Comments

2

Sigh............I really don't need any more reasons not to drive through Seattle..........

3

God how I wish the GOP - maybe the whole USA for that matter- would adopt the slogan NONWHITEWORKS, and leave all the @$#@!!
racism behind!

4

Rainier Avenue? Sheeeeit......have'nt seen her in years....won't never either....

5

I cannot remember the last time I saw a car pulled over anywhere in Seattle for a standard traffic stop. The kind of enforcement that makes streets safer for all users over time. All I see are SPD vehicles pulled across lanes the wrong way to respond to people of color behaving out of sorts. Perhaps a reset is in order. But then, I live in South Seattle. Perhaps SPD operates as a community police force elsewhere.

6

When drivers won't, peeps gotta protect themselves.
Is it time for ticketing cameras (police state? --
that ship sailed ages ago)?

Isolating drivers from the Planet
-- whilst they're driving --
is foolishness -- unless we have cars
that can (automatically!) protect the
clueless, and those they randomly
mow down.

7

Oregon and Rainier is right turn only for cars on Oregon. Cars turn left and go straight. So they added a curb that directs your car to the right. Drivers still turn left or go straight.

A traffic cop in a lawn chair could write tickets there all day long. And not because Rainier is special. A traffic cop in a lawn chair could write tickets all day long everywhere in this city.

It's not too hard and it's not unclear. Drivers just don't give a fuck about the rules. Seattle has a culture of entitled pricks behind the wheel. It's everywhere, they break laws all the time, then they whine about bikes or not enough signs or too many signs or the wrong kind of signs, or the road design or some other shit. It's just a fucking joke.

Ticket the damn drivers. No warnings. No passes. Speeding and red light cameras everywhere.

8

Speed bumps. Big'uns. Mid-block, every block. Is that just too audacious?

9

Is it an accident that NONWHITEWORKS has shots of Charles Mudede and Nikkita Oliver on its website? Surely, Charles has the journalistic integrity to provide full disclosure of personal conflicts of interest (doesn't he?). Maybe Charles can tell us what expertise NONWHITEWORKS brings to traffic safety issues. Maybe Charles can tell us how much SDOT paid NONWHITEWORKS. Maybe Charles will tell us if he's received compensation from them.

But then, maybe not. Inconvenient facts have never been of concern to Charles Mudede. The narrative must be served.

10

In your second to last paragraph, I was disappointed to see you write "the cars want to move fast [...]" Cars are (currently, ha) inanim. It is 100% drivers who make a decision to drive fast, or fail to monitor their own driving behavior.

Everything else I agree with you, there is something seriously wrong with the number of crashes that occur. The city's lack of action to address this is boggling, while sadly, not-surprising. Too bad the mayor doesn't have some rich cronies living there, huh? Seems to be the only people she listens to.

11

A completely solvable issue that teh city gubmint is completely ignoring - because CARS are CAPITALISM YAY!
Until a council member is in a pile-up there it won't matter how much blood is shed.

12

@8 not a bad idea. Rainier could be re-striped from four-lanes to two with a dedicated center left turn lane. Despite the whining of a lot of people where I live that has been done to several busy streets and it has calmed traffic considerably.

13

Hey SDOT, How about FIXING THE DAMN STREET! Or just make all the cars be required to have neon paint jobs, no silver-grey Hondas allowed.

14

It is all those racist, self driving cars that Mudede talked about a while ago. Yeah those KKK Teslas are dangerous! Surprised they didn't run over your daughter, they are so incredibly racist! Must be the way those cars were raised though as children. Either that, of those cars have an "unconscious bias" and need sensetivity training.

15

Nice to see people observing the littering laws. That pisses me off even more than bad, reckless drivers - though as a pedestrian, I fear them like hell. They don't even pretend to slow down at crosswalks. Man, that use to get you a ticket faster than anything here in Los Angeles. Hardly ever happens now - and the hits-and-runs in Los Angeles are an every day occurrence. Some yay-hoo plows into an 80 year old grandma who spent most of her life serving her community, for instance, and doesn't even have the balls to hang around to see if he/she can help her if only by calling for an ambulance. Just guns it. Probably afraid that if he/she stops to help, he'll/she'll be shipped back to wherever he's/she's from. That's the only reason I can think of why there are so many more hit-and-run accidents here (usually in poorer parts of town, by the way).than there were 30 years ago.

Street camera show that at least some of these accidents, the driver didn't even slow down. Are speed bumps the answer? God, I hope not. There are some once lovely roads here in Mid-City that were smooth and fairly straight and perfect for speeding and/or drag racing (another big problem here - thank you Fast and Furious). Nice neighborhoods. Pleasant. Trees. But a speed bump ever 100 feet or so. It's almost like being on safari on the roughest terrain imaginable. I mean, those speed bumps really toss you around.

So, I don't recommend speed bumps unless you have to. I worry about a generation that increasingly has no moral center...and yeah, I know. I sound so old.

17

@8 has ist right, the use of speed bumps will work to slow down traffic. There is a street in Lakewood (Pierce Co.) called Interlaaken Drive. This particular street is a windy twisty road with limited visibility due to dense shrubbery; accidents were frequent and often fatal because so many peple liked to drive ala Grand Prix de Monaco on this road. A few years ago the City of Lakewood installed a series of tall wide speed bumps making it nearly impossible to speed. The bumps are plentiful and clearly marked. Charles, you should push for the installation of these bumps along this road.

18

It's true, Seattle has an awful blend of drivers who go too fast, drivers who feel signalling turns is an indignity, drivers staring at their phones, drivers getting high on the way home from work, drivers incommunicado due to tinted windows, and bad drivers who are bad simply because they are impatient with all the other bad drivers.

It's also true that Seattle's police force is understaffed. It is true that in South Seattle particularly, Seattle's police have prioritized reducing firearm violence. This is much more exciting, and thus much more important, than policing minor traffic violations. Trained police officers know that traffic duty is a punishment, that it besmirches their honor. It is beneath them.

Traffic enforcement is off the agenda, for the foreseeable future. The only tools the city will use to curtail all this terrible driving are a sack of concrete and a bucket of yellow paint.

19

It’s not true that the city isn’t doing anything. Big chunks of Rainier Ave have already been turned into a one line each way and a center one for turning as suggested by lrb @ 12. Columbia city was the first and now the trend goes further east.
I was very much against it when it came about couple of years ago, yet heard accounts from business owners about daily crashes now being far more rare.

Any solution will be tricky. The street is a major route, connecting the south end with I-90, I-5, capitol Hill and beyond. Add the housing boom along the street, especially in Columbia city, and the expected Hillman city growth (“only few years away” as of 25 years ago), and you get so much more traffic while other major streets like 23rd Ave MLK's northern portion have already been narrowed down.
Sadly, bike lanes don’t ease the pressure, as weather and topography will always deter many of us.


Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.