The gist is that Portland drivers couldn’t stop hitting crucial safety infrastructure (proving its necessity) so PBOT gave up on it.
As one of the commenters pointed out: Since a pedestrian/bike fatality costs PBOT nothing and replacing a concrete planter a car has demolished costs them more than nothing, to balance the budget they’re going to go with more pedestrian deaths.
They just give everyone a license over there, don’t they?
Quite literally yes. Without one it’s incredibly difficult to live in most of the country.
Everyone I know has to drive around a half an hour just to get to a job. It’s a ten minute drive to the grocer. Public transportation is “just for the poors” and doesn’t stop anywhere useful to most, and Ubers etc cost 6 hours minimum wage labor for a round trip.
We have a pretty decent transit system in pdx. Maybe not as good as some euro cities but you can live without a car and still do just fine. I did it for 5 years.