PORTLAND — Portland officials are considering a measure banning people from standing in medians unless they are crossing the street.

Mayor Mark Dion, who sponsored the proposal, said it was part of Portland’s ongoing pedestrian safety campaign called Vision Zero. Vision Zero is a traffic planning philosophy which changes roadway design to make driving and walking in the city safer. Portland has been making traffic changes in the name of Vision Zero, such as adding benches and paint to busy roadways to calm traffic, since it first adopted the philosophy in early 2025. 

This proposal also comes after a man was killed when hit by a car while standing in the median at the intersection of Marginal Way and Preble Street in June.

The proposed ordinance, as it’s currently written, would “prohibit standing, sitting, staying, driving, or parking on flush medians or raised medians less than 60 inches wide, except while actively crossing the street,” according to the city council agenda for Monday’s meeting. 

The Portland City Council voted 7-1 to send the proposal to the Sustainability and Transportation Committee to review and discuss before it comes back to the council for it to actually vote on implementation. Councilor Wesley Pelletier was the only dissenting vote. 

Pelletier argued that the measure would affect those who panhandle in the medians. Councilor Kate Sykes, who supported sending the proposal to committee, said instead of calming traffic through infrastructure changes, this measure would regulate peoples’ behavior. Pelletier agreed.

“This tax, as Councilor Sykes said, is regressive,” Pelletier said. “It does not actually make the streets safer, it is putting the onus away from City Council and assigning it to people who are using the infrastructure.”

But the other councilors said the proposal was at least worth considering. Councilor Sarah Michniewicz said the medians have become more dangerous as driving gets worse in Portland. 

“The change that’s happened recently is medians haven’t changed, but the way people drive has,” Michniewicz said. “It’s more unsafe than ever to be lingering on medians, these are high-crash intersections as it is. I don’t know where we’re going to land on it, but I think it’s a discussion that we need to have.”

Councilor Regina Phillips, who chairs the Sustainability and Transportation Committee, said the committee will put this measure on the agenda, but it’s unclear when.