Fatal and serious traffic collisions in the Salem area have tripled in the past decade, and residents say they fear for their safety when walking or biking in neighborhoods.
A new draft plan gives local leaders a roadmap for fixing those issues, recommending median islands, narrow lane widths and protected bike lanes.
The Salem-Keizer Area Transportation Study, the area’s metropolitan organization in charge of researching and planning transportation improvements, released the draft of its transportation safety action plan on Aug. 5. It covers metropolitan areas in Marion and Polk counties, including Salem, Keizer, Turner and Aumsville.
The draft plan is available online, in English or Spanish, and the public can provide comments through a website until Aug. 14.
The plan captures residents’ concerns about unsafe roadways and missing infrastructure as recorded in a 2023 survey.
“I can’t walk around my neighborhood with my little kids in the stroller because there are no sidewalks to safely walk on,” a survey respondent wrote. “We are forced to walk in the street where cars and drivers that do not pay attention are driving too fast.”
Many respondents shared stories of themselves, family members, friends or neighbors being in unsafe everyday situations, like walking around their neighborhood because of speeding cars or a lack of infrastructure.
“People should not have to literally die before sidewalks are prioritized and installed on this stretch of road that is so obviously very dangerous,” another respondent wrote, referring to a section of South Browning Avenue, west of South Liberty Road. “Let’s not write Salem’s sidewalk map in traffic accident victims’ blood.”
The plan shows the public that the Salem-Keizer area is noticing the issues residents face, said Sadie Carney, a member of the Salem-Keizer Area Transportation Study’s policy committee. Carney also sits on the Cherriots Board of Directors.
“The hope is not just to make roads safer for cars to drive on,” Carney said, but also for bicycles and pedestrians.
The study’s goal was to suggest implementable projects for local government to use as guidance when revising or creating transportation plans, Carney said.
To track the plan’s progress, employees with the Council of Governments will measure changes in traffic safety and update the study’s website with recent data, such as the number of safety projects completed, miles of sidewalk and fatalities or serious injuries from crashes.
The study identified sections of Commercial Street, Silverton Road, Lancaster Drive and Liberty Road as some of the most common crash sites in the area.
Preliminary Oregon Department of Transportation data showed an increase from around 50 fatal or seriously damaging crashes in 2012 in the Salem-Keizer area to more than 150 in 2022. That mirrors a national increase in traffic fatalities in the U.S., even as deaths continue to decline in other industrialized countries.
Between 2017 and 2021, 112 people died in traffic collisions, including 31 pedestrians and 10 cyclists.
About half the region’s fatal crashes happened within an intersection.
In the draft plan, the study reported most survey respondents felt safe driving around the area but unsafe bicycling.
People said both unsafe behaviors, like reckless driving, and a lack of infrastructure like sidewalks or speed bumps, contributed to the problems.
“People have forgotten about common courtesy,” one response read. “It’s safer on a racetrack at 150mph than driving to the store around here.”
The plan identifies six key safety issues, or “emphasis areas,” to improve transportation safety: intersections, pedestrians, bicyclists, speeding, impairment and distraction, and road user age.
One of the ways to improve pedestrian safety, according to the plan, is by installing flashing crosswalk beacons to increase drivers’ awareness of pedestrians with flashing LED lights. For risky driving behaviors like speeding and impairment and distraction, the plan recommends educating people on targeting those behaviors through media campaigns, classes or community events.
“We look to this to reinforce and inform strategies” and apply for grants, said Julie Hanson, Salem’s transportation planning manager. The plan guides where the city spends money on transportation infrastructure and programs, such as Salem’s Vision Zero plan to reduce roadway fatalities and run a public education campaign.
Several years ago, the city identified sections of Southeast Commercial Street that needed protected bike lanes. The city is now adding buffered bike lanes on the road from Madrona Avenue to Oxford Street.
Hanson said the city is continually building its understanding of road and safety needs, and the draft plan directs government efforts to where change is most needed. After gathering public feedback, a final version of the plan will be presented to the study’s policy committee in the first week of September.
Contact reporter Madeleine Moore: [email protected].
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Madeleine Moore is working as a reporter at Salem Reporter through the University of Oregon’s Charles Snowden internship program. She came to Salem after graduating from the University of Oregon in June 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.
