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| This makes it safer. Really. |
The Portland city auditor issued a report the other day about the car haters in the city "transportation" office. The report points out that the bureaucrats are great at spending money to make life miserable for people who drive cars, but they don't bother to see if any of their spending actually makes any difference in improving traffic safety. The audit also notes the obvious, that for all the pork doled out to cozy contractors as part of the "Vision Zero" initiative, the number of people dying on Portland streets and roads continues to move in the wrong direction.
The Bureau’s policies and plans state that performance measures should be developed for evaluating overall transportation system performance and that studies should be done comparing safety before and after projects are implemented. Staff indicated this isn’t always done. Continuous monitoring of completed projects and the collecting and analyzing of performance data are best practices to determine whether projects are meeting their desired outcomes. Inputs, actions, outputs, and outcomes should align for each safety project to demonstrate real impact on the goal of zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries. The systematic evaluation of performance data could inform Bureau decisions on how to assess and adjust safety projects that aren’t getting the desired outcomes.
The Bureau is constantly working on a variety of safety projects, but those projects are not systematically evaluated once they are completed. The projects may range from large, corridor-wide multi-year projects, to discreet, individual safety projects such as installing a sign or speed bump.... While Vision Zero staff have completed in-depth reports for the Bureau, updated the counts of safety components listed within the commitments in the Action Plan (i.e., number of speed cameras, number of pedestrian head starts, etc.), and analyzed a left turn calming pilot project, the Bureau does not conduct routine, systematic evaluations on completed safety projects.
Without systemic evaluation of safety outcomes, the Bureau is missing the opportunity to create more alignment between the work they do on safety projects and the overall goal of Vision Zero. A more systematic approach would allow trends to be identified and analyzed to better understand the outcomes of completed projects, and which may need to be altered or dropped. As traffic deaths continue to increase it is vital that the Bureau consistently evaluate completed safety projects so they can see which are working best at shifting the trend towards the intended goal of zero traffic deaths and serious injuries.
The fatality and injury count is here:
OPB reports that so far in 2024, there have been 69 fatalities, which continues the ugly trend. This will be the worst year for Portland road deaths in more than three decades.
The response to the audit, which came from a minion in the city manager's office and the highly paid head of the transportation bureau, is City Hall gaslighting at its finest. According to these fine executives, it's all society's fault:
The crash data clearly indicates that societal issues related to housing, behavioral health, substance abuse, and a culture focused on the individual are factors contributing to deadly and serious traffic crashes. People experiencing houselessness do not have refuge from persistent exposure to traffic. People traveling impaired put themselves and others at risk on the road. Extreme behavior and disregard for others using the streets has become more commonplace.
A societal commitment to meet basic human needs and implement strategies to change current conditions are necessary to reach many of our shared goals, including Vision Zero. These changes require leadership, investment, and commitment from partners beyond PBOT.
As a Portland motorist, I marvel every day at the tens of millions that are being spent on virtue-signaling annoyances while so many people are continuing to drive with impunity like rude, lawless maniacs. But I'm not at all surprised to learn that in addition to not getting results, the car haters don't really care about results. Apparently, until the world changes "a culture focused on the individual," the precious children in "transportation" have a free pass to spend money impeding and guilt-tripping those of us with actual lives and somewhere to go. That is what "Vision Zero" seems to be all about: getting to zero normal people who want to live here.
Thank you, Jack. The reality is that the city doesn't use data anywhere, and just plows ahead with more boneheaded actions, which, surprise, cost bushels of money. I have stated numerous times and places - I never see anyone using the bike lanes east of 82nd, and I'm traveling those east/west corridors frequently in the afternoon and evening during the school year.
ReplyDeleteThis is all in concert with the development coprocephalics who build shiploads of 'multi-family housing' units and provide zero off-street parking for those units...on the presumption that the folks living in those units will be pedestrians, bicyclists, or mass-transit users and not own a vehicle they need to store when they are not using it. Yeah, riiiiight.... Predictably, every flippin' unit has at least one vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine and the street parking near these ill-planned and executed structures becomes a feeding frenzy...because, of course, every pedestrian, cyclist, and mass-transit user also has a vehicle to escape the trap of inner urban living.
ReplyDeleteThen the car haters send out the parking enforcement officer with the ticket book, and lately even the tow truck. It's quite a racket.
DeletePBOT recently dispatched three guys in a city-owned electric car to ticket (at over $200 a pop) people parked the wrong way on a gravel street (no curbs, no sidewalks, no striping, nothing but potholes).
ReplyDeleteThe irony is that the city doesn't really "own" any of these streets; want asphalt--pay for your half of the road yourself.
It's beyond interesting that Steve Novick once headed PBOT, where he came up with a special tax on new construction on the city's 50-miles of unpaved streets (the TIC, which he didn't claim as a wonderful achievement in his campign propaganda).
The TIC added yet another surcharge (after the System Development fees) that made it impossible to build anything affordable on those streets.
And now...he's back! Full of more goofy self-defeating ideas!
And PBOT will now be buried deep under the carapace of the "professional" city manager's opaque bureaucracy.
Ya gotta love this town!
A large problem is that other places are far worse in either cost of living, crime, lack of decent jobs close by, even worse infrastructure. So the number of drivers keep going up as people move here by the thousands. The city had done a decent job of souring people on moving here with all the extra taxes and fees, acrid smell of urine, camper shit holes, and passed out zombies, but it is not enough. They need to double down on dumb if we're going to get anywhere.
ReplyDeleteThis progressive utopia brought to you by the majority of brain-dead Portland voters. Just...Wow!
ReplyDeleteIt puzzles me that the geniuses at PBOT make things worse with every turn. Maybe if they submitted their proposals for public review they wouldn’t continue stepping in it.
ReplyDeleteThe car-haters are also climate change deniers. Making one or two lanes bus lanes only is absurdly stupid. Those lanes are used for busses only, which means that they are used for minutes a day meanwhile cars are crammed in one lane and can take two or three light changes to get through. Which creates much more exhaust pollution. What they did to lower E. Burnside is ridiculous. If I go to Hippo Hardware and park on Burnside, I have to cut across a bus lane and a turning lane just to get to the main lane. Dangerous and stupid.
ReplyDeleteWhat they should be doing: installing streetlights that actually light up the streets. It's no wonder there are pedestrian deaths and injuries all around town - so many streets are so dimly lit, and there's so many "dim" pedestrians wearing dark clothes that you can't see them until it's too late and some form of crash is going to happen.
ReplyDeleteMore speed bumps and bike boulevards aren't going to change physics. You can't stop or avoid what you can't see.