A Portland cyclist who crashed her electric bicycle into one of the city’s “pedestrian safety improvements” has filed a $28 million lawsuit against the city and the road construction company hired for the project.
Rosie Lopez’s lawsuit says she suffered catastrophic injuries because the city of Portland and Raimore Construction hadn’t set out or installed “visual warning devices,” such as cones or barricades, that would have warned her that she was about to slam into a recently built “floating concrete island.” The island was situated along the shoulder of the road and significantly narrowed the lane of travel on Northeast Glisan Street near 80th Avenue.
Lopez, a 42-year-old bartender at the time of the crash, said she had been cycling on the night of Sept. 17, 2024, with a friend, who was behind her. Lopez said she had a “big bike light” illuminating her path, but she didn’t see the island until it was too late. It was 1:44 a.m.
“I thought it was something in the road, but I just remember ‘danger’ and then waking up in the hospital,” Lopez said in a deposition filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
According to a report written by American Medical Response, the ambulance company, bystanders estimated she was going about 25 mph. That was at or below the speed limit.
Though medical records say she was wearing a helmet, Lopez’s lawsuit says she suffered a broken shoulder and arm, a traumatic brain injury, a stroke, numbness to the right side of her face, blurred vision, “extensive” neurological pain and depression. The suit describes some of Lopez’s injuries as “permanent and disabling” to the point they have impaired her ability to work and require her to have “assistive living services.”
City spokesperson Cody Bowman declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing the pending litigation.
The president of Raimore Construction, Jeff Moreland, told The Oregonian/OregonLive this week that Lopez’s injuries were “very unfortunate” but the company isn’t responsible for what happened. Moreland said the city didn’t ask his company to install reflective “tubular” warning markers in its contract until after Lopez’s crash.
“We feel we have zero fault,” Moreland said. “How are we at fault for something we weren’t contractually obligated to perform?”
Moreland also said he thought his company went “above and beyond” what was required of it by setting orange cones and a white A-frame barricade with orange stripes on the island days before Lopez’s crash. Somehow and at some point, Moreland said, those cones and the barricade were moved, because when he checked after Lopez’s crash, they were on the sidewalk and not the island.
In court papers, the city says it was Raimore Construction’s responsibility to keep temporary warning devices in place until permanent ones could be installed. Those devices could have come in the form of large orange, diamond-shaped signs alerting road users to an obstruction ahead, the city said.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation’s website says the island was part of about $600,000 of “pedestrian safety improvements” at Glisan and 80th that began in August 2024. The intersection is just a few blocks from Vestal Elementary School. The local neighborhood news site, the Montavilla News, reported that as the project began, attendees at a school PTA meeting were “overwhelmingly positive” about the project’s intent to make the crossing safer.
Lopez originally filed a $13.4 million suit against the city and the construction company in 2025, but last week one of her attorneys asked a judge to dismiss it. In its place, Lopez filed this latest suit, which is almost identical to the first suit but asks for more than double the amount in damages — just over $28 million.
Oregon’s tort claim limits law, however, limits the amount the city could be on the hook for to about $855,000. Lawyers for Lopez are sure to fight such limits. That law doesn’t cap Raimore Construction’s potential liability.
Both the city and Raimore Construction have asked a judge to throw out the case, arguing that Lopez was under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Lopez’s attorneys haven’t responded yet in court papers.
But in a court deposition, Lopez disputed that claim, saying she wasn’t “on” any drugs that night. Medical records submitted to the court, however, show a toxicology report indicated that her system contained “high” levels of THC, an ingredient in marijuana.
A lawyer for the construction company also said that toxicology tests showed Lopez’s blood alcohol content was 0.052%, which is below the legal limit of 0.08%.
Lopez said that she had been testing drink recipes for her job that night, but that she was only sipping small amounts through a straw and was not impaired.
Police and prosecutors didn’t file any charges accusing Lopez of driving under the influence.
Lopez seeks $20 million for her pain and suffering and about $8 million for past and future medical bills, lost wages and other expenses.
©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
