This just in: Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, who called for a road safety summit after recent bicycling deaths, and Seattle City Council members are convening said summit over the next several weeks. It includes a public forum at the Northgate Community Center, 6 p.m. on Tuesday Nov. 15. Conclusions are due Dec. 12. More information here.
The Summit will center around three basic questions:
1. What do you think are the highest priority safety problems to solve on Seattle roads?
2. What do you think are the most important things to do to make Seattle roads safer?
3. We often talk about what government can do to promote safety. What are the ways that non-governmental groups and individuals can promote safety?
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Here’s some news for the folks interested in our earlier post about the Maple Leaf Community Council acquiring a radar gun and hi-tech speed sign.
The council’s David Miller has now commented on the original post:
We have some woodwork and painting to do in order to get the sign prepped. I’m trying to make time to get that done. We’re also trying to get some info out of SDOT about speed data collection methodology. Once this is all in place, we’ll start working on the list of people who want our help to collect data and provide a visual cue for drivers to slow down.
This was inspired by the frankly surprisingly good outcomes on 15th from the radar signs there.
Miller goes on to speculate on the possibility of getting a lower speed limit in the neighborhood, something that would require the state Legislature to take action. The concept has fed into the supposed “war on cars” in Seattle – the Seattle Times has published a guest column in favor of flexible speed limits here; the Seattle Bike Blog has a look here.
(Personal opinions below only. I’m not representing MLCC in this post.)
If we lower speed limits and people drive the same speed, it will be easier to get SDOT to do something about it. SDOT will generally not act, or allow neighborhoods to act, until the 75th percentile of traffic is traveling 5-10 mph over the limit.
Allowing individual cities to make their own decisions on side-street speeds is good public policy. In Maple Leaf, 5th, 15th, Roosevelt, Lake City Way, Northgate Way, and 80th would not be affected as they are classified as arterials.
When originally presented in Olympia, unfortunately the advocacy groups thought they could do it without neighborhood support (they don’t like neighborhoods much). They played the “bike safety” card and, as a result, were turned back. We have an uphill climb in Olympia because of this, but I expect community councils all over the city (and the state, frankly) to support this measure.
This proposal does not, in fact, have anything to do with bicycling other than bicycling groups pushed this in the legislature. Nearly all bike lanes put in by Mayor McGinn are on arterials. These streets would not likely be affected by the changes we will be able to get through the Legislature.
The legislation also does not REQUIRE a lower speed. It allows individual cities to choose to lower speeds if they like on the side streets they believe could benefit. In Seattle, I expect requests for reduced speed limits on specific side streets to largely come from community councils.
As I said above, allowing more local control to set side street speeds is smart public policy.
David
Having been hit twice in my life by cars, I can say that the speed limit isn’t the issue. In the first instance in Kirkland the driver was too busy talking to his girlfriend. You’d be shocked at the bruises it left me. He was in a parking lot and the impact knocked me off my feet and onto my back.
The second time was here in Maple Leaf. A young driver too eager to get somewhere plowed into me in a crosswalk when I had the right of way. He actually thought it was funny. Again, speed is not the issue, it’s people. I’m in favor of having everyone pass a test to get their license renewed every few years but speed limits are worthless.
People who walk should walk on the side of the street and yes, they do need to yield to traffic. The roads are for cars, they are not parks, yet I see so many using the roads as parks. I have tried to slowly manuver around people who want to actually stand in the road and talk. I always drive slowly on the side roads but it is like trying to drive around the sidewalk at Greenlake at times. I do quite a bit of walking in the neighborhood myself, but I don’t impede traffic.
The nice thing about a calibrated radar gun is that it will provide some real, actionable data about speeds and save us all the bother of speculating.
If speeds are in excess of the existing limit, SPD can lend a hand by harvesting the speeders. However, it may be that 25MPH is just too darn fast for the streets here and people are reacting to the perceived (real) danger of cars simply doing the 25MPH limit through narrow streets, and not to any substantial speeding.
Regardless of what the nominal speed limit is, isn’t the safety of our families and neighbors what this is all about?
Oh, and I agree with Susan 100%. What we all should be pushing for is sidewalks over more signs and rules. I’d absolutely love to have sidewalks on my street, they stop at 88th on 20th Ave NE, kids walking along 20th to and from Sacajawea all have to walk in the street since there are no sidewalks.
George, I agree you can’t really drive 25 on most side streets in our neighborhood with parked cars on both sides, traffic circles, pedestrians and pets (my cat was run over and killed by someone barreling up my street). I just think most people don’t drive that fast and lowering the speed limit to 20 wouldn’t change the behavior of speeders, who clearly are already ignoring the speed limits.
Also, no one is talking about the cost of resigning streets, which in the current budget shortfalls could be pretty significant. Unsigned neighborhood streets are all 25MPH limits currently, if we lowered ours, we’d have to put up a lot of new signage. Which would be expensive and an eyesore if one get’s added to the edge of your property.
So I live on the Meadowbrook side of 98th where we have no speed bumps, no shicanes (spelling?) and no round abouts going along the hill. The speed is already posted as 20 mph but there is no way people are following the limit. I don’t see how lowering the speed limit on other streets is going to do any good because the 20 mph on my street is already ignored. What we need are sidewalks so we can walk safely. People use our street to go from Lake City Way to 35th and they go way too fast.
On a side note, there is a speed meter on 95th right around the 32nd Ave NE intersection. I wish we could get one on 98th.
So your solution would be to hinder the majority in order to cater to the minority?
The problem is where do you draw the line? You might think side street speed limits should be reduced to 20 to be safe, another person will think it needs to be 15 or 10 and so on. You have to draw the line somewhere and I don’t think making the majority of road users in vehicles who pay the most for the roads should have to be restricted to cater to the minority of road users on bikes.
Also, if you read through the report you will see that many of the pedestrian related accidents were on major and/or arterial streets. This again highlights that putting in place legislation to change/reduce the speed limit on non-arterial side streets is not what is needed. The time and money is much better spent on enforcing the laws we have instead of trying to put in place new laws. Without enforcement all the laws in the world are worthless.
MapleLeafBob: There is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. SDOT’s 2009 numbers indicate that the majority of Seattle’s pedestrian-car collisions are NOT the fault of the pedestrian.
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/docs/2009TrafficReport.pdf
Additionally, the “designated area” for cyclists overlaps exactly with the “designated area” for cars, so car dodging is par for the course.
To the point: There is a real problem. I thank the Community Council for moving on this.
George:
I do *actually* walk and bike the neighborhood streets. I walk the streets a lot more than I bike as I am one of the many Maple Leafers with a dog.
I also walk to the grocery store, restaurants, and bars, so I have walked early in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night. I understand that the roads have cars, hence their purpose. If one follows the rules, stays on the designated areas, and uses established cross walks its hardly a matter of dodging cars.
*should be “traffic circles” abovc
If you *actually* walk or bike the neighborhood streets — i.e. you are really out there dodging the cars chicaning between parked cars and traffic — it is obvious that a 25 MPH limit is far too high in many cases.
There are speeds that are “legal” and then there are speeds that are appropriate to the situation, sightlines, and safety of other users.
From the NHSTA:
The idea that the faster a striking vehicle is traveling, the more damage is done to a struck pedestrian, is almost too obvious to require proof. Yet the relationship has been documented in a number of studies. Pasanen (1992) reviewed three studies relating collision speeds and pedestrian injury severity, finding their results quite consistent and that the probability of pedestrian death reached nearly 100% for speeds over 80 km/h (50 mph). Modeling the data from Ashton (1982), Pasanen estimated that about 5 percent of pedestrians would die when struck by a vehicle traveling 20 mph. The pedestrian fatality percentage would rise to about 40 percent for vehicles traveling 30 mph, about 80 percent for vehicles traveling 40 mph, and nearly 100 percent for speeds over 50 mph.
http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/hs809012.html
Dan:
I agree with your comments. Mayor McAnti-Car, I mean McGinn tries to rationalize his push for lower speed limits on none arterial city streets by saying it will make things safer for bicycles has flawed data backing it up. He tries to use the examples of the three bicycle riders who have been killed since June. The problem with that is those accidents occurred on Dexter, University Way, and Juanita Drive. All three of those streets would not be effected by changing the law as he describes it, so the argument is apples and oranges.
It’s nothing more than a stepping stone towards wanting to put in place more cameras and speed traps to generate revenue. 25 mph is slow enough on side streets and they should focus on enforcing the current laws instead of trying to pass new ones that lower the speed limit.
I think our speed limits are just fine, it’s just that occasional drivers choose to ignore them. And lowering them won’t make the bad apples act differently. Honestly I wish they’d raise the speed limit on Lake City Way and on 15th between about 90th and Northgate.