Promoting the Safety Action Plan: At the MPO

On Tuesday the 28th the Policy Committee for our Metropolitan Planning Organization meets, and as they are rolling out the process for a Transportation Safety Action Plan, they might consider a regular agenda item for reading the roll of recent deaths in the violence of traffic crashes.

BikePortland has more on a Portland-area policy group doing this at the start of meetings, "Why reading names of crash victims matters."

Though Cherriots Board President Davidson is not a member of the SKATS Policy Committee, in a promo video for the safety survey it was salutary to see him at the corner where a driver killed COG/MPO coworker Denise Van Dyke, acknowledging that particular crash and death.

At a crash site, via Twitter

There are in fact at least three other video clips circulating, on a variety of media also, to promote the survey and project:

• Mayor Hoy (youtube)
  
• City Councilor Stapleton (FB)
  
• Cherriots Director Carney (twitter)
  

While the survey has seemed like it risked mainly rediscovering known knowns, it is very good to see local electeds and appointeds rallying around the project. Maybe that will build more political support for a change in approach to safety.

On the agenda here is the formal removal of the SRC from "the list of Critical Urban Freight Corridors." It is interesting how long it is taking to untangle that web.

To strike the SRC from Urban Freight Corridors

They're also looking to release for public comment the full draft of the long-range Metropolitan Transportation Plan. It is possible that the safety plan and survey could prompt a greater focus on safety in the MTP, but climate and emissions are still struggling for adequate weight in the MTP.

However, it is the short-term plan, with a four- and six-year horizon, where the MPO makes and ratifies the main funding decisions and priorities, and so here, anyway, the long-range plan has not seemed so important.

Meeting info (yellow in original)

The Policy Committee meets Tuesday the 28th at noon. The agenda and meeting packet can be downloaded here.