Articles Posted in Uncategorized

An article this week in USA Today outlines a growing movement around the country toward integrating bicycles into traffic patterns in a substantive way. The idea, the newspaper says, is to reduce bicycle accidents and create” safer roadways for non-motorists.”

“More and more cities across the nation, including 712 jurisdictions across 32 states, have been moving toward implementing “Complete Streets” policies, according to the National Complete Streets Coalition. These policies are meant to make streets more accessible for commuters of all types, as opposed to simply motorists,” the newspaper reports.

In practice, what this often means is the construction of protected bike lanes. USA Today notes that in Seattle alone almost 1000 on-street parking spaces have been eliminated in favor of bike lanes over the last four years. A bike lane separated from traffic by a median is obviously far, far safer than simply painting a bike lane line down the side of an existing road. As with most public policy decisions, however, this one involves trade-offs, and as USA Today writes the move toward better, safer bike lanes often leads “to a heated fight for curb space, as parking spaces are taken out in favor of bike lanes, bus lanes, pedestrian walkways, and even parklets, small parks built by extending existing sidewalks into neighboring parking spaces.”

A proposal to build a protected bike lane to and through downtown Klamath Falls received a detailed write-up last week in the Herald & News newspaper. While bike lanes are often portrayed mainly as a safety measure – a way to cut down on potentially fatal bicycle accidents – the study cited by the paper makes a compelling argument that protected bike lanes also offer a variety of economic benefits.

The study was prepared by two Oregon Institute of Technology students in cooperation with a member of the Klamath Falls City Council and a team from the Sky Lakes Wellness Center.

Citing the experience of cities as diverse as New York, San Francisco and Portland the study’s authors say the installation of protected bike lanes has led to “an increase in property values, rents, fewer vacant buildings, as well as fewer automobile and bicycle accidents… additionally, a protected bike lane will help connect neighborhoods to downtown, encouraging more people to go downtown and increase the possibility for more business and new businesses.” It noted that cities that have built the lanes have seen property values along and near the lanes rise by 11 percent.

A newly announced measure in New York designed to make city trucks safer and to prevent fatal truck accidents is worthy of examination by our city government here in Portland and perhaps even by the Oregon legislature as well. According to Gothamist, a NYC-focused website, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this week that “around 240 of the city’s trucks will soon be outfitted with protective side guards to protect pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists.”

“The guards, which span the side of the truck from the front to the rear wheel, are intended to protect anyone unfortunate enough to be hit by a truck from becoming trapped underneath it,” according to the article. A quick web search turns up photos of many municipal trucks around the country sporting the guardrails.

New York’s initial measure is relatively limited – involving only 240 out of more than 4700 city-owned trucks that could be fitted with the gear – but as a test project it feels like an excellent start. The article notes that “in the UK, side guards are credited with reducing fatalities and severe injuries in side impacts by 61 percent for bicyclists and 20 percent for pedestrians.”

The New York Times reported last week on an incident in Maryland that combines distracted driving and drunk driving but has a particularly eyebrow-raising aspect to it: the alleged culprit is reported to be “an Episcopal bishop (who) got into her car, her blood-alcohol level far above the legal limit” and, while texting behind the wheel, is reported to have struck and killed a cyclist.

According to the newspaper, citing the State’s Attorney’s office in Baltimore, where the incident took place, the bishop allegedly left the scene of the accident, though she did return approximately half an hour later. “The state’s attorney for Baltimore City announced charges… including criminal negligent manslaughter, driving while impaired and texting, and leaving the scene of an accident,” the New York Times reported. Perhaps even more surprising is the revelation that the bishop had “a history of driving while intoxicated,” according to the newspaper.

As is always the case in situations like this, so many details concerning this fatal DUI bike accident are simply tragic. According to the Times, the alleged drunk driver had pled “guilty to driving under the influence in 2010.” As one might also expect there have been accusations that the case has received special treatment because of the prominent public position of the accused drunk driver, who is the number two official in the Episcopal Church in Maryland.

Oregon DUI stories often, sadly, seem to be an inevitable part of every holiday weekend. Here in Oregon Thanksgiving week began with a DUI story that may raise broader issues.

“Police say a Salem woman was under the influence of alcohol early Tuesday when she drove her car the wrong way down Interstate 5 and crashed into another car, killing a passenger inside,” according to a report this week in The Oregonian. The newspaper reports that the 49-year-old woman “was driving northbound in the southbound lanes of I-5 for several miles, police said, before her 2003 Volkswagen Jetta collided head-on with a southbound BMW near mile marker 266.5, near Keizer.”

A 49-year-old Nyssa woman riding in the BMW “was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash,” while that car’s driver and a second passenger were injured. The driver was treated at Salem Memorial Hospital while the second passenger was transported to the Portland area for treatment. The wrong-way driver was also treated at a Salem hospital for crash-related injuries and, once released, was charged “with second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, driving under the influence of intoxicants, assault, reckless endangerment and reckless driving.”

A report released by the Bureau of Labor statistics earlier this month draws attention to a disquieting trend: though the number of workplace deaths fell nationally last year, here in Oregon the numbers went up.

According to reporting by The Oregonian, the BLS report found that “the number of Oregon work-related deaths increased 12 percent, from 43 to 49, between 2012 and 2013. Yet the number of workplace fatalities decreased by 5 percent nationwide to 4,400.” As someone who has written extensively about Oregon industrial accidents and the importance of workplace safety I find both the numbers and the overall trend disturbing.

The largest single source of Oregon workplace deaths was crashes involving cars, trucks and other vehicles. “Safety regulators tied a majority of the Oregon deaths to traffic- or equipment-related accidents. The report says 19 workers died as a result of vehicular crashes and 12 people were killed by machines or other objects.” The report’s accounting system also takes note of police and firefighters killed or injured in the line of duty. The relatively large number of vehicle crashes (accounting for more than one-third of all workplace deaths) is worth special attention. Under Oregon law there may be a case for a wrongful death action by surviving loved ones if a third party is found to be at fault in the incident.