street roots
13
Jan. 21, 2011
The Bicycle Transportation Alliance: A healthy vision
BY ROB SADOWSKY
w
C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L Ü M N IS T
Rob Sadowsky is the
executive director o f O k
Bicycle Transportation
Alliance. You can reach
him a t
rob@bta4bikes.org.
e’re excited to introduce you to .
Healthy Streetbeat, a new monthly
column for Street Roots written by
the Bicycle
Transportation
Alliance (BTA).
Our contributors
are Rob
Bicycle
Sadowsky,
Transportation
executive
director, and
Alliance
Margaux
Mennesson,
communications
director. Over the next few months we will
be sharing our thoughts about traffic justice,
healthy streets, and other transportation
issues that affect our community.
Every day on our streets, there are acts
that constitute a violent and anti-social
assault on life, health and community. Our
transportation system and our driving
culture cause crashes that result in the loss
of life and property. You might typically read
about traffic accidents, when vehicles collide
with other vehicles, with people walking,
with people biking. These are not accidents.
We believe that they can be prevented
through improved engineering, through
improved training and education, and
through increased enforcement of laws.
Our streets are suffering. They are
unhealthy. We are afraid to go near them.
We are afraid to let our kids go near them.
We feel safer when we are protected by
several tons of steel. We think walking or
biking is too dangerous, not worth the risk.
We fear for our personal safety, the safety of
our kids, of our friends.
Let us share our vision. We envision a •
healthy street where a loving couple can
walk through their neighborhood on the
sidewalk holding hands, young toddler in
tow, without concern for how they will cross
the next intersection. We imagine a healthy
street that is filled with people of all ages,
colors and backgrounds riding bikes that-
emit no greenhouse gases. We envision a
healthy neighborhood where people walk to
school and to the grocery store, with an
occasional motor vehicle (burning clean
fuel, of course) arriving to deliver a large
piece of furniture. A healthy street is one
that’s accessible by transit, so that the
toddler’s elderly grandparent can easily get
around to do their daily errands or meet
their bird-watching club in a nearby park.
A healthy street is part of a system, and a
healthy system has interlinking parts. That
system includes parks, schools, business .
centers and libraries. The system flows
smoothly between all its interlinking parts
so' people can move around it no matter if
the starting point or the destination is in a
dense urban neighborhood or a tree-lined
suburban neighborhood.
We need to work to transform our
unhealthy streets into healthy streets. We
must focus on improving safety of the whole
street environment through strategies such
as speed reduction and building better
biking and walking infrastructures. We must
teach everyone safe driving behaviors,
biking behaviors, and walking behaviors ’
through early education and ongoing
training of road users. We must learn how
to safely prevent crashes from occurring in
the first place.
To build healthier streets, to tackle the
problems that have led to this unjust traffic
environment, we need to engage all users of
the road and all parts of our society.
Underserved communities bear a
disproportionate share of the burden of our
current transportation system: There are
more crashes, fatalities, and serious
injuries, and the consequences of a crash
are greater. More people are uninsured, so
even minor traffic incidents can lead to long
term health and financial effects.
. We are hopeful and optimistic that we can
make a big difference in this environment
We will use this column to showcase
successful stories and best practices that
other communities have used to reduce
crashes and redesign streets to make them
truly healthy.
We will only realize this vision of healthy
streets within a healthy transportation
system with many partners, and we’ll use
this column to showcase some of the great
work our partners have embarked upon.
We’ll also share how readers can become
engaged and involved in this work. Let us
know how we’re doing, share with us what
you’d like us to cover. Join us on our
travels. •
T he answer awaits for a familiar question on the street
here am I supposed to go?”
I’ve heard this question before,
at similar volume, from many
people over the years. It usually signals a
homeless citizen pushed to the end of their
rope by multiple
police requests
that they “move
along.”
Such requests
invariably come
Robert Pickett
at the behest of
another citizen,
usually a nearby
property owner
or manager, who has called to complain
about people sleeping and/or loitering on
surrounding streets or sidewalks.
Unfortunately, nobody has supplied the
police with a good answer regarding “where
to.”
This was a little different, however. Mr.
O’Dea’s eyes were wide and a little wild, his
arms were moving everywhere and his
pacing was incessant. His explanation about
why he was keeping a six-foot-tall pile of
belongings here on the sidewalk was
irrational and meandering. And my
respectful, soft tone wasn’t making mellow
like it usually does.
Matt was right, it was a mini-psychward
down here.
Matt is the officer assigned to this
industrial part of the precinct He has
worked here for two decades, answering 911
calls and non-emergency calls, many of the
latter regarding the homeless residents of
the neighborhood who have also been here
for years. He knows all the people living on
the street and they all know him as “Officer
M att” He is known for his compassion and
patience, particularly toward the homeless.
Mr. O’Dea was one of three people
Officer Matt was concerned about, all
camping on the same block under an
overpass, and all probably suffering from
mental illness. The second, Mr. Wyatt, sat
all day in his sleeping bag on the sidewalk,
W
Robert Pickett has been a
Portland Police Officer for
eight years. H e has spent
most o f that tim e working
in inner Southeast
Portland, first a s a patrol
officer, a n d more recently as
a Neighborhood Response
Team officer working on
neighborhood livability
issues.
i
citizen who happened by? Isn’t dealing with
rarely moving, a pile of discarded food
this possible threat one of the reasons why
containers and cigarette butts slowly
society maintains a police force?
building around him. The third man, Mr.
The next morning we returned to the
Walker, regularly added alcohol to his illness
block and found what appeared to be drops
and was becoming increasingly
of blood splattered on the street I worried
unpredictable and aggressive when Officer
that my sergeant had been prescient, and
Matt would contact him. He would yell and
some passerby had indeed been clobbered
pace and walk menacingly toward Officer
the night before.
Matt before turning away.
We found no other evidence of a fight,
A few others were regularly spending the
however. Maybe it wasn’t really blood. We
night on this block, but would pack up and
took photos of the possible crime scene just
leave in the morning. O’Dea, Wyatt and
in case,'but then moved on to our original
Walker all hung around during the day,
task of waking up the campers and
however, growing their piles of rubbish and
encouraging them to clean up and start
drinking beer. A business owner, who had
their day.
spent a pile of money to renovate a
I woke a guy wrapped like a mummy in a
neighboring building, was calling incessantly
sleeping bag on the sidewalk. He slowly
for something to be done about these guys
stirred, uncovering his head and face and
and the trash, feces and disorder they
turning toward me.
created on the sidewalks.
It was Mr. Walker. His left eye was
After disengaging from Mr. O’Dea, Matt
swollen shut, and his nose was twice normal
and I discussed what to do about the three
size with dried blood caked underneath it
men.
We could certainly call our mobile crisis » Sifting through the various, mostly
nonsensical responses to my questions
unit, which is a mental health worker paired
with a police officer. We were skeptical that about what had happened, I was able to get
that it was a fight over a campsite last night,
anyone would be able to convince any of
and he wouldn’t tell me who assaulted him.
these guys to voluntarily accept treatment,
I called for a medical crew to come check
however, and the unit would take time to
him out, and he asked to be taken to the
respond because of their backlog.
hospital. He grabbed his sleeping bag and
One shorter term option could be to
walked himself into the back of the
continue to contact these guys and press
ambulance.
them about cleaning up and moving along
I watched as the most threatening - and
during the day, and maybe issue citations if
at the same time most vulnerable —
we caught them drinking in public. But
character in this surreal saga was driven to
particularly as Mr. Walker deteriorated, our
one of the most capable, modern and
guts told us that risked a violent reaction.
expensive emergency departments in the
Was it worth someone getting hurt?
state. Assuming they don’t find any hidden
We chose short-term option two: drive
away, leaving the sidewalk situation to fester damage, I suspect they will probably give
him an ice pack and a hefty bill that the rest
and the business owner to fume.
of us will ultimately pay.
At the precinct I discussed the situation
In a bizarre way, maybe this is the least
with my supervisor, who brought up a good
we should be doing for Mr. Walker — at least
point If we were concerned that one of
until society is able to answer Mr. O’Dea’s
these men might react unpredictably and
original question about where to go, or
possibly violently to contact, wouldn’t it be
better that he go after an officer rather than prevent him and his companions from
having to ask it in the first place.
some unsuspecting, untrained, unarmed
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