refused a suggestion from the neighborhood association to add a crosswalk. Will Stevens of PDOT is quoted: “adding crosswalks without a traffic signal or without a center refuge for pedestrians would not be safe.”
So just to give PDOT some ideas we’ve collected our various posts about crosswalks in different cities and countries in one category for easy viewing.
5 responses to “Another Crosswalk Cop Out”
That article had several statements that were interesting (the crosswalk statement being one of them).
Another: “Capitol Highway is terrible,” Adams said Thursday. “It always has been terrible.” I don’t remember how many millions the City spent about five years ago to improve Capitol Highway, but it’s interesting that Sam thinks it’s terrible now.
It’s also interesting that the City is considering reducing the speed limit from 30 to 25 mph on part of Capitol Hwy. The speed limit on Vermont is 35 mph, Multnomah Blvd is 35 – 45 mph, Capitol Hill Road is 30 mph… I could go on.
It’s interesting how one car accident draws attention to one street that has already had massive improvements made to it (that crash could have happened on many southwest streets). It reminds me how much the City is driven by responding to crashes rather than preventing them.
(Sorry, Chris, I went way off your crosswalk topic here.)
Interesting that Will says the crosswalk would not be safe. Recent studies do indeed show that a crosswalk on a FOUR_LANE street is less safe than not, unless a center median is added. However, the same studies show that on a two-land street (like Capitol Highway here) a crosswalk improves safety for pedestrians. Of course, the qualifier would be sight distance, with traffic coming over the hump of the hill. I don’t know exactly where the crosswalk was proposed.
Particularly bad is the section south of Multnomah Village, where there are no sidewalks even! You either have to walk in the street – speed limit 30 mph, or in the thick mud. Except there are a lot of parked cars blocking the mud route.
Therefore, its not surprising people don’t walk much down the street even though they might only live a few blocks from the Village.
Far worse than Capitol Highway is Barbur Blvd – living between these two streets, Barbur is pure EVIL compared to any other street I’ve seen in Portland. There were multiple people getting killed while trying to catch a bus by crossing the street at night. No streetlights, no crosswalks within a half mile, 40 mph speeds with cars regularly going 55+.
The car crash happened between SW Miles and SW Nevada Ct. Another report on the issue is at: http://www.swcommconnection.com
For all the talk and years of “policy,” keeping motorized vehicles moving still trumps everything else at PDOT. Capital Hwy between Multnomah and Hillsdale should be posted 25 mph at most, with crosswalks striped at 1/4 intervals, 31st, Nevada Ct., Texas, etc.