Hill House Meeting Follow-up

[Michael Dixon]

Nice to see some of you at Hill House yesterday after the moving Remembrance.  Hope the rest of the meeting on Munjoy Hill went well!

For those who have not yet seen it, HERE is a link to WGME coverage of the event:

At about 1:30 into the video, with Paul explaining the importance of Vision Zero, a car rolls through the stop sign and doesn't stop for the crossing pedestrian until just a few feet away from her, right in the middle of the intersection.

The data report and VZ "quick action plan" that I mentioned at the meeting can be found at the City's VZ Web Page.

[Winston Lumpkins]

Thanks for hosting us Mike, and the Munjoy hill Neighborhood Organization!  

Here's New Center Maine's coverage:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJhgr2DGECY&t=29s

~Winston

Winston Lumpkins IV (he/him/his)

Past Chair, Portland Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee
https://www.portlandbikeped.org/

winston....@gmail.com
207-408-1508

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[Paul Drinan]

Thanks to all who joined us for WDoR and thanks to Mike for hosting the meeting. Good overall coverage of the event although they got a couple things wrong, as the press will do. 

We spoke about the need for improving the crash reporting system and today I received a message from a friend on the west coast who saw our WDoR story and sent me info about this org who she just hosted at her brewery: BikeMaps.org.  I'll reach out and ask them if they can add a ped option. 

Paul Drinan

W: 207-370-7434

M: 207-615-5202 

pdr...@gmail.com

Vision Zero Maine

Friends of Fort Gorges

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[Zack Barowitz]

Mike mentioned that the engineer who designed the intersection said that the city did not follow his design and omitted safety features (bump-outs etc.).

If this were a building where an engineer spec'd a 6" steel beam but the client opted instead for a wood beam of the same size, and there was some sort of system failure and a person died; there would be a lawsuit.

Why not in this case?

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[Zoe Miller]

Hi all, 

I was sorry to miss the event Sunday. Thanks to Paul and Mike for hosting. 

Did you talk at all about the media coverage of crashes and educating/pushing police departments and press outlets to change their language? 

The coverage of the latest tragic pedestrian death in Waterville had me and another colleague fuming. Every outlet mentioned dark clothing and crossing without a crosswalk. And said she was "hit by a truck," not that a driver hit her. 

Moving Maine Network would be game to partner on an effort to advocate on this. And probably Friends of Allen's Corner too. 

There are some great resources about how to do it right and why it matters:

•  https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/03/28/how-coverage-of-pedestrian-fatalities-dehumanizes-victims-and-absolves-drivers 
• Columbia Journalism Review: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/when-covering-car-crashes-be-careful-not-to-blame-the-victim.php
• https://www.vitalstrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/Reporting-on-Traffic-Crashes-Best-Practices.pdf

I realize I'm preaching the choir for some people but I figured I would share! 

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Zoe Miller

207-838-8382

[Christian MilNeil]

I'm not a lawyer but my understanding is that the Maine Tort Claims act makes it very difficult for anyone to sue the city for building dangerous streets – it's the same law that made it so hard for victims' families to seek damages against Portland police officer Nicholas Goodman, who's committed two homicides in our city and is still on the city's payroll. 

However, just as it's deeply shameful and embarrassing for legitimate police to have such a clear threat to public safety wearing their uniform, it should also be embarrassing for the city to have endorsed an unsafe street design – and we should be talking about it more. Zack, is there any chance you got the engineer's name? Can we ask them to put out a statement about this on the record? 

Christian MilNeil
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[Scsmedia]

After reviewing the Maine Crash Data for the last ten years at https://mdotapps.maine.gov/MaineCrashPublic/PublicQueryStats I will note that the information needs some clean up.  They are claiming that 18 crashes in the last 10 years had a drive 0 to 4 years old and 

33 crashes 5 to 12 years old.

They also break out 15 to 21 years olds by age and 22 to 24 as a group, making 5 year comparison difficult.  I have combined them here.  This info in of its self is interesting, but you also need to look at the population of those bands (albeit those who are 15 in 2015 will be 25 in 2024).  But I can tell you from other data modeling I have done, the 60 to 69 groups are the largest population wise in Maine.

0-14	145
15-19	43,370
20-24	34,048
25-29	52,299
30-34	47,430
35-39	42,160
40-44	37,208
45-49	35,937
50-54	37,262
55-59	37,625
60-64	33,888
65-69	26,581
70-74	19,486
75-79	13,013
80+	12,723
[Not Stated]	1,069

333,651 Total Crashes

Driver Action at Time of Crash 

Not Stated 453,259

No Contributing Action  257,305

B should not exceed A

But I disagree with Paul Drinan that we should be looking at non reported crashes.    While it may produce some information, I suspect things like near misses reported happen due to reporter anger, etc.  Not sure how you would define a near miss.

Steven Scharf

207-415-4662

SCSM...@aol.com

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[Zack Barowitz]

I heard the engineer story second hand, but I think it should be brought to council and staff’s attention. The engineer might not want to stick out their neck out of fear from losing the city as a client. 

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[Zack Barowitz]

UPDATE 

OK. I looked into the intersection bump out issue a little more and I’m afraid that I misunderstood the situation slightly. 

That intersection never saw a a design in accordance with the complete streets policy (bump outs etc.) because the city administration was not accepting any designs in accordance to complete streets (whether out of cost savings, ideology, or something else; I don’t know). 

But the basic fact remains that the city administration chose not to enforce the complete streets policy. Whether that had any bearing on the pedestrian death is unknown to me but likely worth investigating. 

Apologies for the confusion. 

Zack 

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