Portland council hears calls for Vision Zero after string of pedestrian deaths; council adopts resolution for immediate steps

Portland City Councilors and city staff heard more than a dozen public comments pressing for swift action after another pedestrian was killed on a city street, and the council adopted a resolution urging immediate steps to reduce traffic deaths.

Advocates called on the council to adopt Vision Zero — a policy framework that treats traffic deaths as preventable — and to pursue low-cost, fast interventions alongside longer-term redesign work. “These are violent. They are preventable and they are unacceptable,” said Andrew Zaro, executive director of the Bicycle Coalition of Maine, noting four pedestrian deaths in roughly five months. “How many more people are going to have to die before we do something different here in Portland?”

The council’s resolution,…