PARENTS WALKING their young children to Southeast Portland’s New Day School have had a confusing month.
After years of crossing a barren Clinton Street, they showed up on the morning of September 12 to find a marked crosswalk where Southeast 19th dead ends into Clinton—the very spot where the preschool sits.
If they were observant, the parents noticed this wasn’t like other crosswalks around town. Rather than the specialized plastic that the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) favors, the new markings were made of durable reflective tape.
“Very expensive,” says one of the people who installed the crosswalk.
In today’s Portland, where tactical urbanists have taken to erecting rogue speed signs and dropping unsanctioned cones to warn cars away from bike lanes, it won’t surprise you to know he’s not a city employee. PDX Transformation, a contingent of anonymous street safety advocates who have been active since late last year, installed the crosswalk.
Now, as the city mulls over a new plan designed to eliminate serious traffic injuries and deaths by 2025, the Clinton street intersection has become something of a battleground.