1) To my mind, an exciting thing about the trend is that the numbers compare Portland to Portland. A better way to compare the trends in the two cities would be to compare NYC to NYC, then compare those results to similar Portland v. Portland tests.

As it stands, Portland had the fewest traffic fatalities in 2008 than any other year on record. The record dates to 1925. 2008 had 20 total fatalities. The next lowest was 2000 with 27. 1935 had the most with 89 fatalities. 1972 had the second most with 84.

I am working on a chart with that will show this data. It will also show a timeline for major traffic safety milestones. Stay tuned, I'm hoping to have it done within a week. The preview is that post-1990 has many fewer fatalities than pre-1990.

2) NYC is big by any measure. It's the largest US city. Portland, by contrast is the 35th largest US city. So, in my mind, Portland's a large US city, with 550,000 people. To me, a city with 100,000 to 300,000 is medium. Less than 100,000 is a small city. I pay homage by thinking of a city with more than a million as a metropolis - in it's own league.

3) There is nothing about the presented data that reflects any travel rates or per capita measurements. They're just nominal figures. How many people died over time? Not, how many people per population died.

I recall that NYC has a relatively low number of fatalities per 100,000 compared the the country as a whole. Rural areas score the worst in per capita fatalities. Todd Litman at the Victoria Transport Policy Institute has done some fascinating research about the fact that cities offer the safest transportation systems. http://www.vtpi.org/

Thanks for all you're doing to make NYC more livable.

Greg Raisman
Community and School Traffic Safety Partnership
Portland Bureau of Transportation

Portland is an amazing example of a small-to-midsize American city that works, but the problem is that it is small and not super dense (Seattle's Capitol Hill is more dense than anywhere in Portland, for example).

New York has ~14.5x the population of Portland, so if you divide 14/14.5 then you get less than 1 fatality.

No fatalities are great, and we should focus on traffic calming and all of the Jan Gehl strategies. But Portland is no mystical place.

Also the fact that there are more bike riders also means that drivers are that much more aware of cyclists in their midst, making them much more cautious.

the public policy in portland is very pro-urbanism, pro-transit, pro-bike, pro-pedestrian, pro-environment and anti-highway and anti-sprawl. and the urban growth boundary is key to this. the regional government's guiding policy is pretty much the charter for new urbanism, its all about focusing development around transit and existing urban areas and not on new farmland.

portland is really the only place in the US where bike, ped, transit, urbanism has the political support and favor. and this is where portland serves as the role model and not so much in its overall built form (although as a result of this strong urban policy there are some outstanding new urban areas in portland).

Portland, and all cities in Oregon for that matter, has an urban growth boundary. Periodically it is expanded or contracted depending on a variety of factors. What effect has this had on the car culture? Well, Portland is still an auto-centric place, but the number of vehicle miles traveled is fewer than it is in cities of comparable population size. For a couple of decades there has been a push for more compact, denser development. Along with that there has been a commitment to improving bike and pedestrian infrastructure, as well as the development of a comprehensive transit system. We still have a long way to go, but in a year in which there were bike traffic jams it is heartening to see that no one on dies.

Portland had about 18% bike mode share compared to what, 6% here in New York(?) and New York had infinitely more cyclist fatalities last year.