A recent Oregonian article outlined a North Portland accident involving a 13-year-old girl that could easily have been prevented if local officials had paid more attention to the concerns of Portland parents. As the newspaper reports, the girl was struck by a car while crossing at the intersection of North Russell Street and Flint Avenue. “The girl suffered a leg injury and was taken to a hospital,” the paper reports.
What makes this story stand out is the fact that the unmarked crosswalk near Harriet Tubman Middle School has been identified by both Portland Bureau of Transportation officials and Portland school officials as a potential trouble spot – one that ought to have a marked crosswalk. The Oregonian reports local transportation officials had visited this very intersection only “a couple of weeks” before the accident. The paper quotes a spokesman for the Bureau of Transportation saying: “We believe it’s a good place for a marked crosswalk.”
As the newspaper notes, “in Oregon, every intersection is legally a crosswalk, even if there’s no paint on the asphalt.” That means the girl was crossing the street legally – and doing so in a place that had been flagged by area parents on several occasions since the Tubman school’s recent reopening.