Portland Office of Transportation tackles ped, bike safety.

Byline: Libby Tucker

The Portland Office of Transportation today will hold its second annual safety summit focusing on pedestrian, bicycle and motor traffic issues. Transportation officials and advocates will discuss high-crash corridors, pedestrian safety, the city's Safer Routes to Schools pilot program and its bicycle master plan update. The safety summit is meant to draw motorists' attention to walkers and bikers and help the city and its regional partners plan for traffic safety improvements. "We're encouraging alternative transportation sources in order for people to feel comfortable walking and biking; they need to feel safe doing that," Ruth Harshfield, executive director of the Alliance for Community Traffic Safety in Oregon and a summit presenter, said. "More people walking and biking means fewer cars on the road." Crashes involving cars and pedestrians have decreased in Portland since 1998, according to PDOT. The number of walkers involved in accidents decreased 38 percent from 1998 to 2005. And the car crash rate dropped 16 percent from 1998 to 2004. The number of bike crashes increased to 188 from 155 over the last 14 years. But the number of bikers grew to 10,192 from 2,050, meaning a smaller proportion of bikers are involved in crashes, according to PDOT. "Bicycling in Portland is safe and getting safer all the time," Greg Raisman, PDOT's traffic safety program coordinator, said. Still, crashes, injuries and deaths cost the city's economy $412 million each year, according to PDOT. The city set aside $4.7 million this year for its Safe Streets initiative to improve the most dangerous streets and intersections. And the program received $6.3 million last year. PDOT and the Oregon Department of Transportation will spend over $3 million in to add new traffic signals, signs, sidewalks, bike lanes and other street improvements on East 82nd Avenue. The street is one of the city's most dangerous with over 4,000 crashes and 16 fatalities in 2005. The city hopes to expand its Safer Routes to Schools pilot program, which in its third year reaches 26 Portland schools, to all of Portland's more than 150 schools. The bicycle master plan, which guides the city's bike improvement investments, is being updated this year for the first time since 1996 with a ...