Portland has many 4-way intersections with no stop signs. Seriously!

Sure they are mostly in quiet low-traffic residential areas. But it still freaks me out and Peter and I have had a couple of close calls where we didn’t realize the cross-street didn’t have a stop sign and we almost got hit.

And when you do meet cross-traffic at one of these ghost sign intersections it is one of those awkward “you go” “no you” or a simultaneous “FINE, I’ll go” tangos.

If I had to guess I’d say this is perhaps actually meant to improve safety and traffic calming, because it forces you to slow down and look around at each intersection. But if you aren’t used to it, it’s kinda dangerous.

This plays into our theory that Portland is anti-signage altogether. Exhibit B is streetsigns. They love to get bent or turned so you can’t tell what street you are driving down anymore. Or they love to hide behind trees so you can’t read them at all. I have a little tree-hugger in me but come on, you gotta trim that up. Some of us don’t know where we’re going yet. If Portland wants to create more jobs they should hire people whose responsibility is to maintain signage visibility/existence. It will help us all get where we’re going, and safer!

/soapbox

© studentofrhythm