Strong towns report on their crash Analysis studio project

[Winston Lumpkins]

Myles brought up the Crash Analysis studio at our goal setting meeting, which spurred this research into it... 

The crash studio homepage:

https://www.strongtowns.org/crashstudio

The report from 2024:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1euyanrfu2fBreXgo3byHYyjeN7Mc2t8i/view

The report is worth a read or skim.  

When it comes to traffic safety, the sort of number one problem that's driving me insane is that we do nothing to prevent future crashes when a crash occurs.   My sanity erodes further every time someone is injured or killed by predictable crashes...

I'm not the only person to be bothered by this lack of action, which is not unique to Portland; Strong Towns has been working on it for a few years.  

They've developed this tool/ skill set/ program called crash analysis studio- here's a quote saying it better than I can: 

The medical profession uses clinical mortality reviews to study and learn from adverse outcomes. The National Transportation Safety Board has a similar commitment to study each plane crash. Yet, despite the level of urgency, there is no institutional response to gain insight from automobile crashes.   

This is not because there is nothing to learn. And it’s not because we lack the capacity to conduct this kind of review. The most immediate obstacle to action is the lack of an established practice for analyzing and learning from fatal car crashes.

They've set out to create that established practice; their report details their findings and recommendations having tested that practice on 18 public sessions studying crashes from around the US, with local and recurring, strong towns related folks taking part in them.   

They also found some things which seem to be contributing to many of these crashes...  High speed design in urban areas, dangerous intersections design, and designs that deviate from the engineers plans/intent, among others.  Those factors are covered in detail in the report.  

Their number one recommendation is that there should be someone very high up in the cities organizational chart who is vested with traffic safety; reporting directly to the city council.  

I think we should be incorporating some of this into our goals.  

Check it out.  

~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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[Rauschpfeife]

The idea of a Crash Studio seems like an excellent one. I'd put the idea in a somewhat blunter way: crashes need to be looked into more deeply than the police are currently inclined to do, so those of us who take an interest will have to do it ourselves. As Winston says, there are some general conclusions that come to mind pretty quickly after only a modest amount of digging. And a whole family of questions that usually go un-asked. Like for example, how fast was the driver actually going? 

After an airplane crash, the NTSB does some very thorough forensic work. After somebody on foot or on a bike gets killed by a driver, officialdom generally just endorses the driver's story. 

One advantage of an *official* existence for the crash studio is that the cops would have to disgorge more information to it than they now like to do. And of course, with some kind of official standing, uncomfortable questions could be asked without being shrugged off. 

Relatedly (I hope) I've been tinkering with my own open-source version of the Maine DOT crash map: 

http://crashes.smithbowen.net/portland_crashes/

It now has clustering (and boy, do the clusters tell a tale).  The clusters resolve as you zoom in. I've included all bike and ped crashes, with or without death or serious injury, on the basis that more data points are better than fewer, and if even non-serious crashes occur more frequently in a particular place, maybe that place needs some attention. Of course, the fact that a crash was serious enough to report at all suggests that it probably wasn't trivial. 

Non-serious and non-fatal markers are green, serious injuries blue, deaths red. The popup on each marker is also now a bit more informative. 

Still no word from the Maine DOT GIS folks on direct access to the raw data. 

-- 

Best, 

Michael Smith

anacharsis.substack.com

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[Scsmedia]

I am going to disagree with one part of your essay.

This is not because there is nothing to learn. And it’s not because we lack the capacity to conduct this kind of review. The most immediate obstacle to action is the lack of an established practice for analyzing and learning from fatal car crashes.

The automobile manufacturers and the insurance industry have been studying car crashes for about 125 years.  They have focused on what happens to the car and its occupants.  This is well known and documented.  They do not study what happens to people cars crash into.

Why, because they have never been sued for it (I am sure there have been suits that have been settled out of court), so it is not a priority for them.

Steven Scharf

207-415-4662

SCSM...@aol.com

[Denise Brautigam]

I agree with the finding of the 2024 report Winston mentioned:

Their number one recommendation is that there should be someone very high up in the cities organizational chart who is vested with traffic safety; reporting directly to the city council.  

I said the same thing back in July when I talked about what Patrick Conlon & advocates had done to help change the situation in Jersey City, NJ.  They had the support of the mayor, Steven Fulop, and worked closely with him to point out problems with infrastructure in the city.  And it worked because that city underwent a major change.

I believe Kate Sykes is on our city council and cares a great deal about Vision Zero or at least about bicycle / pedestrian safety.  I have not followed everything the PBPAC is doing but are you doing anything with her?  Would it make sense to do more?  I don't know a lot about city politics or even Kate Sykes but she is on the city council, so wouldn't she have some sway?  Isn't she also pretty proactive?  Seems like a good person to have on your side.

I recall reading about bike rides with councilmen this group was doing. Wasn't that to point out issues in our city's infrastructure?  Has anyone done it with Kate?  [Again, I have not followed everything you have done so please don't get mad if I'm missing info and you are already working with her].

One place you could take her is to the intersection at Forest Ave and Riverside St - this is near to a homeless shelter where a homeless person was killed last winter. Although that crash had more to do with sidewalks blocked by snow forcing the victim to walk in the street, I believe speed was also an issue, and it definitely is at that intersection. That intersection is a death trap. When I still was using it, I was seeing a "near accident" or traffic infraction every time I went there. I don't go there anymore because it's so unsafe. But it's a good place to take Kate because you're almost guaranteed to see some sort of infraction.  She represents District 5 - doesn't that cover North Deering?  That would include that intersection.

Denise

[Damon Yakovleff]

Denise, great points. As for the Portland Council, I think it's safe to say there is a strong majority, probably a supermajority, who support urgent action on Vision Zero and bike/ped safety in general. The disconnect seems to be more at the implementation side, where staff are not given the resources they need or the directive to elevate this to the top priority it deserves. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/PBPAC/1405839052.1759416.1766409413271%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Denise Brautigam]

Okay, so who controls the allocation of resources?

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[Rauschpfeife]

Regarding Council vs the "implementation side": 

I'm new to Portland, so there's a lot I don't know, and maybe this is a rash observation. But I'm sorta struck by what seems to be a mismatch between the apparatus of municipal government in general, on the one hand, from Mayor on down to beat cop, and the social geography of Portland, on the other. Maybe I have a biased sample of the latter, but it seems to have, at least, a good-sized component of people with a "progressive" outlook, for lack of a better word. Whereas the government apparatus has a strong flavor of old-fashioned, old-boy, "Courthouse gang" governance. A lot of people in Portland seem to understand how bad driver-first street engineering is, but Portland's is *way* behind the times, even with things like signal timing, which it costs essentially nothing to change. 

You see the same mismatch (I think) on the subject of housing. Portland as everybody knows has a fine rent-control ordinance, passed by a healthy majority in a referendum (how I wish we could have done that in New York!). So public opinion is pretty clear. But the apparatchiks seem to be dragging their feet on enforcing it, and bend over backwards to get landlords off the hook. 

This is all probably too broad-brush, but is it *completely* mistaken? If not -- how has this situation come about?  

-- 

Best, 

Michael Smith

anacharsis.substack.com

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[Damon Yakovleff]

Michael and Denise, these are all excellent observations and questions. This reflects governance issues in society writ large. 

As far as "who controls the allocation of resources?" this is a great question. In theory it's the Council, although practically speaking the City Manager and the Department Heads have a great deal of power over what is prioritized and budgeted for. 

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[James Cradock]

City Manager. Approval (budget, for example) by City Council. Departments are directed by City Manager. 

Thank you. 

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[Winston Lumpkins]

Thanks everyone for the questions and thoughts!  

To Denise's questions: We actually did a walk audit with Kate Sykes of that area in 2024: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16Pn9ishcXiav4Z8vtKbOBtRLXwoQVrGX/view

Councilor Sykes is indeed a good ally on these issues, and has pushed for many of the recommendations made in that report.  Unfortunately, it seems like the way things are structured means that she's been able to influence long term plans for the area, but that doesn't seem to have resulted in much happening in the short term, even in areas where there have been serious injuries or deaths. Unfortunately, Sykes isn't on the Sustainability and Transportiaon Committee, so it's only  by being extremely tenacious that she's been able to get anything done. 

I haven't been out there in a couple months, but I think there is still no crosswalk in front of the homeless services center, and it's still technically impossible to access the Trolly park on foot while using a crosswalk, as there aren't any, in spite of an expensive new bike skill park. I also don't think any traffic calming has taken place around the intersection of Riverside and Forest Ave.  I think all those things are technically planned for, but, there isn't any capacity to organize short  term, lifesaving measures.  

A councilor can ask for something, and it can even be granted in a long term plan, but, it doesn't seem like we're able to deliver it on any kind of expedited timeline, even when people are killed.  2 people have been killed on Riverside Street since 2022, and more injured.  Yet, like Franklin Street, no measures are taken except perhaps changing plans. When will those plans be implemented? 

The conclusion I've come to is that we need someone who has the time to organize short term responses to deadly crashes, someone whose responsibility is safety, as this doesn't seem like it's something that's happening. That paper from Strong towns seems to support that idea, though I'm sure there are other ways of going about it.  

~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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