Portland to Reinstate Traffic Division After Suffering One of Its Deadliest Years for Pedestrians

Portland revives police unit as traffic deaths surge Portland, Oregon, police will announce the reinstatement of their traffic division on Tuesday after facing one of its deadliest years for pedestrians in 2022.

After dissolving its traffic division in 2020, traffic deaths broke a 70-year record. In 2022, 63 people were killed in traffic crashes, equal to a 30-year-high record in 2021. Those deaths included 31 pedestrians who were killed, reaching historic high levels.

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“I think the city needs to step up its traffic enforcement work. In the last five years, traffic deaths in Portland have roughly doubled,” Portland Bureau of Transportation Commissioner Mingus Mapps said in an interview with BikePortland earlier this year. “It’s not like our infrastructure has gotten dramatically worse during that time. Frankly, it’s not really even like, you know, the amount of car traffic on the roads has dramatically increased. What has increased or changed during this time is the fact that we got out of the business of traffic enforcement.”

Police Chief Chuck Lovell blamed historically low staffing numbers and said the bureau needed to focus on 911 calls as reasons to disband the division in 2020.

Lovell and Mayor Ted Wheeler were united on the narrative that cutting out the traffic division was due to staffing decreases and funding concerns.

“We know policing must continue to evolve and adapt to changing times, and we have made substantial changes in our organization over the last decade,” Wheeler said in a 2021 press release, announcing officers will no longer prioritize traffic stops for low-level traffic infractions. “We also know that we have limited resources and must direct those resources appropriately.”

However, Jo Ann Hardesty, the former commissioner of the Portland Bureau of Transportation, saw this measure as a political measure to gather public sympathy.

“Recently, the police have been doing this very destructive narrative around doing away with the Traffic Division, and putting those officers on patrol,” Hardesty said. “I want to be clear that any police officer has the ability to write a ticket for traffic infractions. It is not a specialized expertise.”

Hardesty described the narrative around the police as pushing that their only problem is a lack of officers and money, when the issue lies much deeper than that, pointing to a rise in violence and pushing to keep the Portland community safe.

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In the past, Portland has taken measures to increase pedestrian safety, including implementing a “left-turn calming” tool aimed at making intersections safer for walkers by slowing turning speeds. Starting in 2020, the initiative takes after New York City’s “turning calm” project.

Lovell is expected to make an announcement Tuesday afternoon after the two-year hiatus made Portland one of the largest cities in the nation to lack a traffic division.