Floyd A. O'Reilly Blog: Another person killed while walking in east Portland

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Another person killed while walking in east Portland

Where four people were killed while walking in Portland so far this year.

Another person has been killed while walking on a Portland road.

Details from the Portland Police Bureau are sparse. They say a man was trying to cross NE Sandy Boulevard near 122nd at around 9:12 pm last night when he was hit by someone driving a Subaru wagon that was going westbound.

According to our tally that’s the fourth person killed while walking in Portland this year and the seventh fatal collision overall. One person hit while walking across SE Powell (at 124th) with a friend on March 18th remains at the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Of the six non-freeway fatalities, five of them happened east of I-205.

Here are the names of victims and locations of the crashes so far:

02/01/18 – Yelena V. Loukas, 53 – SE 148th & Stark (walking)
02/06/18 – Jeremy J. Sowa, 43 – SE Powell & 141st (motorcycling)
02/11/18 – Perwin S. Moni, 34 – SE 122nd & Stark (driving)
03/09/18 – Wes Hatton, 65 – SE 30th & Belmont (walking)
03/11/18 – Fuk K Chan, 74 – SE Division & 115th (walking)
03/21/18 – Unknown – NE 122nd & Sandy (walking)

Another pedestrian death in East Portland, rate so rapid I can hardly keep up. Kudos on lowering speed limits on side streets @PBOTinfo, but we REALLY need your help on arterials, where Portlanders are DYING #20isPlentyforEveryone https://t.co/mteliAvtUT

— sarah iannarone (@sarahforpdx) March 22, 2018

This steady trickle of tragedy — much of it from the high-speed arterials of outer east Portland where people bear an unfair burden of unfsafe infrastructure — leaves many people feeling a mix of horror, frustration, and outrage that more isn’t being done to combat it.

As we reported last month, Portland is already grappling with a spike in traffic deaths in 2017. City officials say they’ve built a strong “foundation” for safer outcomes in the future but it doesn’t seem like nearly enough.

As long as the threat we face grows at a faster rate than our efforts to mitigate it, I’m afraid we can expect these tragedies to continue.

Our leaders must step up and do more.

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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