Portland Deserves Vision Zero
Portland Bike Ped
June 17, 2024
Dear Mayor Dion, Members of the Portland City Council,
CC: Manager West, Assistant Managers Libner and Jordan, Interim Planning Department Director Kraft
Every year in Portland, Maine, a city of 68,000 people, two to seven people are killed in traffic crashes with 15 to 34 people seriously injured. Lives are ended and ruined, and an untold amount of personal property is destroyed.
The Portland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee is requesting that the city create a Vision Zero Plan to reduce traffic deaths to zero. Without such a plan, we are exceedingly unlikely to reach Zero deaths and serious, life altering injuries. Such a plan would outline the issues contributing to unsafe conditions with our streets and roads, and create a road map to how the city can address those issues.
Currently, there is a Federal Safe Streets and Roads For All (SS4A) grant available for the development of Comprehensive Safety Action Plans, such as the Vision Zero Plan we propose. The deadline for this grant is August 29, 2024. Portland should apply for this funding opportunity to fund a Vision Zero Plan. We also should apply for supplemental planning funding to update our complete Streets Policy to the highest standards and change any manuals (such as Chapter one of the Technical Manual) to make safe streets the default and only type of street we build in Portland.
The Greater Portland Council Of Governments (GPCOG) recently completed the urban portion of their Vision Zero Plan. One of the action steps, which must be completed to reach Zero traffic deaths, is that cities and towns in the greater Portland area must either adopt GPCOG’s Vision Zero plan or develop their own. The city should develop our own Vision Zero Plan, as Portland is the largest city in the region and thus faces unique difficulties in making our diverse transportation system safe for all.
One of the principal stumbling blocks to consistent progress in safety in Portland is the lack of a comprehensive plan which the Vision Zero Plan could provide for transforming our dangerous streets into safe ones. Another benefit is that a Vision Zero plan would likely necessitate the creation of a Complete Streets Committee, which would steer the creation of the plan, and its implementation.
Other opportunities for this type of comprehensive planning do exist. South Portland Recently released a new Street Design Manual (as we have been calling on Portland to do for the last two years) which was funded with a $50,000 community action grant through the Governor's Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, applications for which are due to open again this fall.
Staff may already be planning to apply for demonstration project funding through this Federal grant program; an application for all three categories of planning and demonstration grants can be made at the same time.
GPCOG can offer technical support in applying for the SS4A grants.
Sincerely,
The Portland Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee
https://www.portlandbikeped.org/
Winston Lumpkins IV, Chair
winston....@gmail.com
207-408-1508
Gordon Platt, Vice Chair
The Portland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee is an ad hoc group of Portland-area residents working to make the city and region a better place to walk, bicycle, and wheelchair. We advocate and educate on bicycle, transit, and pedestrian issues, including handicap accessibility. We work in collaboration with other organizations including the Bicycle Coalition of Maine, Portland Trails, PACTS, the Portland Department of Public Works and the Portland Planning Department