PORTLAND, Ore. — Employees and volunteers with the Oregon Humane Society, located on Northeast Columbia Boulevard in Portland, provide care and a temporary, safe home for pets of all kinds day in and day out. But, over the past several years, many staff worry about getting there or leaving work safely, as traffic speeds by on the busy, industrial road.
"We've had a number of accidents," said Sharon Harmon, CEO of the Oregon Human Society. "It's one of the most dangerous corridors in the city."
Foster coordinator Natasha Flatt told Portland City Council on Wednesday that she knows the dangers all too well, recalling a harrowing crash just last year.
"I was sitting in my car in the middle turn lane waiting to turn left into the OHS parking lot when a young woman in a sedan going very quickly barreled into the back of my car," she said. "The aftermath was devastating. The young lady had to be removed from her car with the jaws of life. Traffic was stopped both ways for hours. People were panicked by what they witnessed. It was chaos."
Oregon Humane Society staff compiled a list of crashes and near-miss incidents on this stretch and presented the findings to city leaders, asking them to approve a plan to improve the stretch of road outside the campus with a traffic signal, additional sidewalks and a relocated driveway.
Based on the current plan, OHS will contribute a little over $3.3 million dollars. Both the Humane Society and the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) confirmed to KGW that this is the majority of the cost of the road improvements.
A spokesperson for PBOT explains that the bureau does not have the money to back this particular project, with their limited funding dedicated to other improvement projects in even more dangerous, high-crash corridors with documented traffic deaths.
"I wish we weren't paying anything," Harmon said. "We could spend that money on spay and neuter, and getting justice for abused animals. But getting more people to have access and to save more lives is really the purpose of it."
Along with these fixes, there will also eventually be an additional TriMet bus route, and a stop closer to the animal shelter along Northeast Columbia Boulevard. Project leaders hope to have the roadwork and improvements completed by August 2026.