Six people have died in traffic crashes across Portland since midnight Sunday.

Emergency personnel responded to fatal incidents in North, Southeast and Northeast Portland in the past 11 hours alone.

So far this year, 14 people have died on Portland streets, up from 10 deaths at the same time last year.

City transportation officials say that while it’s difficult to look at one series of deaths and draw a conclusion about an upward trend, the recent incidents are troubling and are a reminder people need to drive carefully.

“We’ve had a flurry of fatalities this week that indicate the need for people to be alert and to look out for people walking, not drive distracted, not drive under the influence,” Dylan Rivera, a city transportation spokesman said Thursday.

Portland saw its traffic deaths drop year over year from 2017 to 2018 – from 45 to 34 – but city leaders didn’t claim victory. Transportation officials are still hoping to eliminate all traffic deaths by 2025, part of the global agenda known as Vision Zero aimed at redesigning streets, educating the public about safety concerns and enforcing traffic laws.

The deaths along with multiple homicide investigations prompted Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw to weigh in on Twitter. “I am directing officers to increase enforcement, but this is everyone’s responsibility,” she said, calling on drivers to slow down and don’t drive impaired and bikes and pedestrians to “use caution,” and not to “assume drivers see you.”

Several of the recent deaths occurred on or near freeway onramps. A pedestrian was struck and killed in a hit and run incident in St. Johns on Wednesday.

A man died after crashing his van on Marine Drive in Northeast Portland that same day. Marine Drive is one of the city’s designated high-crash corridors, where a majority of Portland’s traffic deaths and serious injuries occur. The city has installed speed cameras on the elevated road, which sits on a levee adjacent to the Columbia River, and decreased the speed limit on stretches of the two-lane road.

According to public records, Portland has asked the state for approval to reduce the speed limit between 33rd and 185th Avenue on Marine Drive from 45 to 40 miles per hour.

That request is one of 14 pending with the state.

Rivera said the city is still waiting for more information on each of the deaths this year. “People want answers and we will certainly be working with police on figuring out the contributing factors on these,” he said.

But speed, distracted driving and drugs and alcohol are typically the primary factors.

Eight of the people killed so far this year were walking when they were struck and killed, up from six pedestrian deaths through April 11 last year.

Wednesday’s hit and run wasn’t the first of the year.

An 85-year-old woman was struck and killed by a driver March 19 on Southwest 45th Drive near the corner of Carson Street.

The death occurred on a stretch of road neighbors have raised concerns about for years, citing speeding through the winding Southwest Portland street that is just west of Capitol Highway.

Neighbors have called for a crosswalk at the intersection where the woman was killed and an electronic speed sign.

Josiah Barber, a staffer for Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, responded on April 1 to the neighborhood concerns, and said that death was “tragic”, and it was also “preventable,” as are “all traffic deaths.”

From 1995 through 2017, two people were killed, and three seriously injured, along SW 45th Avenue,” Barber wrote. “By comparison, over that same period 31 people were killed, and nearly 300 seriously injured along SE Division Street.”

He said the city has a lot of work to do “Given the scale of the work ahead of us, PBOT prioritizes safety fixes first where the most serious crashes happen as well as the parts of the city where people have been historically underserved.”

Rivera, the transportation spokesman, said Portland was still waiting for results of the traffic investigation from the March 19 death.

He said the city tries to focus its investments in areas where they see a trend of deaths. “That’s not the case on 45th,” he said, so the city is unlikely to prioritize that area, “unless we see a pattern of behavior that indicates a crosswalk is the right solution.”

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

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