A recent op-ed (“Spending on security isn’t making Seattle streets much less hazardous,” Could 12), requested why Seattle’s effort to achieve Imaginative and prescient Zero — zero fatalities and critical accidents for folks touring on our streets — just isn’t making adequate progress. It’s an vital query. Nonetheless, the writer’s conclusion that a very powerful answer is to scale back automotive congestion by designing streets for environment friendly automotive use is totally off-base.
First we must always take into account the context. Throughout the US, speeding is rampant, distracted driving is increasing, intoxicated driving remains stubbornly high and the proliferation of SUVs and passenger vehicles is having deadly consequences for pedestrians in particular.
Within the face of those headwinds, Seattle is safer than a lot of our peer cities corresponding to Denver, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. That’s a laudable achievement, and it’s because of our Imaginative and prescient Zero program’s efforts to set safer pace limits, implement visitors calming and construct safer crosswalks. However we should do extra. In 2025, greater than 200 Seattleites suffered life-altering accidents and 27 misplaced their lives.
The excellent news is that the options to maintain folks protected whereas touring on our streets are identified. The issue has been an absence of political will — in any respect ranges of presidency.
Federal insurance policies may assist by means of safer automobile design like European style mandates for safer vehicle front ends, passive in-vehicle drunken driving prevention, Intelligence Speed Assistance and distracted driving detection. However sadly, adoption of those lifesaving applied sciences aren’t anticipated anytime quickly.
On the state degree, regardless of being named a prime precedence, direct security funding represents lower than 5% of the state’s biennial transportation funds, in line with the Transportation Choices Coalition. And the Washington State Division of Transportation wants additional policy direction to prioritize its duty to assist redesign harmful state routes that run by means of communities, like State Route 99 (Aurora Avenue North) and State Route 522 (Lake Metropolis Method).
And on the metropolis degree, Seattle has been speaking about the identical harmful streets for the reason that starting of the Imaginative and prescient Zero program in 2015. In Seattle, 80% of pedestrian fatalities happen on multiple-lane arterials. Specifically, the highest 5 most harmful streets have remained Aurora Ave North, Rainier Avenue South, Fourth Avenue South, Lake Metropolis Method Northeast, and MLK Jr. Method South. When the Seattle Division of Transportation has been allowed to make modifications, just like the reconfiguration of the section of Rainier Avenue South by means of Columbia Metropolis, it led to reductions in dashing, crashes, accidents and deaths. Nonetheless, SDOT has not had the backing of earlier mayors to implement full redesigns of our most harmful streets.
If Seattle’s new mayor directs the division to get Imaginative and prescient Zero again on observe, what may that appear to be?
It will appear to be giving the division backing to overtake our most harmful streets — not simply tinker across the edges. However these main initiatives will take time. What will be completed now?
SDOT may rapidly scale a portfolio of small however efficient security enhancements corresponding to “hardened intersection daylighting” that Hoboken and Jersey Metropolis have used to achieve Imaginative and prescient Zero.
And whereas we anticipate the federal authorities to undertake finest practices from abroad, Seattle can look to our metropolis’s Nordic roots for inspiration. Oslo reached Vision Zero in 2019 and that metropolis’s mayor attributes that success to “giant investments in public transport, bicycle lanes and amenities for pedestrians, together with restrictions on automotive use and pace limits.” Helsinki reached Imaginative and prescient Zero final 12 months, and metropolis officers attribute their success to investments in protected strolling and biking infrastructure, in addition to a discount in harmful dashing by means of road design and automated enforcement cameras.
Getting Seattle again on observe to get rid of critical accidents on our streets is not going to be straightforward, however it’s attainable, needed and the confirmed methods are identified. And with Mayor Katie Wilson we could lastly have a mayor with the dedication to comply with by means of and ensure everybody will get dwelling safely to their family members.
