Advocates behind the annual World Day of Remembrance for Street Visitors Victims wish to make the influence of this 12 months’s occasion final greater than someday. They’ve coupled the same old demonstration and calls for for motion with a visitors security pledge they need politicians to signal.
The World Day of Remembrance is backed by the World Well being Group and has been held in lots of cities all over the world because it began in 1995. Portland’s version has occurred since 2015 and is led by the native chapter of Households for Secure Streets, a nationwide nonprofit for survivors of visitors violence.
On Sunday, November nineteenth, Households for Secure Streets of Oregon & Washington will be part of with The Avenue Belief, Oregon Walks, and different nonprofit organizations for a stroll that can start at 11:30 am at Lloyd Middle. Then at midday there shall be an indication and rally on the plaza in entrance of Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
“This 12 months, we’re recognizing the epidemic of visitors violence affecting our communities statewide with a memorial stroll which ends up in an set up representing the lives misplaced in our group,” reads a press release concerning the occasion from The Avenue Belief.
Regardless of years of advocacy and a focus on visitors violence, the variety of people who find themselves killed and injured utilizing roads within the Portland area continues to climb. To date this 12 months there have been 60 traffic-related fatalities in Portland — a troubling toll additionally mirrored statewide that marks a significant development upward up to now decade.
To assist garner extra help for modifications and reforms that may reverse this development, advocacy teams have launched a “Visitors Security Pledge for Oregon’s Leaders & Choice Makers.” The pledge spells out the disaster and particulars the results of harmful streets intimately. It then asks officers to make the next seven commitments:
- Reverse racial inequalities and boundaries to protected streets, specializing in marginalized communities which were disporportionately affected by transportation choices.
- Perceive and educate the general public concerning the significance of street fatalities, treating every lack of life with the identical concern and outrage as some other sort of demise in our group.
- Use exact language that attributes company and employs the lively voice when discussing deadly crashes, emphasizing accountability.
- Prioritize the security of all street customers over vehicular pace and throughput, mirrored in price range allocations, coverage choices, budgets, and spending.
- Champion measures akin to decreasing pace limits, enhancing road design and infrastructure (e.g., crosswalks), and limiting parking close to intersections, particularly in areas with weak customers like faculty zones.
- Cut back car dimension – I acknowledge the correlation between bigger car dimension and street issues of safety, and can promote safer, cleaner, and extra sustainable transportation choices whereas discouraging heavier, deadlier automobiles.
- Advocate for equitable visitors legal guidelines and enforcement, supporting complete Automated Visitors Enforcement (ATE) initiatives with progressively assessed fines, and dedicating revenues to boost security and accessibility in our transportation system.
The listing of signers and any feedback they want to share shall be offered to the general public on the occasion on Sunday the nineteenth.
Organizers need attendees to put on yellow. Be taught extra and register for the occasion right here.
