A Metropolis company with the backing of the Portland Police Bureau has directed the Portland Bureau of Transportation to take away three visitors diverters in northwest Portland as a result of they are saying the massive concrete barricades and one-way streets — put in by PBOT to enhance security and calm visitors — hinder the popular routes of police patrols. To date, a minimum of one metropolis council member opposes the transfer.
Skyler Brocker-Knapp is director of Portland Options, a metropolis bureau shaped in 2024 to handle homelessness and associated “livability challenges.” In an e-mail right this moment to District 4 metropolis council members and copied to Portland Police Bureau Sgt. Ty Engstrom, Portland Bureau of Transportation Director Millicent Williams, and Deputy Metropolis Administrator of Public Works Priya Dhanapal, Brocker-Knapp wrote that diverters on NW twentieth and Everett, NW 14th and Johnson, and NW fifteenth and Johnson have to be eliminated.
“These areas… have been significantly problematic by way of continual nuisance habits (drug dealing, vandalism, and so on.),” Brocker-Knapp wrote. Apparently, staffers on the Public Setting Administration Workplace (PEMO) have been working for 3 years to make this transfer. All of the diverters (also referred to as “modal filters”) named within the e-mail create one-way streets for auto customers, since behind them the road turns into a bike-only lane. They have been put in as a part of PBOT neighborhood greenway tasks and vetted by months of public outreach with a aim to calm visitors and scale back visitors deaths and accidents to probably the most susceptible highway customers.
But when Brocker-Knapp’s e-mail is the ultimate phrase (I’ve not confirmed a date for elimination) they’ll be torn out and changed with sharrow markings.
The diverters within the northeast nook of NW twentieth and Everett have been the goal of neighborhood ire for some time now. An article within the NW Examiner final month requested rhetorically, “Do they make us safer, or simply get in the best way?” Article writer Allan Classen wrote that the boundaries, “forestall many neighborhood Fred Meyer buyers from driving immediately residence.” Classen defined that drivers headed north or west on twentieth from the Fred Meyer parking storage (on NW twentieth Pl.) should journey three blocks east to 18th Ave earlier than heading to their vacation spot. 85% of the 156 individuals who voted in a ballot posted on the Examiner’s web site stated they wished the diverter eliminated.
From the PPB perspective, the diverters and one-way streets power them out of their manner when touring between Fred Meyer and Sofa Park two blocks north. Sofa Park has just lately made headlines as a result of native residents have complained that it’s a hive of open drug use and crime. Again in Could the PPB carried out a targeted enforcement mission across the park that resulted in three arrests, drug and gun seizures, and 12 folks being transported to deflection facilities. Additionally in Could, District 4 Metropolis Councilor Eric Zimmerman made public his intention to have the diverters eliminated.
Based on Brocker-Knapp, restoring the streets to two-way auto visitors will permit police to “higher navigate” the world. The plan is for PBOT to interchange the diverter with all-way cease signal configuration. (“Folks biking may use the Flanders Greenway one block to the north,” the e-mail states.)
Over on NW Johnson, PEMO is directing PBOT to take away diverters and restore two-way visitors at NW 14th and NW fifteenth to, “permit for simpler motion for Portland Police by the world.” A spokesperson for PEMO informed me in a cellphone dialog right this moment that they’ve additionally had reviews from bike riders who worry for his or her security whereas utilizing the underpass.
A request for PBOT remark was redirected to PEMO. Of their e-mail, Brocker-Knapp stated they’ve already labored with PBOT to, “develop an answer for visitors redirection at these areas,” and workers from all concerned businesses have carried out web site walks with the town visitors engineer.
District 4 Metropolis Councilor Mitch Inexperienced opposes the tasks. In a reply to Brocker-Knapp’s e-mail, Inexperienced wrote, “I don’t help this in any respect and I’m curious to know what the justification for that is, what downside it solves, and what consideration has been given to the brand new issues it creates.”
“At a time when vehicle-based pedestrian fatalities are up, it’s exhausting for me to see how this improves public security.”
The PBOT Bicycle Advisory Committee has not been concerned with these discussions. I’ve realized that will probably be on the agenda of their August twelfth assembly and a consultant from PEMO and the Mayor’s Workplace have been invited to attend.
I’ve reached out to PPB Visitors Division Sgt. Ty Engstrom for remark. I’ve additionally requested PEMO how the PPB’s public security considerations have been weighed towards the general public security considerations that resulted within the set up of the diverters to start with. I’ll replace this submit as I study extra.
