Is Portland Pedestrian friendly? (neighborhood, live in, cars)

[Future Trooper]

hello i live in indiana and was watching a episode of COPS and they were featuring Portland and they were talking about how pedestrian friendly Portland was. I was wondering is that true? they were talking about bicycle only lanes and special traffic signals to help pedestrians get across the street and everything. I live in the Indianapolis area and am kind of a bit jealous Indy is bigger than Portland by almost 250,000 but it seems like you guys are 250,000 more pedestrian friendly! here it is every man for himself. the episode was from 2004

[John Shaft]

Pretty much accurate. The first time I came here to visit, I had cars stopping as I waited at a curb, and almost getting mad at me for not crossing in front of them. Took me a while to figure that out.

I think part of this courtesy comes from the weather. It's often drizzling, and who wants to be out walking in that? And so...common courtesy.

In general, it really is a nice thing. HOWEVER...it does create the bad habit of pedestrians always assuming cars will yield to them. This especially is a problem when you travel elsewhere where yielding doesn't happen; you find yourself flinging your body out of the way. I guess in theory, cars are supposed to yield to pedestrians, but from a practical standpoint, it's much easier for someone on foot to stop walking than it is to brake a vehicle's forward momentum.

[epk6434]

Hi, I believe Portland was recently voted the most pedestrian-friendly city in the country although I'm no sure which publication named it as such. It was also recently voted the most bicycle friendly with something like 3 percent of the workforce commuting by bike every day. It's also a very walkable city thanks to its small-size blocks and amazingly courteous drivers (It was also voted as having the most courteous drivers, with Miami and New York having the rudest). By the way, for a cool site to determine how walkable any neighborhood is check out walkscore.com. Just enter any address in the country and it'll give you a rating of 0 to 100. My downtown Portland neighborhood came in with a 98!