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A year after the Oregon Legislature removed some of the red tape from its onerous speed-review process, the Portland City Council has approved a 70-mile network of new 20 mph neighborhood streets.
On Friday, Mayor Sam Adams will hold a celebration event at Northeast Morris Street between Rodney Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, one of the many "neighborhood greenways" where the speed limit will be lowered from 25 to 20 mph.
The public is invited to the 10 a.m. event, which will also feature speeches from state senators Ginny Burdick and Jackie Dingfelder.
Rather than list myriad streets getting the new signs, here's a map of what the city has planned. (PDF)
It pretty much covers the entire existing greenway network. So, if you step onto the front porch and see sharrows on the pavement and bicyclists zooming by, you're street is probably on the map.
None of the Portland suburbs have announced plans for lowering speeds on neighborhood streets under the new law. "We're examining the possibility," said Tina Bailey, a Hillsboro traffic project manager, "but we're waiting on Portland to take the lead and to see how they develop their policy. I can't say for certain that we will do it."
PBOT is expected to install 250 to 300 new 20 mph signs at about $150 per sign. But that's assuming every sign needs a new pole. The total cost will be $30,000 to $45,000. "Costs will be lower if fewer poles are needed," said PBOT spokesman Dan Anderson.
Even a small adjustment in speed can save lives, experts say. Research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, for example, shows pedestrians struck by an automobile traveling 30 mph have a 40 percent chance of being killed. At 20 mph, it's 5 percent.
Until the new law took effect, cities had to get
permission for speed reductions on a street-by-street bases from an Oregon
Department of Transportation review panel.
The panel factors everything from
accident history and roadside culture to traffic volumes and roadway alignment.
Portland has long complained that the process is too laborious, unpredictable
and out of sync with local needs, especially on residential streets.
Now cities can arbitrarily reduce speed limits. There are strict guidelines: Only streets with average speeds of under 30 mph and with 2,000 or less daily car trips.
Also, the reduction could be no more than 5 mph and each
would require passage of an ordinance.
Portland has always said it will focus on turning most greenways, from Northeast Going and Klickitat streets to Southeast Center and Gladstone streets, into 20 mph zones.
Of course, before the bill passed in 2011, its
sponsors were forced to change its
terminology from "neighborhood greenways" to "neighborhood byways," a term that
is more palatable to Republicans who worry the former was too Portland-centric.
In Portland, side streets modified to discourage car traffic and attract bicyclists and walkers are called neighborhood greenways. And that's the terminology used in the law to describe streets eligible as new 20 mph speed zones.
Under the law, the new 20 mph signs will also read "speed limit" rather than simply "speed." In the past, under Oregon law, only placards in school zones and on interstate freeways had the words "speed limit."