Category — Pedestrian Safety

Safe Walks is a growing coalition of neighborhoods from across the City of Seattle. We are advocating for additional funding for critical sidewalks and crosswalks throughout the city.

We are especially focused on neighborhoods that lack sufficient infrastructure in the north and south ends of our city. And, we are asking for priority to be given to projects that rate high in the Seattle Department of Transportation priority rating system that takes into account factors such as a project proximity to schools, parks, arterials and urban villages.

City Councilmembers and pedestrian safety organizations with whom we have spoken have been very receptive to having a dialogue on these issue. And, they seem happy to see neighborhoods working together.

We are working with Councilmember Nick Licata to plan a forum on pedestrian safety and critical sidewalks and crosswalks in mid-July. More information will be available on the forum soon.

We have set up a Google Group for Safe Walks and invite all who are interested to consider joining us. Learn more at: http://groups.google.com/group/safe-walks

Thank you so much!

Renee

Nick Licata’s Critical Crossings program (Critical Crossings documents dangerous intersections so that they can be shown to SDOT - who will take a look at them and make a ‘hmmm’ sound  because SDOT already has its own established process for appearing concerned when presented with these kind of requests) released some top contenders for dangerous intersections in Seattle.Anyway, I’d have to say of all the photos on the site this one wins the scary intersection award. (NE 125th and 25th Ave NE)

Saw this on the Pinehurst Neighborhood blog today, an invitation to submit your neighborhood’s most dangerous intersection photos to his assistant. (Kinda sucks to be that dude - couldn’t your boss have sprung for your web dev to link to a free flickr or Live account?)

You can check out their ‘Critical Crossings’ site here.

Of course, one question I have to ask is, how is this different from the dangerous intersection cataloging work that is being done by the Bridging the Gap process? I wrote about the many worthy projects that were submitted to Bridging the Gap last year but didn’t get approved (there was only $4.5 mil available for $239 mil worth of submitted requests). You can check out the list of neighborhood projects submitted to the city last year.

Of course, you have to keep in mind that SDOT has a very different idea of which intersections are worthy of upgrading vs. the Seattle Police Department. Dave has a nice comment about this, and I’ll post a letter from SDOT explaining why they couldn’t add a lighted crosswalk to the following dangerous intersection.

(Wedgwood intersection in need of help (35th Ave NE and NE 80th). The NE District Council ranked as the NE’s #2 Bridging the Gap priority for 2008. And as someone who catches the bus here - I would agree with that.) 

I thought these would be safer, but according to the city’s DOT, textured sidewalks aren’t necessarily safer. But I still like ‘em because they look cool.

(Wallingford and 45th DuraTherm crosswalk)

(West Seattle crosswalk)

So…with my new commute I try to avoid traffic on 520 by taking new routes home. Although this generally means it will be a while before I get home, it also lets me check out places throughout the Sound that I’ve never really visited before. This week I drove through Kirkland, which coincidentally is where a whole gaggle of Seattle City Council folks went for a Special Committee on Pedestrian Safety. I’m sure they were looking at why Kirkland does such a better job at pedestrian safety than Seattle, but really the answers are pretty simple.

1. Kirkland (especially in the downtown area) is not afraid to put crosswalks in places where pedestrians want to cross.
2. They also invest in crosswalk crossing aids -whether flags for pedestrians to carry or crosswalks that lightup when someone wants to cross.
3. Kirkland is hard core at policing its pedestrian safety rules. Just driving through Kirkland during rushhour, cars really respected the crosswalks.

Anyway, I’d also suggest if Seattle wants to get improve pedestrian safety that it gets serious about enforcing its rules and start making pedestrian improvements to roads that need help. For example, my neighborhood tried to get Bridging the Gap funds for a crosswalk for the intersection of NE 80th St and 35th Ave NE. But unfortunately it was rejected. Perhaps if the city council wants to take a real trip to look at pedestrian safety issues, it might want to visit sites it is rejecting within Seattle.

(Photo of a Kirkland crosswalk)

The Seattle Times posted a really great article yesterday explaining why Seattle doesn’t have nearly as many sidewalks as it should. The main reason is that Seattle annexed neighborhoods from King County that didn’t require sidewalks to be built when the neighborhoods were built. The city hasn’t been able to focus on building those sidewalks ever since. Personally, I always thought that any local city council candidate who positioned themselves as the sidewalk candidate would probably do pretty well - that is until the next election when the sidewalks still weren’t built.