Description

Uncontrolled crosswalks at Fred Meyer, with people simply expecting cars to stop, seems crazy. It's mentioned in a 2013 KGW story titled "City to change dangerous Burnside crosswalk" which emphasized construction issues, but the work is done and it's not much less dangerous, especially at night and in bad weather. There are only metal warning signs typically found on slower streets. Cars coming downhill from the west have a lot of momentum, and new-to-area drivers could easily be caught off guard at 40+ MPH. In a normal town, you don't expect people to just wander across a major street, trusting that all 4 lanes of traffic will see them and stop (I also fault many pedestrians and cyclists for being naive). It looks like another "someone must die" before anything changes situation.

The intersection just east of it (20th Ave. vs. 20th Place) has traffic lights, so why not eliminate the 20th Place crosswalks? It only saves 100-200 feet of walking (depending where you come from) to use the unsafe crossing. The weak or elderly might like that, but staying alive also matters!