With New Lower Speed Limits, Seattle Will Become More of a City

Comments

Excellent first step. Now change the street design to encourage the lower speeds (people tend to not pay attention to signs).

Matt the Engineer on September 28, 2016 at 12:32 PM

NOTHING moves as slowly as the Seattle Streetcar

NoSpin on September 28, 2016 at 12:46 PM

A real city? Finally? You like me! You really like me!

That's what it's all about. Seattle's dream, achieved at last.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn on September 28, 2016 at 12:53 PM

notice to Subaru and Prius drivers: 25 mph is not 15 mph.

Max Solomon on September 28, 2016 at 12:54 PM

More right of way transportation all over the Puget sound, available in the late evening/wee morning hours, e.g., NYC, will make Seattle more of a city. lower speed limits for the most part resembles rush hour traffic.

neo-realist on September 28, 2016 at 1:01 PM

This will do nothing.

There is no enforcement outside the Aurora speed trap and the occasional school zone. This will only be an opportunity for every collision to have the cause deemed to be speeding.
Figure out a way to get drivers off their phones and that will actually have an impact on traffic safety. Better yet, we should get decent mass transit...

SPG on September 28, 2016 at 1:16 PM

Seatttle was a "city" before idjits like Charles moved here and ruined the place.

Just fyi.

Don Ward on September 28, 2016 at 1:16 PM

Next Up: Large pedestrian-only plazas, like realer cities in Europe and Asia.
--Expand Westlake Center!
--Make Pike (B'way-12th) people-only!
--Close Pike Place Mkt to all traffic (except delivery vehicles)
...just for starters.

treacle on September 28, 2016 at 1:24 PM

Will the amount of lives saved in terms of accidents and pedestrians offset the number lost due to heart conditions brought on by the accumulated stress of sitting in even more sluggish, soul-sucking traffic?

schmacky on September 28, 2016 at 1:26 PM

40 mph thins the herd better,
Darwin is disappointed.

Commentor Comltatus on September 28, 2016 at 1:34 PM

@2, Well done

Urgutha Forka on September 28, 2016 at 1:34 PM

Driven at continuous speed, 25mph is the most fuel efficient speed for my car--an automatic Toyota Matrix. I'm happy.

Call me Scott on September 28, 2016 at 1:43 PM

If a law happens but noone to enforces it... is it really a law?

johnjacobjingleheimerschmidt on September 28, 2016 at 2:11 PM

@2 This cyclist doesn't lament not being in a car. I do pity drivers, though.

Not you, Nazi tubesteak. It cheers me to know that you will spend a significant portion of your life stewing in traffic.

MikeyC on September 28, 2016 at 2:40 PM

@9: I hope that's humor. Opening Westlake to traffic was a smart move.

Max Solomon on September 28, 2016 at 2:43 PM

Oh yeah this will slow down cars.

Nietzsche? Yikes.

balmontguy on September 28, 2016 at 2:46 PM

@15,

In case you've never seen Conan the Barbarian before, @2's comment is a play on this greatest line in movie history ever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAdzBaPD…

Urgutha Forka on September 28, 2016 at 2:59 PM

All this gnashing of teeth for what? Unless you're going a great distance the saving of time with 30 vs. 25 MPH is a few minutes.

http://lifehacker.com/does-speeding-real…

Five miles at 30 MPH vs. 25 MPH a distance greater than traveling from Broadway & E John to Lowe's home center at 2700 Rainier Ave S. (about 4 miles)

https://www.algebra.com/algebra/homework…

Weekilter on September 28, 2016 at 3:01 PM

I've always wanted to give Nietzsche the benefit of the doubt and assume we've always misinterpreted his most famous quote because at face vale it's an incredibly naive thing to believe.

Dougsf on September 28, 2016 at 3:36 PM

Wait which real cities have 20mph speed limits?

Orangesoda on September 28, 2016 at 4:06 PM

If you think this will have any effect whatsoever on driving habits, you fundamentally do not understand people.

Idiot Sawant on September 28, 2016 at 4:07 PM

@19 You forgot to factor in volume. You're not traveling on an open road without other cars puttering around.

TheMisanthrope on September 28, 2016 at 4:22 PM

There is a nebulous limit to the steady increase in social regulation which once crossed turns the balance of even progressive folks into faux libertarians. We had a clear example of that when we were going to have recycling police pawing through our garbage and fining us if anything recyclable was discovered. The result was the political class sensed the social tension and backed off of it (O'Brien notwithstanding). There are good indications that ratcheting down the speed-limit so that the expensive Licata solar "SLOW DOWN" lights would become law will be the next. Choose your relentless reduction of small liberties carefully.

theophrastus on September 28, 2016 at 4:24 PM

@22 Duh. This is a cash grab and Chaz knows it. If we can't fund the police through taxation, we'll fund them through fines and tickets.

TheMisanthrope on September 28, 2016 at 4:24 PM

@24 Are you trying to turn lowered speed limits into a "progressive" cause?

TheMisanthrope on September 28, 2016 at 4:26 PM

There will be special Amazon autobahn roads with no speed limit. Seattle is renamed Amazonville. Everybody without Amazon's groovy affinity badge will creep their way around and must pay tolls to keep the autobahn moving because Amazon's global HQ is in Luxembourg, a terrifically good tax dodging state.

mallow on September 28, 2016 at 6:50 PM

In two years when the number of collisions, injuries, and deaths is down, all of you twats going on about how it's unenforcable and will do nothing, and some typical Slashdot/Reddit mansplaining about Econ 101 and/or vulgar Darwinism are going to have to delete your accounts.

Seattle still won't be a Real City of course. Anybody who thinks they are ever going to earn a place at the cool table doesn't get what the cool table is.

But this Vision Zero shit? It's not some whitewashing ploy invented at a corporate think tank. It's not Reaganomics or Clean Coal. It's a plan by people who are the real deal, to change the way we get from A to B without some "acceptable" level of collateral damage.

Casualties decline, you delete your account. That's the deal. Don't forget.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn on September 28, 2016 at 7:35 PM

I don't care, truly. But I NEVER see any ticketing except for parking. Zero. I see people blow thru red lights with a cop across the intersection. No SPD wants to be giving out speeding tickets. (Unless this is a new money-maker.)

westello on September 28, 2016 at 10:35 PM

@29 The SPD recognizes that there are too many old people and children cluttering up the streets of Seattle already.

tiktok on September 28, 2016 at 10:45 PM

They will go to any length to pad the general fund without inconveniencing the wealthy.

Catalina Vel-DuRay on September 29, 2016 at 6:31 AM

Actually if you look at research from the UK (where they dropped speed limits a decade ago) this will likely have almost ZERO impact. Lowering speed limits to 20 has been shown to only reduce ACTUAL speeds to 28 mph.

Portlands had these lower limits for years but still has significantly more fatal accidents than Seattle.

At the end of the day this is about revenue not safety.

Seattle Transplnt on September 29, 2016 at 9:11 AM

@28 if you really believe all that I've got a Bridge to sell you.

Vision Zero is nothing more/ less than the Feds subsidizing local traffic laws.

It's whole premise is disingenuous from the start, your never going to get 0 Traffic fatalities, not in 2030 not in 3020...

Seattle Transplnt on September 29, 2016 at 9:17 AM

What a bunch of morons. Makes as much sense as making computers slower so there are fewer computation errors. It doesent make Seattle more of a city, it makes it more of a place to avoid.

Morgan8 on September 29, 2016 at 11:08 AM

I don't see what good this does if there aren't any police in the neighborhoods to enforce it. I live in NE Seattle and take walks in Wedgwood above 90th, where there are no sidewalks. I routinely see cars blowing past at least 40 mph, sometimes more. In the 7 years I've lived in this neighborhood, I have seen a police car on these residential streets exactly once during my walks.

Escapee from S. Idaho on September 29, 2016 at 12:13 PM

For people curious about enforcement — often with cases like this (new speed limit, seat belts laws, cell phone rules, etc.) police depts will schedule a day and apply funding (provided either by the city, a grant, or a special interest group interested in enforcement of the law) to assign a handful of patrol cars dedicated to enforcing this one issue. They won't be out there every day looking for people going 25mph but the spectacle of people being ticketed (and subsequent local news stories) will go a long way in bringing traffic to its new norm.

Dougsf on September 30, 2016 at 4:10 PM

With New Lower Speed Limits, Seattle Will Become More of a City

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