Portland traffic deaths decline, but deadly trends persist, new report says
, released Thursday, said 58 people were killed in traffic crashes on Portland streets in 2024, compared to a record 69 traffic deaths in 2023. This data also marks the lowest count of traffic deaths since there were 54 killed in 2020.
ODOT intends to buy portion of Hayden Island to offset impacts of I-5 bridge replacement
'While the 19% reduction in traffic deaths in 2024 is a step forward, every life lost remains a tragedy,' Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said. 'The City of Portland is committed to Vision Zero, the philosophy that every traffic death is preventable through the right combination of infrastructure, education and enforcement.'
Wide, multi-lane streets and speeding continue to be among the risk factors for these deaths, the report noted. In 2024, 71% of those deaths also occurred on the High Crash Network, the 30 streets and intersections with the most serious crashes.
Further trends the report cites that the crashes occurred frequently in dark conditions with impaired driving also a contributing factor.
Oregon lawmakers scramble for solutions to public defender crisis
According to PBOT, nearly half of the traffic deaths took place in City Council District 1, Portland's easternmost district, which is mostly east of I-205. There are more low-income residents and people of color in that area as well.
But despite these trends, the report notes there have been changes in crash data where safety improvements to high-crash corridors are already being made. For one, PBOT collected safety data on Northeast 102nd Avenue from 2019 to 2024, which showed fewer crashes and lower vehicle speeds.
Further safety improvements — including reduced speed limits, new street lighting, speed camera installation and other major infrastructure projects similar to 102nd Avenue — are also making a difference, according to PBOT.
'When PBOT has funding to make our streets safer, we see results,' PBOT Director Millicent Williams said. 'We are gratified to see traffic deaths decline, but one year does not make a trend. We encourage everyone to continue to be conscientious, to drive with caution, and look out for pedestrians and people biking.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Human crisis': Oregon joins lawsuit against Trump administration over $15M crime victim cuts
OREGON CITY, Ore. (KOIN) — The State of Oregon joined a lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration's slashing of funds for the Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced the lawsuit on Monday. 'Betrayed': Gov. Kotek reacts to projected loss of $15B in federal funding A press conference took place on Monday afternoon with Rayfield and Clackamas County District Attorney John Wentworth, plus others. It can be viewed in the video player above. 'The Federal Administration is trying to use victims of crimes as a political tool to carry out an incredibly unpopular political agenda, and they are doing it in an unprecedented way,' Rayfield said. 'This lawsuit is about keeping shelters open for survivors of domestic violence, who need a safe space to sleep at night.' Oregon advocates warn of cuts to vital services for domestic, sexual abuse survivors The loss of the federal funding has thrown more than 100 agencies and organizations in the state into chaos. These organizations help victims of domestic violence, child abuse and sex trafficking. 'This is yet another attempt to place unlawful conditions on federal funds coming into Oregon to advance the President's unpopular agenda, this time at the expense of crime victims and survivors,' said Rayfield. 'These grants support services like the counselor who picks up the phone at 2 a.m., the shelter bed that keeps a mom and her kids safe tonight, or the advocate who walks a victim through the court process.' Clackamas County District Attorney said the victim cuts bring a 'human crisis' to the area. 'This is a fact. We are standing on the edge of a catastrophic failure of our duty to protect the most vulnerable in our community,' he said. 'If we don't act, we will pay the price.' 'It breaks my heart to experience the destruction of our system of safety and care,' added Melissa Erlbaum, the executive director of Clackamas Women's Services. Established more than 40 years ago, the Oregon AG's office says that more than 140 victim service providers rely on Victims of Crime Act (or VOCA) grants to provide critical services from shelters to camps for kids, victim advocates, and more. The AG's office says those organizations stand to lose more than $15 million under the new federal cuts next year. 'This is the money that keeps the lights on at domestic violence shelters,' Clackamas County District Attorney John Wentworth said. 'It pays for the specially trained advocates at child children's advocacy centers to provide a safe space for abused children to describe the unspeakable.' The attorney general's office said the federal government is KOIN 6 News will have more details as soon as possible. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
How many kids must die before L.A. makes streets safer?
Two weeks ago, fourth-grader Nadir Gavarrete was crossing the intersection at New Hampshire Avenue and 4th Street in Koreatown on an e-scooter alongside his 19-year-old brother, Carlos, when both were struck by an alleged drunk driver turning left through a stop sign. Nadir was pronounced dead at the scene, and Carlos was taken to a hospital in serious condition. Although we often refer to incidents like these as 'accidents,' the truth is they're entirely preventable. We live in a city where a pedestrian is injured every five hours and killed every two days. The status quo places L.A. among cities with the highest per capita pedestrian death rates in the U.S. (2.9 per 100,000), according to Los Angeles Police Department data. Koreatown is one of the densest parts of Los Angeles — at 44,000 people per square mile, it's more crowded than most New York City boroughs. Nearly every major street in Koreatown is on the city's 'high injury network' list — the 6% of streets that cause 70% of the traffic injuries and deaths. In other words, L.A. knows how dangerous Koreatown's streets can be. As a result, 14 years ago, in 2011, L.A. applied for a federal grant to improve safety along several city streets, specifically choosing to focus on the intersection of New Hampshire and 4th for one of its projects. The city won the grant money and kicked off community meetings to discuss installing a roundabout at the intersection, as well as adding enhanced crosswalks and other safety improvements to the immediate area. When I was appointed to the Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee in 2019, eight years after those initial community meetings, we were given a presentation by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation that showed a rendering of a beautiful and significantly safer intersection at New Hampshire and 4th, full of crosswalks and traffic calming, and featuring a roundabout. Six years later, there is still no roundabout. The city has yet to even break ground despite holding years of community meetings. Meanwhile, now a 9-year-old boy is dead and his family is left shattered. There are numerous bureaucratic reasons why a single intersection improvement could take more than 14 years. I'm not interested in them. What city leaders need to understand is that when they fail to act with any sense of urgency — even when they've won funding to do so — the inaction has real-life consequences, this time in the form of a little boy's life. What will it take for Los Angeles to have a sense of urgency in actually making our streets safer? We currently spend more on legal settlements to those hurt and killed on our streets than we do on Vision Zero, the city's half-baked effort to reduce traffic deaths. Since Los Angeles declared itself a Vision Zero City in 2015, with the ultimate aim of having no one killed in car crashes on city streets by 2025, deaths and injuries have only gotten worse. In the last few years we've had at least three children hit and killed while walking to school. And yet the city's leaders — facing a budget crisis, much of it of their own making — perpetually underfund LADOT and street safety in general. If a rash of falling elevators killed someone in L.A. every two days and injured someone every five hours, we'd immediately stop using them as the city stepped in to investigate and solve the problem. Yet we seem to just accept the deadly status quo of traffic fatalities as the cost of doing business while walking L.A.'s streets. We don't have to live this way. There are cities that have actually achieved Vision Zero, such as Hoboken, N.J., which has now tallied eight consecutive years without a traffic-related death thanks to significant updates at curbs, crosswalks and intersections. New York City is also steadily making progress on its Vision Zero goals, leading to a per capita pedestrian death rate nearly one-third that of L.A. Los Angeles remains an outlier and will continue to be one unless we properly and urgently fund our Vision Zero efforts and remove the bureaucratic red tape that slows progress: There's no need for 10 community meetings and buy-in from an entire neighborhood to make smart, lifesaving improvements. Michael Schneider is the founder of Streets for All.
Yahoo
13-08-2025
- Yahoo
Oregon man fatally shot after attacking family member with knife, deputies say
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — An early morning domestic dispute in Philomath on Saturday ended in the shooting death of a 36-year-old man, the Benton County Sheriff's Office announced on Saturday. Law enforcement responded to the scene just after 2:15 a.m. in the 600 block of College Street. 'Preliminary information indicates the incident began as a domestic assault involving family members. Gerardo Martinez Flores, 36, of Philomath, was shot while attacking another individual with a knife. Gerardo was pronounced deceased at the scene,' officials said. No arrests have been made and authorities say there is no ongoing threat to the public. The investigation is ongoing. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
