Thursday night a couple blocks south of the intersection with State Street, on Cordon Road a driver struck and killed a person on foot.
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| Cordon Road at Pennsylvania, looking south |
From the Sheriff:
A few minutes before midnight on March 31, 2022, a 911 caller reported a pedestrian had been struck by a vehicle on Cordon Road SE near Pennsylvania Avenue SE in the unincorporated area of East Salem. Deputies and emergency medical services personnel responded to the scene, locating the pedestrian who was pronounced deceased at the scene....
Investigators determined a silver four-door Lexus was going southbound when the pedestrian was struck in the roadway. Investigators do not believe speed was a contributing factor to the crash. The 24-year old male driver remained at the scene; no citations or arrests have been made at this time.
The identify of the pedestrian, a 39-year-old female, is not being released at this time pending notification of the next of kin. [map link added]
Local governments are aware of a problem here, though they see it mostly as a problem of auto capacity, and less as road hostile to many users, and are moving slowly on planning. Back in 2015 the County applied unsuccessfully for a TGM grant. More recently has become a larger, joint project with the City of Salem. From the City a year ago:
Kuebler Boulevard SE, Cordon Road SE/NE, Hazelgreen Road NE, and Chemawa Road NE are classified as a Parkway in the Salem Transportation System Plan. Parkways serve as high-capacity, high-speed roadways that primarily serve regional and intracity travel. The Kuebler/Cordon Road corridor serves as the primary arterial serving the Mill Creek Corporate Center. The ultimate cross section for this corridor is intended to include four travel lanes, a landscaped median with turn pockets, and a multi-use path. This planning study will help prioritize future investments in this corridor and identify management strategies to promote safe and efficient operation for all modes of transportation. [italics added]
Language in crash reporting remains a problem also. It starts with the police template and press release, and then is subject to insufficient scrutiny and revision as it goes through other media.
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| On erasing the driver - Columbia Journalism Review |
At the SJ, they used the passive voice:
According to Marion County, the Sheriff’s Office received a call just before midnight that a pedestrian was struck on Cordon Road near Pennsylvania Avenue....the 24-year-old male driver who was involved remained at the scene and no citations were made.
At Salem Reporter, they were more accurate:
Deputies say a driver hit and killed a pedestrian in unincorporated east Salem Thursday. A 911 caller just before midnight Thursday reported a vehicle had struck a pedestrian on Southeast Cordon Road near Pennsylvania Avenue, the Marion County Sheriff's Office said...
For more discussion of language see these recent examples:
- "Headline Omits Verb, Erases the Driver; New TRB Paper Addresses Problem" (2019). This also has links to a follow-up study on framing and reader interpretation.
- See the way the story develops with different publications in "Driver Strikes and Kills Marshall Leslie on Foot near Downtown Safeway." (2019)
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| Back in 2015 we said "troubling" but really, how troubled are we? |
Killed in 2022
- George Heitz and Moira Hughes (inside their own home)
- Jowand Beck, Luke Kagey, Joe Posada III, and Rochelle Zamacona (camping on Front Street between Union and Division)
Killed in 2021
- Unknown person (I-5 and Market Street interchange)
- Rachel Bunting (while operating a bus for Cherriots)
- Blake Saville (on bike)
- Christian Kennedy (on Silverton Road)
- Galina Dvorskaya (south Commercial)
- Marlene Moreno (downtown crosswalk)
- Becky Dietzel (on North River Road)
- Unknown person (on Church St downtown)
- Aleta Pierre-Kelly (Mission Street)
- Eileen Johnson (on bike)
- Unknown person (on bike crossing Salem Parkway)
- Anthony Garza (on bike, crossing I-5)
- Christine Klug (on I-5)
- Unknown person (Lancaster Drive)
- Jaime Le Ann Hall (on skateboard)
- Sharon Pritchard
- Mario Lopez-Lopez (walking a bike)
- Unknown person via SJ (on I-5 near Market St)
- Andrew Otho Polston (biking on Windsor Island Road)
- Jolene Braasch Berry (on bike)
- Richardo Morales Avila (in McMinnville)
- Octavious Calloway (on I-5 near Market St)
- Selma Pierce
- Hermilo Mata Jr.
- Unknown person (on mobility scooter)
- Marshall Leslie
- Linda Adamson (south Salem) and Stephanie Ashford (just outside Salem)
- Jason Libel (on bike)
- Josephine Watkins
- Rodric Kenyon Drolshagen
Killed in 2017
Killed in 2016:
- Olivia Stroup
- Jaren Nash
- Alex Armes
- Anthony Earnest
- Baxter Harrell
- Unknown (just outside Salem)
- Bradley Goad (in Silverton)
- James Alton
- Caroline Storm
- William Hatch
- Travis Lane
- David McGregor
- Michael and Christine Crossland
- Rebecca Schoff
- "Why so much Acceptance for Traffic Cone Theory of Walking?" with discussion of a Salem Police PSA (2015)
- Notes on a City of Salem PSA this month, "City PSA on Time Change and Safety Needs Paradigm Change Itself." It has many links to the history of jaywalking also. (2019)
- On "distracted walking," "Death on Foot: Too Much on Distracted Walking Canard." (2018)
- "Why Pedestrian Rights themselves may not be Sufficient." (2015)
- Two discussions of a law review article about our system of subsidy for autoism, "The Laws for Compulsory Autoism at The Atlantic," and "Police Publish Video on How to Speed Without a Ticket." (both 2019)
1 comment:
going to get worse in this area of Cordon when the approximately 1,000 houses and apartments will be built on the old mushroom property. And there will be a long time before Cordon Road is improved with a pedestrian path. If you look at the area there are very few through streets. People are kind of forced to use Cordon or wind through various neighborhood streets to get over to the schools, or to the shopping center on Rickey Road. Marion county is even more "autoist" than Salem it seems.
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