Downtown Portland is a deadly obstacle course | Letter

I read with interest the article of July 31 (“Could reducing speed limits to 20 mph make Portland roads safer?”). The idea is to prevent pedestrian deaths by reducing the speed limit to 20 mph. The article places responsibility on the driver. In most cases, I agree. At the same time, I believe the same level of attention to the lives of pedestrians needs to be paid to the pedestrians themselves, and other road users who are not driving cars.

In recent days, I have driven all over Portland’s peninsula and found it difficult to even achieve the speed of 25 mph. I found myself driving through an obstacle course of people using various transportation modes (motorized scooters, motorized and manual skateboards, motorized and manual bicycles); people using pedestrian crosswalks without looking; those who look before they enter into a crosswalk; people who jaywalk and just dart out into the traffic; and the omnipresent unhoused people who meander in and out of traffic without any regard for their own safety.

Downtown Portland’s traffic may not be the target of this initiative, but the traffic patterns, transportation modes and pedestrian behaviors certainly need to be addressed.

Ray Nagel
Falmouth

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Tagged: letter to the editor