PORTLAND, Ore. — There were 63 traffic deaths in Portland in 2022, according to an annual report released Monday by the Portland Bureau of Transportation, an exact tie with the previous year's three-decade high.
The matching figure does represent a break from the steady annual rise in traffic deaths that Portland has seen since 2018, but it's still a record-high total that PBOT officials said points to an urgent need for increased safety.
"No one should be killed just by traveling on the streets of Portland, no matter how they travel," commissioner Mingus Mapps, who oversees the bureau, said in a statement. "I urge everyone to think of this report as a call for us to drive carefully, to never drive while impaired and to always follow the speed limits and other rules of the road."
Fatalities among people in vehicles in 2022 decreased from 2021's total, according to the report, but that improvement was canceled out by increases in the number of biker, motorcyclist and pedestrian fatalities.
Pedestrian deaths rose slightly in 2022 after spiking in 2021, and the report found that 10 of last year's 28 pedestrian fatalities were people experiencing homelessness, despite homeless residents comprising less than 1% of Multnomah County's population.
Deaths from hit-and-run crashes also doubled from 7 in 2020 to 14 in 2021, and rose again to 17 in 2022, PBOT said. Impaired driving was cited as a frequent cause for hit-and-run crashes.
About 70% of the traffic deaths occurred on the roughly 10% of Portland's streets that PBOT has labeled as "high-crash corridors."
"As transportation commissioner, I will do everything I can to prevent traffic deaths, including investing in safety improvements on Portland's high crash corridors and exploring an increased role for enforcement," Mapps said.
The bureau highlighted some of its recent road improvement efforts in a news release accompanying the report, including lowering speed limits on city streets and adding new safety features along high-crash corridors, some of which have led to substantial reductions in high speeding.
