“That will teach you a lot about how our system works and doesn’t work,” she told attendees at the University of Washington’s (UW) OpenThePaths2026 conference on February 27.

Held by the UW Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, the conference was meant to highlight the state’s first-ever nearly complete map of pedestrian infrastructure, OS-CONNECT, which maps the pedestrian infrastructure across the area where 90% of the state’s population lives.

The map

While AI created that map, humans vetted it — and in opening the second day of conference presentations, Taskar Center researcher Anat Caspi, the host and moderator of the conference, said that humans would be continuously responsible for vetting and maintaining the data shared. She said that the center had envisioned the constantly updated map as a platform to encourage buy-in from the public and center people walking, rolling, and biking. At the same time, the Taskar Center would share the vetted data with different agencies and providers.

“One of the biggest issues that we’re facing with this data, as well as other areas where low information has existed, is that it’s low-resourced,” Caspi explained. “We don’t have a single source to provide us with data just as it has been available for car travel, and so car travel becomes the only mode we know […] about, both in terms of ridership, in terms of who’s there, what are they using, what roads are being used, and how much. But we don’t have this kind of information collected and shared across all the different partners that support active transporters, and so that’s really the vision.”

Caspi acknowledged that many institutional barriers exist preventing policymakers from “really subscribing to that shared vision and open shared data that supports non-drivers.”

Legislative advocacy

Balducci joined a morning panel alongside Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck and Rep. Greg Nance (D-23rd, Bainbridge Island), a sponsor of the Mosquito Fleet Act, which seeks to give local jurisdictions more tools to expand foot ferries. The trio, all of whom are pushing for accessible public transit in-office and in advocacy roles, covered a variety of topics, primarily focusing on how to get legislators to perk up, listen, and act on different community needs.

Rinck said that she’s among the 20% of Seattleites who don’t own a car, and who get around using public transit. But when does that 20% — or any percentage — begin to matter in public legislative discourse?

Balducci said that she believes it takes some sort of “forcing function.” She pointed to accessibility requirements as an example. Before ADA regulations, people with disabilities had very limited access to transit. Unfortunately, she said, it wasn’t the result of good intentions so much as a host of lawsuits, regulations and enforcement.

“Collectively, it takes a lot of pressure. I think that we need to maintain the focus on passing good laws. And that doesn’t just mean at the state and federal level, at the local level,” Balducci said. “We need to pass good ordinances that apply to our own jurisdictions that force us to then do the right thing and send the message to the entire organization.”

Rinck pointed out that change is hard in the face of a majority of people who still benefit from the way things are. She later highlighted that while policymakers care about data from the standpoint of funding decisions, that’s not the only thing that gets them to sit up and care.

“I would love if every policymaker looked at data and cared about data, but that’s not the way to do it. I want to emphasize how important it is to understand what drives your decision-making,” Rinck said. “Not everybody cares about data. They care about the re-election. They care about looking good. They care about whether or not they’re embarrassed to leave. Those are tools, too. That’s my very spicy take.”

“Sometimes,” she continued, “the thing that gets the decision-makers to do the thing we need them to do is, for a very silly reason, a silly rationale, but if we’re about really effectuating change, that is … a realistic tool in our toolbox.”

Nance agreed, saying that it’s extra difficult to get transportation bills the proper attention they need, especially with so many spreadsheets and numbers attached. What gets these kinds of pro-transit bills passed, he said, is story — personal stories about individuals, to put faces to those spreadsheets and numbers. It’s also important to personalize that data before getting too far along in the process, to head off any cross-aisle “shouting,” as Nance put it, at public meetings.

Community action

That’s where advocacy leaders like Paulo Nunes-Ueno and Kirk Hovenkotter come into play, which made their panel following the elected leaders well-timed. At the conference, the pair of transportation advocates presented the Megaproject For Safety, a roadway safety initiative that Transportation Choices Coalition (TCC) spearheaded. Hovenkotter is the executive director of TCC, while Nunes-Ueno runs his own transportation consulting firm.

The initiative calls for dedicated state funding to prioritize making the state’s most dangerous roads, many of which are state highways doubling as main streets, safer. The coalition’s webpage states that new money — which a measure like a road usage charge could create — would fund the initiative.

“I also want to use this as a moment to talk about how you can keep and build momentum around an idea like this. We all know there’s great ideas or a dime a dozen, but it’s how you organize and how you put pressure on decision makers and bureaucracies to be able to get them done,” Hovenkotter said, before outlining the project for attendees. “That’s the conversation that I really want to have with Paulo and with you all in the room today.”

2023 was Washington’s deadliest year for traffic deaths, marking a 33-year record high. Of the more than 800 people who died, 160 were pedestrians. 2024’s numbers were nearly as grim, with more than 730 people dying in traffic crashes, 155 of whom were pedestrians.

Every municipality has its known danger roads, Hovenkotter said, and listed a few of them — Aurora Avenue in Seattle, Pacific Avenue in Tacoma, Division Street in Spokane, and U.S. 2 in Monroe. The problem is not just that they persist, but that, as cities and towns overhaul their zoning codes to allow for more middle housing as required by state law, the surrounding streets will get increasingly worse at meeting residents’ needs.

“I can promise you almost 100% of the properties along these roadways are going to be upzoned for new housing,” Hovenkotter said. “And the ask that we have is, ‘If we’re going to add new housing here, how do we make the roads that this housing is going on places we can be proud of, places that are easy to walk and get to these destinations and get to these homes? They’re not the roads that we know they need to be to be the homes for so many more people in our state. But we know that our state can do big things when it puts its mind, money, and might to a problem.”

Hovenkotter pointed out that the state has no problem committing both billions of dollars and decades of time to infrastructure like floating bridges and freight. So why not commit similar resources to pedestrian safety along Washington’s major roadways?

Hovenkotter said that in last year’s legislative session, following former Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) Secretary Roger Millar’s call on the legislature to put $150 million per year towards funding safer main street highways, the coalition asked the legislature of $1.5 billion over the course of 10 years to fund those safer roadways.

“Last year, we were lucky to win $100 million committed towards these roadways in the [2027 – 2029] biennium,” Hovenkotter said. “It was a really exciting win, and this went from an idea at the beginning of session to something that had $100 million committed to it.”

During the question and answer session, Barb Chamberlain, WSDOT’s director of active transportation, offered a slight correction. She pointed out that while Hovenkotter framed it as a win — and she appreciated that “advocates always have to say we had a win” — it was not, as she put it “new money” going towards those efforts, but repurposed funds already going to a similar purpose.

“It is within the preservation budget where we’re supposed to be doing Complete Streets work, so it’s money on specific projects, not on other projects. The real win would be new additive funding. ‘Additive’ is the key word here,” Chamberlain continued. “We want these transformational projects. We need new money to do transformative work, because you still want us to do the basic work — nobody gets across the river if the bridge is closed. No mode moves. So, ask for new money, when you are asking.”

She also highlighted that different agencies operate different roadways, and noted that there is a difference between roadway design and operation decisions and land use decisions.

“‘Wide and fast’ — those are functions of roadway design and operational decisions. … ‘Busy and complex,’ those are land use decisions. That is your city council or your county council,” Chamberlain said, indicating where residents could direct their advocacy energy. “What is the zoning? What is the anti-displacement housing policy? What are they going to do at the city level or the county level that means that the uses alongside the road and the design of the road work together? Because they don’t today. This is definitely not disputing the core premise, which is that we have a lot of car sewers [areas that are dangerous because of cars and car infrastructure]. And they need to be better. But just work all of the policy here, not only the transportation policy and not only the state. I think that’s my big takeaway.”

Another attendee, Jen Mayer, King County Metro’s equity and social justice capital implementation manager, agreed with Chamberlain about the funding, and said that she would love to see more interagency partnerships. While she acknowledged that sometimes these partnerships can mean long processes towards goals — she knows from personal experience — she also said it’s worth it, particularly dollar-wise.

“It would be way cheaper … all the different agencies are doing all sorts of stuff. Any time you dig dirt, I would like to have a model where we have a sidewalk SWAT team that says, ‘Oh, by the way, I saw you’re having a truck lay some ground here. Can you build some sidewalk along the side? Can you do ramps?’” Mayer said. “Can we be more opportunistic in our partnerships? Because it’s a lot of money to mobilize for sidewalks and ramps and crosswalks. But if somebody’s already mobilizing in that area, it’s way cheap to give them a little more money to do the work that we want to see get done. … I’d love to have more partnerships on the smaller scale as well as on the bigger scale.”

But, as conference speakers stressed throughout the morning, nothing changes without the public pushing for it.

Readers looking to get involved with transportation safety on a local level can check out organizations like the Seattle Streets Alliance, Tacoma on the Go, and the Transit Riders Union. Those looking to get involved at a state level can check out organizations like the Transportation Choices Coalition and Cascade Bicycle Club.

The post Advocates Gather at UW, Pushing for Safer, More Accessible Streets first appeared on The Urbanist.

Seattle is a city full of bright possibilities — and in recent years, voters have made clear they want a transportation system that reflects that. In 2024, Seattleites overwhelmingly approved the Keep Seattle Moving Transportation Levy, with more than 250,000 votes (67%) in favor! The renewal of Seattle’s transportation levy marked a historic level of investment in building a safe, sustainable, and accessible transportation system for everyone.

That mandate felt far-fetched 15 years ago when Seattle Neighborhood Greenways (SNG) was founded on the simple idea that people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds should be able to walk, bike, and roll to where they need to go. Our earliest campaign was to bring our namesake street design, “neighborhood greenways” — traffic-calmed residential streets designed for walking and biking — to Seattle.

That early work succeeded. Neighborhood greenways are now an official city program, with 55+ miles having been built in neighborhoods across the city. But our mission didn’t stop there.

In the years that followed, we heard from community members across the city that we needed to focus on all types of projects to make neighborhoods great places to walk, bike, roll, and live. From those conversations, our focus expanded beyond “greenways,” into a holistic vision of a safe and accessible city with crosswalks, sidewalks, protected bike lanes, pedestrian plazas, and safer streets that create a world where kids can safely walk and bike to schools and parks, elders and people with disabilities can get around to their daily needs, and where people have safe, comfortable, and convenient options for getting to where they need to go.

Over the past 15 years, SNG has helped deliver real, on-the-ground change across the city:

• Improving safety by winning safer speed limits citywide, giving pedestrians a head start at crosswalks as the default policy, and holding the city accountable for transforming our most dangerous streets. 
• Making more walkable communities by securing record investments in sidewalks and crosswalks through two transportation levies — including the largest sidewalk expansion in Seattle’s history, starting in 2024.
• Creating a bikeable downtown by envisioning and successfully advocating for protected bike lanes that encompass the city center and connect to surrounding neighborhoods. 

• Partnering with community leaders in South Seattle to bring safe streets for walking and biking to historically underserved communities, like the Beacon Ave safety project on Beacon Hill, the Georgetown to South Park Trail, and the MLK Jr Way S safety project connecting the Central District and the Rainier Valley.
• Laying the groundwork for future projects, the new People Streets program at the Seattle Department of Transportation is tasked with transforming our streets into community places for people, like pedestrianizing Pike Place Market.
  

That’s why, in our 15th year, we are proud to step into a new chapter as Seattle Streets Alliance.

As a city-wide nonprofit with full-time staff supporting an alliance of neighborhood groups, this rebrand reflects who we are now and where we are going. 

“Streets” signals that our mission is not limited to one type of improvement, but encompasses all the aspects that make for great streets — accessible sidewalks, protected bike lanes, pedestrian plazas, and more. 

“Alliance” captures our grassroots model: a collaborative community of neighborhood groups, partners, and advocates working together for systemic change.

This is more than a new name or logo. It’s a clearer expression of our belief that mobility — the ability to get to where you need to go safely, comfortably, and conveniently — is a fundamental human right. It affirms our values to create a city with equitable access to safe, sustainable streets for all. 

Seattle Streets Alliance has always been a people-powered movement, and there has never been a more exciting time to get involved! If you care about creating more walkable neighborhoods, closing the gaps in our bike routes, and making safer streets for everyone, join us or stay in the loop by visiting streetsalliance.org

The post Op-Ed: Why Seattle Neighborhood Greenways Is Rebranding as Seattle Streets Alliance first appeared on The Urbanist.

This week the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) presented early designs for an access management pilot at Pike Place Market, a project intended to increase safety and security as Seattle opens itself up to the world stage this summer. Proposed in former Mayor Bruce Harrell’s final budget, the new infrastructure is set to be paired with bollard upgrades at Seattle Center and Westlake Park, and comes in the wake of vehicle ramming attacks in New Orleans and elsewhere.

What should be a straightforward conversation about how to protect pedestrians at one of Seattle’s biggest tourist attractions is actually highly charged, happening against the backdrop of Pike Place’s current pedestrianization pilot. A chance to “test and learn” put in place last spring by former Mayor Bruce Harrell and incoming Pike Place Public Development Authority head Rachel Ligtenberg, the pilot is expected to last at least a year, and made access points to Pike Place limited to delivery vehicles and other authorized visitors during the busiest times of the day.

A no-brainer change for many city residents that has opened up the Market to people who walk, the change has not been received as equally well across the Market community, with many of the groups that make up the Market’s bureaucratic ecosystem voicing ongoing concerns around those changes and their impact on sales and access.

Whether that pilot continues and in what form remains up-in-the-air, but SDOT is preparing for the World Cup by looking at strategies to protect pedestrians on the Market’s busiest days that can be implemented quickly. These quick-and-dirty strategies may ultimately form a template for future permanent infrastructure, but will likely be significantly refined after this summer, with much more attention given to infrastructure that is proposed to be permanent.

“This is really just specific to getting ourselves ready for the World Cup. I want to be clear that this is not the full permanent [strategy], this is the interim barrier strategy for the World Cup,” SDOT’s Radcliffe Dacanay told the Market Historical Commission this week during a briefing. Next month, the department is hoping to win over that commission and get permission to start installing infrastructure as soon as April.

“We’ve been given this charge of, how do we protect Pike Place to mitigate against vehicles coming into and running into a lot of folks,” Dacanay said.

The plan presented Wednesday leans heavily on planters to block off non-essential vehicle access points, fitting in well with the Market atmosphere. Fire and delivery access lanes would be blocked off with barricades that could be more quickly removed: crash rated vehicle barriers like the type that were used to cordon off streets for this week’s Seahawks Super Bowl parade.

Surface-mounted bollards would be added at the periphery of intersections, at the edge of the sidewalk, to prevent drivers from jumping up onto the sidewalk to avoid those other barricades. Those bollards may end up being the most contentious part of the proposal at the Historical Commission.

“The rest of the Market gets extremely busy. [The sidewalk] is, or it should be, in my mind, a pure pedestrian zone, not for vehicles, not for scooters, and the bollards will impact that,” Commissioner Grace Leong said, in remarks that were echoed by Commissioner Tom Graff. “I still want to get rid of them because they block pedestrian access,” Graff said.

SDOT may be able to achieve its sidewalk protection goals without impacting that sacred space with bollards that are further into the street, but that could impact parking or travel lanes. No one on the Historical Commission, which controls half of First Avenue out into the middle of the street, brought up this potential option.

Many folks who hold differing opinions on vehicle access would love to see retractable bollards that can rise and lower for delivery vehicles — in place elsewhere at places like Seattle Center — allowing much greater flexibility around who can be let in at any given time. But those aren’t on the table…yet.

“Part of that is the dance between what is a long term solution and what we could accomplish this year,” SDOT’s Matt Beaulieu told the Commission. “In preparation for World Cup, we can’t physically construct retractable bollards in time for World Cup. When our time period moves out, they become feasible.”

Another point of contention Wednesday was the signage SDOT plans to install at Market entrances, specifically the need to add “street closed” language to prohibit general purpose vehicles from entering. Despite the fact that Pike Place is one of the few places in Seattle where city code explicitly allows pedestrians to cross anywhere without falling under “jaywalking statutes”, that fact remains in conflict with state law, hence this proposed signage that allows the street to open for broader uses.

That will likely change when Seattle takes advantage of a new state law, SB 5595, allowing cities to designate “shared streets” with lower speed limits where pedestrians have priority over other road users. Pike Place is a natural fit for such a designation, but authorizing legislation is held up within SDOT despite a budget amendment advanced last year by Councilmember Dan Strauss.

“We’re actively working to bring that proposal back to Council. We are not scheduled to go in front of Council yet, and based on what we’ve heard from Council, they are very excited to have that about two months ago,” Beaulieu said. “We’re really working towards it, and we’d like to be able to say, ‘Oh, we’re going to have it before World Cup.’ I can’t promise that.”

With such a quick timeline for implementation, some elements of this spring’s barricade installation look to fall short of what many people would love to see at Pike Place. But trying out something — with the ultimate goal of ensuring that a catastrophic incident doesn’t take place as Seattle prepares to host one of its biggest events ever — will ultimately represent a big step forward for the Market.

The post Vehicle Barrier Plan for Pike Place Market Comes Into View first appeared on The Urbanist.

Speaking at a January 30 forum hosted by transit advocacy organization Tacoma On the Go, Casas, who is an associate professor at the University of Washington Tacoma and serves on the Tacoma Transportation Commission, referenced outgoing Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy’s letter discussing the negative health effects of social isolation, and said that he and others “live in cities by name only.”

“Really, we live in suburbs that have certain sections or islands that are true cities. […] Between them, there’s a lot of gaps, and those gaps are created because we have designed places where you need to bring a one-ton, very big piece of property with you to be anywhere you want to go,” Casas continued. “This matters because if we want to remake our society, we have to start by creating more proximity between you and the people you care about.”

That’s where the concept of a 15-minute city or neighborhood comes in. In a 15-minute neighborhood, people don’t need a car to access their basic needs — things like groceries, health care, school, or being able to meet up with a friend. Instead, all of these activities and amenities should be within a 15-minute walk or bike ride of home. 

Casas, South Sound Housing Affordability Partners program specialist Alyssa Torrez, Pierce County Planning Commission Chair Robb Krehbiel, and moderator Tanisha Jumper discussed this kind of urban layout during the forum, as Tacoma works to create its own 15-minute neighborhoods. (Note: Casas is also a boardmember at The Urbanist, which is run as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, and he has contributed articles as a freelancer.)

Carlos Moreno, a French Colombian professor, researcher, and scientist, coined the term “15-minute city” in 2016; but, Casas said, the concept is “an organic and very historical way that human settlements have been set up,” where “the neighborhood becomes the organizing principle for everyday life.”

With the rise of car culture and car-centric city planning throughout the past century, this isn’t the case for most American cities today, and certainly isn’t the case for Tacoma. But it’s where the city wants to go, with an eye towards mitigating environmental impacts in the face of rising density and population.

City-level actions

Part of this vision lies with Home in Tacoma, a housing reform vehicle the City has used to work towards its vision of 15-minute neighborhoods. Krehbiel said he thinks it’s “one of the biggest things” that’s allowed the City to progress in this direction.

“I joke with our former chair that we essentially rezoned the entire city in that update and made it so that it was easier to do more dense development in our residential areas,” Krehbiel said. “There are still areas that are low density, but along, especially, our public transit areas, we have a lot higher density in those areas to encourage more folks to live along bus routes, train routes, to reduce their dependency on [private] vehicles.”

Home in Tacoma also created designations for neighborhood centers and mixed-use centers, which allows small businesses to be located within neighborhoods. Krehbiel also noted that this year, the Tacoma Planning Commission will be discussing removing parking requirements for new developments. He explained that building off-street parking infrastructure is “a major cost,” and “that’s a lot of extra material for a space that isn’t always used.”

Removing parking mandates, he continued, encourages more development that isn’t quite so car-centric, and instead attracts people who want to use public transportation to get to those places.

Torrez said that Tacoma has already started to implement 15-minute city principles by including them in the most recent update to its Comprehensive Plan. The updated plan went into effect last year.

“Different cities throughout Pierce County […] adopted it in different ways, or might not be using the terminology ‘15-Minute Cities,’” she said, “but are still putting into effect some of the policies that are supporting that, like increasing density, increasing modes of transportation, and looking at some sub-area plans. There’s lots of different things that folks are doing throughout Pierce County that are supporting this kind of effort.”

In the Complete Neighborhoods section of its Comprehensive Plan, the City outlined Tacoma’s conditions, such as street layouts, existing development patterns, and its different business districts. Because each neighborhood in Tacoma is unique and has been shaped both by a variety of cultures and geographic features, the City intends to implement 15-minute city tenets in a neighborhood-specific way.

The City listed several goals and set out a number of policies intended to bring its 15-minute city vision a step closer to reality. These policies include creating community gathering places, prioritizing walkability, and enhancing cultural and historical visibility and expression, through things like architecture and access to culturally relevant food.

Funding needs

It’s hard to meet those goals without the financial means to do so — and the City can’t count on federal funding help in the near-term. Krehbiel noted that the current administration has all but stated that federal funds aren’t going to be available for the 15-minute cities investments Tacoma has envisioned.

“There were some federal dollars that were pulled from projects that Pierce Transit was depending on to increase public transit along Pacific Avenue,” Krehbiel continued. “The general funding situation in the state and in the city is pretty tight, and it’s unclear to me what new revenue or sources might be on the horizon outside of the city of Tacoma.”

While the City of Tacoma is not banking on federal funding for its plans, advocates want the City to get started, using funds it can raise locally.

The transportation factor

Accessible public transit is, of course, an important aspect of 15-minute cities. Pierce Transit has long struggled to meet transportation needs, primarily due to funding hurdles. One of the major ways it could address this issue is by raising the tax it collects from local sales, which makes up three-quarters of the agency’s budget. Currently, that tax sits at 0.6%. It’s the lowest amount of sales tax collected among Pierce Transit’s peer agencies, and has not changed for more than two decades. Ultimately, it would be up to voters to approve or reject any attempt to raise that tax, and the agency has not committed to bringing a measure to voters.

Jumper asked Casas whether he believes that Tacoma can still pursue its vision for 15-minute neighborhoods, even if voters reject this sales tax increase.

“Yes. Pierce Transit and what it does or doesn’t do — it’s one piece of the puzzle, but one thing I’ve learned […] volunteering as a transportation commissioner is that long-term visioning and planning for transportation requires people to envision how it could be,” he replied.

Casas considers transit “movable public space,” and for it to be successful, people have to use it, in order to create the grounds to advocate for further investment in transit — such as hiring more bus drivers and train operators.

“The more we use the public spaces we have as we envision using them in the future as ideal public spaces, including transit, the more our agency partners will realize, ‘Yes, there is a reason to make these investments,’” he explained. “And then our own neighbors over time will realize […] there is a reason to make these investments through levies and bonds, etc.”

Jumper asked Casas how the Tacoma Streets Initiative plays into all of this, and what happens if the City fails to pass the second phase of the initiative again. The initiative would have used a property tax levy and utility tax hike to fund the much-needed repair of Tacoma’s unsafe street conditions, like aged arterials and corridors too dangerous for pedestrians and bikers to safely use. While voters approved the first phase of the initiative in 2015, they narrowly rejected the second phase last spring.

Casas believes that if the City sells the measure better to voters, who complain about things like potholes — which the second phase of the initiative would address — the measure will succeed. That said, he emphasized that the City needs to highlight in its pitch to voters that streets aren’t “just a monoculture” for cars, and that they are meant for people, too.

One way to do this is called a road diet, which is when municipalities narrow or remove traffic lanes in order to reduce collision rates and make the street more pedestrian friendly. Typically, a municipality can use the space it reclaims from cars to widen sidewalks, add bike lanes, and/or add trees.

Krehbiel pointed out that trees are an important part of a city’s infrastructure. It’s much more pleasant, he said, to walk under trees along the side of a busy road, so that traffic noise isn’t so intense.

“And you also get a little bit of a canopy to protect you from the rain that’s falling on days like today,” he continued. “So we’re looking at ways to encourage more trees to be planted in areas where it’s not [well-treed], to protect the trees that we have, and make sure that we are dispersing that tree canopy in an equitable way across the city.”

Krehbiel encouraged members of the public who want more tree cover to advocate for them at different committees and meetings, and that they join organizations like the Tacoma Tree Foundation, which puts trees in right-of-ways, particularly in areas where there are few.

Tacoma’s real cost of living

Torrez reminded audience members that the City’s updated Comprehensive Plan looks out 20 years into the future, and that the City also wanted to design Tacoma’s neighborhoods with youth in mind, since they will ultimately inherit the city from older generations.

Affordability — specifically, the cost to live and commute in Tacoma — is another important metric, Casas noted. When people talk about how much more affordable Tacoma is, he said, that’s only because many folks live in Tacoma and still work in Seattle. How would that affordability view change, he posited, if the cost to commute to a job or school were factored in? Such an analysis would reveal, he surmised, that neighborhoods are set up to subsidize cars, rather than human wellbeing. 

“I think sometimes people are resistant to that because we’ve become acculturated to the idea that we need a car to get everywhere,” he continued. “But another way that I invite you to think about it is, it’s a tax, right? […] You are subsidizing your own participation in everyday life and our economy. A lot of people in the world are not asked to do that, but we are, and you should at the end of the year account for how much you are paying for your own right to work.”

The post Becoming a ’15-Minute City’ Could Be Within Reach for Tacoma first appeared on The Urbanist.

But once in place, it would represent one of the most ambitious traffic safety projects to move forward across central Puget Sound in recent years.

As Pacific Highway, this 6.6-mile stretch of SR 99 widens out to seven lanes at major intersections, with narrow sidewalks and infrequent signalized crossings for pedestrians. The speed limit is 45 mph but drivers frequently exceed the posted speed by double digits. Between 2019 and 2023, there were 63 different traffic collisions that resulted in a death or serious injury — more than one devastating crash happening every single month, on average. During that time, more than 60 people who were walking or biking were hit by drivers, including eight people who lost their lives.

These upgrades will build on multimodal upgrades advancing further south along SR 99 in Edmonds, but they are much more comprehensive and wide ranging than the ones being designed there.

While changes along the corridor have been eyed for more than a decade, Washington’s 2021 Complete Streets mandate now requires an analysis of potential multimodal upgrades whenever a state highway like SR 99 gets major maintenance work. Because designing those upgrades takes time, the department is spending time now determining what the vision for the corridor will be, so that future maintenance work can more easily incorporate those changes without adding years of additional time.

“The intent is for this study to very easily translate and push into pre-design so [the project team] won’t need to go back to the public to figure out, what do they want,” WSDOT Planning Manager April Delchamps told The Urbanist last fall, before the study’s release. “When we get design funding, we’re able to immediately transition to designing what we heard from the community, and we established this kind of listening approach for the community. And so if things change, for example we find a constraint, we go back out to the community, explain the constraint, and start understanding if there’s particular priorities around how we address that constraint.”

A survey open through January 20 presents the recommended concept, featuring corridor-wide changes along with spot improvements at specific locations.

WSDOT is proposing two different concepts that would provide full bicycle and pedestrian connectivity along the entire corridor: separated bike lanes next to sidewalks, and recreating the entire walking and biking area as a shared-use path. Those two proposals would give pedestrians and cyclists a similar amount of space and aren’t dramatically different from one another. But with maintaining two general purpose travel lanes, curbside business access and transit (BAT) lanes and planter strips including in the median, they would both require around 25 feet in additional right-of-way, despite the existing road’s significant width.

WSDOT is also recommending a slate of spot improvements at different points along the corridor that would make the highway function more like a local street, including 12 midblock crossings “either near bus stops, major destinations or where there is a large distance between intersections.” Awkward intersections with large crossing distances would be redesigned to better accommodate people walking or biking and improve safety. Slip lanes would be removed.

Major changes are also being proposed for the interchange between SR 99 and SR 525, which connects I-5 with Paine Field. Ramps would be realigned to create perpendicular angles and slow speeds, and all ramps would be either signalized or have stop control. Pedestrian crossings would be raised and include rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFBs) to increase visibility.

A full rebuild of the entire 6.6 miles is likely to cost the state $660 million to $780 million in today’s dollars, with another $310 to $370 million for the right-of-way acquisition needed to fully accommodate all of the anticipated project elements. Future projects, including one that is already on deck to tackle bus priority between Airport Road and 148th, will be leveraged to achieve the full vision. And while that vision will likely take years if not decades to fully materialize, the transformation seemed totally impossible just a few short years ago.

This isn’t the only revamp of SR 99 being considered right now. Further south in Seattle, changes are being considered for the crash-prone Aurora Avenue N, but advocates have been expressing early disappointment in the ideas that have been put on the table so. In contrast with the Snohomish County proposal, dedicated bike facilities are far from guaranteed, with people on bikes likely to be directed to use side streets.

While the state’s Complete Streets mandate has been in place since 2021, major transformations like this one have been getting put on deck less slowly than they might have otherwise, with the legislature prioritizing new highway projects over the maintenance work that would come with required multimodal upgrades.

Recently, Governor Bob Ferguson proposed around $2 billion in funding for bridge and highway upkeep as part of the 2026 supplemental budget, but that funding would be unlocked via new state transportation bonds that come with a price tag for future budget writers. Plus, bonding would require a 60% vote in both the state House and Senate — a tall order.

Although the exact timeline for making these urgent upgrades is still very opaque, establishing a clear baseline for what will ultimately take shape is certain to pay dividends.

The post WSDOT Eyes Major Transformation for SR 99 in Snohomish County first appeared on The Urbanist.

It’s a misty Friday night in December, and even though it’s only 6pm, the sun has been long gone. Everything is damp and dark. My nine-year-old son skips ahead of me on the sidewalk. I fight the urge to call him back and grab his hand. The sidewalk is narrow and there’s no parking strip protecting him from six lanes of high-speed traffic coming off I-90. I tell myself if a driver leaves the road, it won’t make much of a difference if he’s standing on the far side of me or not — we’ll both be toast. 

A few months ago a six-year-old child was critically injured by a speeding vehicle in a nearby crosswalk. Even before that, I always turned on my phone camera and held it up like a protective shield when crossing in hopes that the threat of video evidence would prevent us from getting hit. 

I first encountered this stretch of road in 2019 when my son started childcare nearby. We had just moved back to Washington State, partially because it felt like a place I, as a nondriving parent, could get around safely. But walking to and from our childcare center I found this stretch of road to be totally out of place in a city that strives for great transit and biking and walking. 

I was even more appalled when I learned that we were building a light rail station right in the center of what is essentially highway spaghetti: a clover leaf of unsignalized ramps and slip lanes where vehicles accelerating to or de-accelerating from highway speeds encounter the major north-south thoroughfare and transit route in Southeast Seattle. 

Six years later, my kid is back at school in the area, attending Thurgood Marshall Elementary that sits just up the hill from this interchange. It’s one of several schools in the vicinity — Hamlin Robison, Seattle Girls School, and Giddens. Between 2025 and 2026, more than 1,500 newly constructed apartment units along this stretch of Rainier will be ready for move in.

Thanks to advocacy from community members and leadership from public agency staff, there’s been a host of small-scale improvements to make this area safer for pedestrians, starting with changes in 2020 that narrowed crossing distances on the ramps and reduced a double on-ramp to a single lane. More recent changes built elevated crosswalks and installed additional flashing beacons. 

But the challenge remains. To cross Rainier means navigating across six lanes of traffic. People needing to travel north or south along Rainier Avenue are forced to cross unsignalized ramps, playing chicken with cars accelerating to or decelerating from highway speeds. As blind pedestrian and advocate Micah Lusignan explained after he joined me on a walk audit of the area: “That’s tough: they can’t see me and I can’t see them.” 

Walking along, trying to cross or waiting for transit along Rainier Avenue is inherently stressful because of the high volume of vehicles traveling at high speeds. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Instead of prioritizing cars trying to get to and from the highway, what if we redesigned this area to reflect the needs of the thousands of families that live in apartments and go to school here? When the light rail across the lake opens next year, King County Metro anticipates this becoming one of the busiest transfer points in their system.

What if this was a transfer hub where you would want to sit and linger? What if the area featured wide, smooth sidewalks, pedestrian-scale lighting, greenery, art, and a place to get coffee or use the restroom? Rainier could be a place where you would want to live, not just because the apartments are relatively affordable but because it’s vibrant with people, local businesses, and excellent transit access. 

But if we continue to try to move as many private cars as quickly as possible along Rainier and onto I-90 and I-5, this vision can’t be realized. 

That’s why I’ve been advocating with other residents, parents and transit riders for bigger changes. In 2021, we worked with State Senator Rebecca Saldaña on a budget proviso earmarking funds for the effort, but the budget it was part of didn’t pass. The following year, we supported the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) in applying for a federal RAISE grant, but it too was unsuccessful. In 2023, WSDOT applied again and this time was successful in securing the grant, which partnered with the state’s connecting communities program. The grant funds early phases of community outreach and planning needed to reach an initial “30% completed” redesign of the I-90 ramps. 

I share this context because I want you to know how hard advocates, elected officials and agency staff worked to secure this funding. And I’m worried now that we’re potentially squandering the opportunity to plan for the kind of city we need. 

I am a member of the project’s community feedback advisory committee and work to design safety improvements is underway. But from what I’ve seen so far, the effort is limited by our underlying assumptions. The traffic modeling by WSDOT contractors and staff for this intersection (which is based on traffic projections embedded in Seattle’s comprehensive plan) assume that traffic volumes will remain the same through the year 2050; this is what critics call “predict and provide planning” that creates self-fulfilling prophecies – cities build for more traffic and it appears.

Since many U.S. transportation engineers erroneously project endless growth in car traffic, a flat projection might seem like a step in the right direction. With projected population growth in the Seattle region, maintaining current traffic volumes will indeed require fewer car trips per capita and more people to shift travel modes away from cars. 

But here’s the rub: if we want to keep the traffic levels we have and maintain reasonable traffic flow on and off highway ramps (as required by federal guidelines) we have to keep most of the tarmac intact. In fact, some of WSDOT’s design ideas even included adding more lanes to Rainier to accommodate cars entering the highway.

Refusing to envision fewer cars on Rainier greatly limits our ability to plan for a corridor that returns some dignity to those of us walking, rolling, or waiting for the bus.

Projecting future traffic volumes to match current traffic volumes means we’re limited in envisioning what this area could look like with wider sidewalks, shorter crossing distances for pedestrians, slower speeds and less air pollution. And it’s not just this project — the same limitations will also limit what is possible for Aurora, Highway 99 in South Park, complete streets on the 45th street overpass, and Lake City Way. 

The only way to reclaim these spaces for people is to imagine a future Seattle with less car travel. We must insist that the WSDOT consider multimodal planning options that reduce total automobile traffic and invest instead in more affordable and resource-efficient transportation. What is possible on Rainier Avenue if traffic volumes are cut in half? What is possible if we close Rainier’s I-90 ramps and instead invest in excellent transit service and affordable housing? 

Our city and our region have climate, environmental justice, and traffic safety policies that direct us that, rather than planning for a future where we continue to expose apartment residents, school children, and workers in this area to the air pollution and crash risk of a major highway interchange, we should instead be planning toward a future that reduces these harms. Thanks to reduced car volumes with congestion pricing, New York City just saw transit use jump and a 22% decrease in particulate pollution, which is a major health risk linked to asthma. 

We could have that here if we are creative and bold.

In addition to the WSDOT planning and design work around the I-90 ramps, the Seattle Transportation Levy is planning a major repaving project, which will trigger complete streets upgrades of sidewalks and bike infrastructures along Rainier from Walden to Jackson. This work will happen in conjunction with the planned RapidRide R Line project to upgrade the Route 7 bus. We shouldn’t squander these opportunities by insisting that we must maintain car volumes. It’s time to dream bigger about the kind of community we can build.

The post Op-Ed: It’s Time to Imagine a Safer, More Connected Rainier Avenue first appeared on The Urbanist.

Situated about halfway between Seattle’s Beacon Hill and Mount Baker light rail stations, 21st Avenue is close to several schools and can become a major thoroughfare close to school pick-up and drop-off times. Given the roadway’s slope, the street often floods when stormwater accumulates from further up the hill, and many homeowners along 21st have taken measures to protect their homes from flooding, including building rock walls and adding asphalt berms.

South of Bayview Street, sidewalks have been in place along 21st since the late 1960s, but north all the way to Rainier Avenue, longtime residents have spent decades walking without sidewalks or benefitting from proper curbs and drainage. The newly built Giddens School, which moved to Beacon Hill from the Central District in 2019, was required to add sidewalks in front of the school, but they sit disconnected from the broader sidewalk network.

Four blocks north of the Giddens School is the recently completed Grand Street Commons, a mixed-income apartment complex that added 569 homes to the neighborhood when it was completed in 2024. The builder added new sidewalks on the immediate blocks, but the City has not connected them to the nearby elementary school.

21st Avenue is just the type of area that Seattle’s 2024 transportation levy was intended to benefit, with voters approving a record amount of funding to build new sidewalks. On top of $111 million dedicated to expand the city’s sidewalk network, the $1.55 billion levy also includes millions more for sidewalks as part of neighborhood traffic safety projects.

However, since Seattle is missing sidewalks on around 11,000 of the blocks citywide — around a quarter of all blocks — the plan for 21st Avenue S comes with a catch.

Rather than a full curb-and-gutter sidewalk, built using concrete, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) plans to install an asphalt pathway along the west side of 21st, separated from the street by precast concrete wheel stops. This is the type of sidewalk typically seen in commercial parking lots. The project was included in the first tranche of sidewalk projects included in SDOT’s 2025 levy delivery plan, along with around 20 other projects set to start construction by the end of this year.

To Dana Lee, who moved to 21st Avenue with her husband Dan in 2019, that plan doesn’t fulfill the implicit promise that the city made when it started installing sidewalks in the neighborhood 50 years ago. She has been advocating for a full sidewalk, after initially spending years just trying to get the issue of building sidewalks on 21st onto the city’s radar.

As a non-arterial, or neighborhood street, 21st Avenue is far from alone in being slated for a more quick-build treatment for new sidewalks. An innovation developed during the previous transportation levy, 2015’s Levy to Move Seattle, SDOT has built dozens of lower-cost “pathways” or “sidewalk alternatives” over the past decade in the hopes of making bigger inroads in bridging gasps in the sidewalk network. For the most part, new concrete sidewalks have been reserved for arterial streets, the busiest corridors in the city where transit routes and businesses are concentrated.

But Lee sees the plan for an asphalt pathway as shortchanging the neighborhood, continuing a pattern of disinvestment. She points to other low-cost pathways that were installed throughout South Seattle during the Levy to Move Seattle era that have started to deteriorate after less than a decade of use. Elsewhere in Beacon Hill, along a stretch of S Kenyon Street near Beacon Avenue, the wheel stops have started to be swallowed up by weeds, and vegetation growth has narrowed the effective width of the sidewalk, potentially falling short of Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA] standards.

“The city keeps reiterating that the asphalt walkway will be ADA compliant, but research has shown that asphalt has crumbled over time. It doesn’t last for more than 15 years, and it’s just another example of the burden of funding being placed onto the community,” Lee told The Urbanist. “This community has waited for 60 years to get a true concrete sidewalk. And I think we’re willing to wait a little bit more time to get you know what we expect, which is, you know, a true safe walking path for the kids and the elders who have been here since the 60s to walk on and enjoy.”

SDOT told The Urbanist that advancing the quicker-built design option here was actually a reflection of the city’s prioritization of the gap along 21st. A permanent sidewalk, on the other hand, could cost the city as much as $6 million dollars — around half of the city’s annual budget for new sidewalks funded by the new transportation levy. In part, that high estimate is driven by the factors along the street that are pushing many residents to ask for this infrastructure, namely a need to manage drainage in a better way. The permanent sidewalk would also likely include street trees — adding to South Seattle’s tree canopy.

“This non-arterial street was prioritized for a walkway among the 11,000 missing blocks in Seattle because it is a gap in the pedestrian network connecting to two schools, frequent transit on Rainier Ave S, and the new Judkins Park light rail station,” SDOT spokesperson Mariam Ali said. “We are proceeding with a quick-build design walkway on the west side of the street that includes concrete curb ramps, driveways, and curbs, and an asphalt walkway. We expect to have 90% design to share as soon as January.”

SDOT didn’t conduct any direct surveys on its plan for an asphalt path along 21st, so Lee took measures into her own hands, collecting responses from over 50 of her neighbors. The results were striking: 88.7% of the respondents said they either feel “unsafe” or “very unsafe” walking along their street, with the same number of respondents saying they’d like to see a sidewalk on both sides of 21st to improve the situation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, no one supported the idea of an asphalt path when presented with the option of a full sidewalk.

The results of Lee’s outreach clearly show a broader desire from residents for a solution that is seen as more permanent.

“Installing two concrete sidewalks instead of a single asphalt one is a safer, longer-lasting, and more equitable choice for the neighborhood. Having sidewalks on both sides of the street protects pedestrians — especially children, seniors, and people with disabilities — from having to cross unnecessarily, reducing the risk of accidents,” one 21st Ave resident wrote in Lee’s survey. “Concrete also provides a sturdier and more accessible walking surface that stays cooler and resists cracking and tripping hazards better than asphalt.”

“Our neighborhood is structured around transit. We cannot all drive — make it easy for everyone to use our feet,” another respondent wrote.

From the City of Seattle’s perspective, turning to lower-cost solutions is the only way that the pace of filling in gaps in the sidewalk network will be able to quicken. Even at the current pace, every block in the city won’t be able to have some type of improvement added until around 400 years from now.

“What we hear most often is that people want more sidewalks and walkways delivered in more places, more quickly,” Ali said. “Using quick-build design approaches, like using asphalt, allows us to extend more walkways to more places more quickly to meet that demand. Feedback we’ve received about the type of new walkways and sidewalks — both concrete and quick-build — has generally been positive, and residents consistently share appreciation for safer, more predictable walking routes. We also use community feedback to help inform future design decisions. Quick-build walkways allow us to extend safer walking connections to more people more quickly throughout the city.”

In a city lacking the resources to add a concrete sidewalk to every block that needs one, the tradeoffs that exist are real and tangible: a full block of sidewalk built on 21st Avenue could mean several other blocks where a pathway isn’t able to be built elsewhere. But to Lee and many of her neighbors, the asphalt path that is planned is another example of the city’s South End being shortchanged, an additional manifestation of decades of underinvestment.

Lee is hopeful that the city can reverse course and take a more holistic view of sidewalk construction, rather than focusing on the number of blocks built. 

“It would be disappointing to know that the city isn’t true to its word when they say that they want to engage the community, or want to be transparent about the projects that they’re building that affect true people. ” Lee said. “If the city does build true concrete sidewalks on both side of the street, I’ll be like, ‘that is amazing.’ I’ll be totally won over. I could walk with my daughters and ride our bikes along the street and feel awesome knowing that we did that as a community.”

The post Despite Sidewalk Funding Boost, Some Seattle Neighborhoods Still Feel Shortchanged first appeared on The Urbanist.

The Promise of Shared Streets

Shared streets flip American traffic laws upside-down. Currently, the portion of the roadway between curbs is the exclusive province of vehicles. You can drive, park, or cycle there — but you are legally prohibited from walking or standing in the roadway, except at designated crosswalks.

Where shared streets are implemented, cars are allowed but pedestrians have priority over other users and are permitted to walk or stand in the roadway. A maximum speed limit of 10 mph governs all users.

According to the text of SB 5595, 

(2) Vehicular traffic traveling along a shared street shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian, bicyclist, or operator of a micromobility device on the shared street.

(3) A bicyclist or operator of a micromobility device shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian on a shared street.

Hold Up. Safer Streets Require Environmental Review?

Governor Ferguson signed the Shared Streets Bill into law on May 17 but implementation has been slow. Clearly, Seattle needs to pass enabling legislation — current city ordinances don’t provide legal support for this new street type — but it is less clear whether the city also needs to complete an environmental review.

Washington's first-in-the-nation shared streets bill, allowing local governments to lower speed limits to 10 mph on specific streets where vehicle traffic must yield to pedestrian, bike, and scooter traffic, is now law. app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?…

[image or embed]

— Ryan Packer (@typewriteralley.bsky.social) May 17, 2025 at 11:29 AM

Attorneys at the City of Seattle have been tied in knots for months over the question of whether an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) is required. SEPA’s stated purpose is to “encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between humankind and the environment” but there are cases where it arguably does the opposite.

Councilmember Dan Strauss, who is leading the charge on shared streets at the City Council level, has said the City could simply draft a Determination of Non-Significance (DNS) and move forward. The city’s legal team is perhaps being more cautious and are keen to inoculate the new street type from legal challenge. 

Breaking the Process Logjam

Frustrated with the slow pace of progress, Councilmember Strauss attached a Statement of Legislative Intent (SLI) to Seattle’s 2026 budget, instructing SDOT to provide a legislative proposal for shared streets implementation.

Councilmember Strauss has long sought better tools to improve the streetscape and traffic operation on Ballard Avenue, a popular and historic street in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, which he represents. 

Ballard Avenue is lined with shops, restaurants, and bars — many with outdoor dining established during the pandemic — and has interim improvements using paint, posts, and movable barriers. Gaining the legal authority to reduce speed limits to 10 mph and allow pedestrians to circulate in the street can provide better options for permanent improvements to this popular destination.

The Shared Streets SLI passed the Budget Committee on November 14. The response from SDOT is due January 1, 2026, so we will know their plans soon enough, but internal documents obtained from the department reveal their thought process.

The Redmond Way

While Seattle dithers, the City of Redmond has moved to implement the law with less apparent concern for SEPA. Redmond, home to Microsoft, is a suburb of Seattle known for progressive aspirations and policy. According to their draft Street System Plan:

“In Redmond, some local streets will be transitioned to shared streets, which are appropriate on a residential, limited use, or other low-volume street, where the neighborhood desires to create a public space for social activities and play or as an alternative to building conventional sidewalk where there may be environmental or cost constraints. Shared streets are also appropriate on streets with commerce where there is a desire to create an active and attractive people-oriented area.”

Meanwhile, other cities around the state of Washington watch and wait for Seattle to guide the way forward.

What Is Enabling Legislation?

The Shared Streets Law is permissive, not prescriptive, meaning it allows cities to enable shared streets but doesn’t require them. Since most cities have traffic ordinances that mirror state law, when that law changes, city ordinances need to change, as well, and this is accomplished with enabling legislation.

City legislation to enable shared streets can consist of five elements:

1. Definition
2. Enabling Language
3. Signage
4. Speed Limit
5. Driving Regulations

1. Definition. Since this is a new street type, it needs a name and definition, which can mirror state law: “Shared Street means a city street designated by placement of official traffic control devices where pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicular traffic share a portion or all of the same street.”

2. Enabling Language. This delegates authority to the relevant body or individual: “The City Traffic Engineer is authorized to designate any non-arterial street or alley, or any part of a non-arterial street or alley as a Shared Street in accordance with Senate Bill 5595.”

3. Signage: “Upon approval, the City Traffic Engineer will install and maintain appropriate markings, signage, barriers or other devices to clearly indicate the speed limit and shared street designation.” Since true shared streets are new in the United States, local authorities will need to glean guidance from existing authorities like Federal Highway Association and the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), and perhaps exercise engineering judgment to ensure clarity until nationwide standards are developed.

4. Speed Limit: “A Shared Street has a maximum speed limit of 10 miles per hour.”

5. Driving Regulations: Lastly, the key clause that redefines rights and responsibilities on shared streets, again mirroring state law: “Vehicular traffic traveling along a shared street shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian, bicyclist, or operator of a micromobility device on the shared street. A bicyclist or operator of a micromobility device shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian on a shared street.”

Once All Streets Were Shared Streets. What Happened?

A century ago, American streets were shared public spaces. People walked freely in the roadway, children played in them, vendors sold from carts, and perhaps a streetcar threaded a slow-moving mix of pedestrians, carriages, and early automobiles. Horses did their business in the street, as well, so it wasn’t all roses but American streets functioned more or less the same as they had around the world since the invention of cities.

That changed starting in January 1925 when Los Angeles passed its traffic ordinance. Cars were proliferating — and killing pedestrians at an alarming rate. The solution was to relegate people to the edges, require them to cross at crosswalks, ticket them for jaywalking, and then to launch a propaganda campaign funded by the motor industry.

LA’s new law propagated quickly across the country and that spread accelerated when it was adopted by the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety as the blueprint for the 1928 Model Municipal Traffic Ordinance. Soon, every state in the Union would ban shared streets and effectively prohibit speed limits lower than 20 mph.

Only now, 100 years later, has Washington State lifted the ban on shared streets — the first in the nation. So the race is on to build the first fully legal shared street in America in a century.

The SDOT Team Set to Bring Shared Streets (Back) to Seattle

Interviews and public disclosure requests reveal that SDOT staff members are enthusiastic about the new powers the Shared Streets Law will grant them, once enabled. Responsibility for shared streets will fall to Ashley Rhead, SDOT’s Pedestrian and Neighborhood Projects Manager, working under Director of Project Development Jim Curtin and Deputy Director Brian Dougherty. Rhead’s group deals with neighborhood greenways, home zones, safe routes to school, school streets, and sidewalks.

City Traffic Engineer Venu Nemani has been deeply involved in developing a strategy for implementing shared streets, while longtime neighborhood greenway champion and Neighborhood Projects Manager, Summer Jawson, tracked the bill and reported progress to SDOT Director Greg Spotts, and later Interim Director Adiam Emery.

It is important to note that the shared streets law is a tool that cities can use to improve all kinds of streets. It is a legal designation that changes the rights and responsibilities of users and opens new design possibilities. A neighborhood greenway, for example, can be a shared street and allow pedestrians into the roadway, or it can remain a typical neighborhood street where pedestrians are expected to use sidewalks. Transportation departments implementing SB 5595 will have a choice.

Let’s take a look at the ideas brewing at SDOT.

Home Zones and Other Circulation Plans

Documents obtained via public disclosure request reveal robust internal discussion at SDOT around shared streets. One of the more intriguing examples is the opportunity to create better home zones.

A home zone is an area of neighborhood streets bounded by arterials where diverters are used to make the zone less attractive for cut-through traffic. The result is a reduction in traffic volumes in the interior while maintaining full vehicular access. Once traffic volumes are reduced, there are opportunities for traffic-calming and the provision of additional public space—ideal places to flip the modal hierarchy to favor pedestrians, consistent with SB 5595.  

This approach is most similar to London’s Low-Traffic Neighborhoods (LTNs) but uses techniques similar to Barcelona Superblocks, as well as larger city center traffic circulation plans like those found in Ghent, Brussels, Paris, and Groningen.

SDOT staff are internally proposing what they call “Home Zones 2.0.” Currently, Seattle’s Home Zone program provides spot improvements to reduce speeds, typically requested by residents, but generally doesn’t decrease volumes. 

Home Zones 2.0 would take a more comprehensive approach, to measurably decrease vehicle volumes and speeds and increase walking, biking, and playing. Home zones would be “physically identifiable by drivers, walkers, bikers” when they enter the zone.

SDOT staff illustrated how a new and improved home zone might work on Seattle’s Crown Hill, a mixed commercial and residential neighborhood that generally lacks sidewalks. Diverters, shown in red, prevent cut-through car traffic while allowing people walking and rolling to pass. Gateway treatments, shown as yellow circles, let you know you’re in a traffic-calmed area. 

The chronic lack of sidewalks in much of South Seattle, as well as vast areas north of N 85th Street, make this kind of traffic-calming imperative. At the current pace, it will be as many as 1,800 years before the city finishes building sidewalks in Seattle. In the meantime, these are de facto shared streets. Children walk to school on them, mixing with vehicular traffic in a shared space, but lacking the rights and pedestrian-compatible speed limits they need and deserve to travel safely.

Where Are Shared Streets Going First?

Neighborhood Greenways present the prime case for shared streets treatment in Seattle, which has a loose network of these streets across the city. Neighborhood greenways are non-arterial streets with lower traffic volumes that have been enhanced with traffic-calming, wayfinding, and improved arterial crossings. During the pandemic, to provide space for people to gather outdoors, Seattle converted several of these to “Healthy Streets,” with the addition of “Street Closed” signs, which was, as the time, the only tool available under state law to permit pedestrians to walk in the roadway.

According to internal documents, Healthy Streets are likely to be the first to receive shared streets designation, along with festival streets and school streets. Neighborhood greenways could follow. The changes are likely to be modest at first — with the addition of signage — paving the way to more robust treatments in the future as budget allows and SDOT standards develop.

SDOT also hopes to roll out what they are calling the Neighborhood-Initiated Safety Program (NISP, sometimes playfully called “nispy”) in 2026 that lets residents nominate areas for traffic-calming, possibly merged with the Home Zones program. That would be a welcome development. Since the Your Voice, Your Choice (YVYC) and Neighborhood Street Fund (NSF) grant programs were discontinued, there has not been an accessible outlet for neighborhood organizing around safer streets.

SB 5595 will not transform Seattle overnight — that much is clear — but shared streets represent a generational opportunity to reclaim safe space for walking, rolling, and community life. Cities around the world already treat low-speed, pedestrian-first streets as routine public infrastructure. With enabling legislation on the horizon and SDOT laying the groundwork, Seattle has a chance to join them. The question now is whether the city can cut through its own red tape and deliver the kind of streets residents have long said they want.

The post A Sneak Peek at Shared Streets Coming to Seattle first appeared on The Urbanist.

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways staff and volunteers have worked closely with Wilson and the Transit Riders Union over the years, most notably as part of the Move All Seattle Sustainably Coalition to successfully reverse cuts to the walking, biking and transit projects during Mayor Jenny Durkan’s administration, and more recently to dedicate more money to walking, biking and transit in the Keep Seattle Moving Levy. 

Note, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, meaning we cannot, and do not, endorse candidates for office. But now that the election is over, we can share our analysis of Mayor-elect Wilson’s transportation platform.

Wilson’s transportation platform is bold and visionary, and she will need our ongoing community support to achieve it. Here are a few excerpts of her priorities with our thoughts on how she can get started on implementing them in her first year of office. 

Safety and Vision Zero

Wilson’s platform: “Seattle launched Vision Zero in 2015 with the goal to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries on city streets by 2030. But in the last decade, more than 1,850 people have been seriously injured and 253 people have been killed in vehicle collisions. We need city leadership that will prioritize keeping our kids, elders and neighbors safe on our streets. Prioritize transforming our most dangerous corridors, from Aurora to Rainier, into people-centered streets with great public transit, safe neighborhoods, thriving businesses, and tree canopy that will help clean the air and moderate the urban heat island effect.”

Our first-year recommendations: 

1. Stand up a team to tackle a major overhaul of Rainier Avenue S. The section of Rainier from Mount Baker to the Chinatown International District (CID) has planned repaving, bike, safety, transit, and on-ramp revision projects, and they must all be coordinated in a unified vision to reimagine the street.  We must dedicate the same intensity of effort and care for major safety projects as Seattle did for the downtown waterfront rebuild or the West Seattle bridge repair.   
2. Course-correct and speed up the Aurora Avenue project to adopt a bolder vision, and come up with a plan for a demonstration project to unlock the $50 million in state funding. 
3. Construct safety projects on S Henderson Street in Rainier Beach, N 125th Street in Lake City, and 14th Avenue S in South Park. 
4. Roll out rapid spot improvements on streets and at intersections that the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) knows are unsafe. 

Sidewalks and accessibility 

Wilson’s platform: “Maximize efficient use of Keep Seattle Moving Levy dollars to build new sidewalks, fix our streets and bridges, improve transit infrastructure, and connect our bike network… Support the workgroup, created during the levy process, to explore a bond measure that would provide more transportation infrastructure funding.”

Our first-year recommendations: 

1. Rapidly convene the delayed workgroup to develop funding proposals to continue SDOT’s sidewalk building surge. 
2. Overhaul the Home Zone program to measurably decrease vehicle volumes and speeds with diverters and increase walking, biking, and playing for neighborhoods that are not first in line for sidewalks. (SDOT was considering this in 2024 but it has not moved forward.)
3. Require repaving and other projects to pay for basic accessibility and safety upgrades like curb ramps and bike lanes, in keeping with the spirit of the Complete Streets ordinance. For instance, the lower E Marginal Way repaving project is siphoning significant funds from the bike budget. 
4. Accelerate investment in a parking corral system where, in busy areas around town, shared bikes and scooters must be parked in designated zones located on the street (and ideally just before the corner to improve visibility for pedestrians) whenever physically possible to help increase accessibility of sidewalks.

Bike routes

Wilson’s platform: “Continue and accelerate progress on Seattle’s Bicycle Master Plan. Make rapid safety improvements in the most dangerous spots; and expand bike parking, especially where small business owners or residents have requested rack installation.”

Our first-year recommendations: 

1. Provide bold goals and leadership as we begin community engagement and design on transformational bike routes including a Rainier Avenue S to MLK Jr Way S bike lane and connecting the gaps in the Duwamish Valley. 
2. Assess the bike network for gaps and points of friction where spot improvements and small projects will make an outsized difference and rapidly implement fixes such as connections to our bridges. 
3. Expand SDOT’s well loved “even better bike lanes” project to include intersection upgrades (where the majority of crashes happen). 
4. Sign and mark “Bike Lines” in time for the 2026 World Cup to help Seattleites and visitors find the best long distance bike routes through the city, and commit to developing them into a safe, convenient, and easy-to- follow system for the long term. 

Places for people

Wilson’s platform: “The new Pike Place Market ‘limited vehicle access pilot’ is the exciting and long-overdue outcome of years of community organizing and advocacy. With real leadership in City Hall we can go much further, much faster.

Create more car-free and vehicle-lite spaces in dense neighborhoods throughout the city, where people and families can visit, shop, play, and socialize without fear. Pilot a “superblock” zone in the heart of Capitol Hill, diverting cars to allow walking and other modes on the street and permitting businesses to expand into the sidewalks.”

Our first-year recommendations:

1. Make Pike Place Market pedestrianization permanent. 
2. Pilot the pedestrianization of streets around the city in time for FIFA watch parties including Barbara Bailey Way, a weekend pedestrianization of Ballard Avenue, and others nominated by communities.  
3. Pilot a multi-use trail along Lake Washington Boulevard and invite the community to activate the space with art, food, music, and more. 
4. Direct SDOT’s People Streets program to create a process for community members to pedestrianize their streets and create space for market streets, school streets, community gardens, and more. Set a goal of a fully pedestrian street at the heart of every neighborhood.

Climate 

Wilson’s platform: “We must make it much easier and safer to get around by transit, bike, walking, and rolling. Most of Seattle’s carbon pollution comes from transportation. Cutting emissions is largely a matter of ‘mode shift’ — changing how people get around — as well as reducing how far and how often they need to travel.”

Our first-year recommendations: 

1. Direct SDOT to use the Climate Change Response Framework mode shift goals to shape decisions, such as the evaluation of the benefits of bike and bus lanes  versus SOV traffic delay. For instance, bike lanes on MLK Way Jr S and bus lanes on Denny Way were shelved because of concerns around traffic delay that trumped all other considerations.
2. Accelerate the timeline of SDOT’s Low-Pollution Neighborhoods program, and set the bar higher to reach zero transportation emissions. 
3. Incorporate consideration of an Ultra Low Emission Zone into the transportation funding workgroup. 

15-Minute City 

Wilson’s platform:  “Seattle should be a world leader in mobility, where people of all ages and abilities can get to work, daycare or the grocery store safely without having to drive. […] Building affordable and abundant housing and preventing displacement is a vital climate strategy, allowing people to live near where they work, shop, and socialize. Shorter trips mean less driving and more walking, rolling, biking, and riding transit.”

Our first-year recommendations: 

1. Support Council’s efforts to expand neighborhood centers in 2026. 
2. Propose legislation that would align Seattle with cities around Washington State like Bothell, Shoreline, and Spokane that now allow homebuilders the flexibility to determine what level of car parking makes sense.

These are our recommendations for how the incoming Wilson administration can make a strong year one start on her campaign pledges. These bold actions will set the stage for even larger transformational change over the next few years! Additionally, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways is a bottom-up coalition where our members–groups representing Seattle’s neighborhoods – set our priorities, and we will be outlining our 2026 priorities next month. 

Lastly, as Wilson mentioned in her victory speech, she can lead from the top, but change always requires organized people power: 

“To the people of Seattle, I say, what I am able to actually accomplish in office will depend on you,” she said. “It will depend on the support and the pressure and the people power that you all are able to build in the months and the years ahead. It’s your work and your initiative that will continue to drive our city and our society forward.”

That’s why there has never been a better time for you to get involved with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways. Join us at one of these upcoming events:

• Seattle Neighborhood Greenways New Volunteer Orientation. Wednesday December 3, 5:30pm – 6:30pm. Virtual via Zoom. Learn about our coalition, our local neighborhood groups, and best practices for being an effective advocate in your community.

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways Community Happy Hour. Thursday December 11, 5:30pm – 7:00pm. Stoup Brewing (Capitol Hill). Meet new friends and connect with advocates from across Seattle.

The post How Mayor-elect Wilson Can Hit the Ground Running, Walking, Rolling, and Biking first appeared on The Urbanist.

Conversely, Central Washington’s Tri-Cities of Pasco, Richland and Kennewick are statistically very safe for human-powered travelers, as are Sammamish and Shoreline. Seattle is the 7th most dangerous city to bike, per capita, and ranks 14th for people walking. 

All this according to data from the Washington State Patrol’s Collision Analysis Tool (CAT), which tallies “collision data submitted by law enforcement officers.” This article quantifies the locations of car-on-bike or pedestrian collisions which are recorded by local police, sheriff or State Patrol as ‘seriously injury’ or ‘fatal’, between the dates January 1, 2021 and July 31, 2025. 

Other key findings: 

• Five Washington cities rate among the 10 most dangerous for both walking and biking: Puyallup, Lynnwood, Olympia, Bremerton and Spokane.
• Solo car commuting correlates strongly with deadly and serious crashes. Rush hour is the most deadly time and the more drivers, the worse for safety.
• Crashes on state highways are by far the most likely to result in serious injury or death. Crashes on city streets – though much more frequent – are much less deadly on average. County roads are in between.
• Several of the most dangerous cities are major employment centers, with car commuters flooding the streets, including Olympia, Bremerton and Seattle.

Dangerous cities for people walking

Lynnwood and Puyallup are the most dangerous places to walk in Washington State by a wide margin, with Everett and Olympia close behind. Pedestrians are almost never maimed or killed in Sammamish, perhaps because people rarely walk there. Several east-of-Seattle suburbs have very low pedestrian carnage rates, including Bothell, Kirkland, Redmond and Bellevue. Seattle is close to the median for the 30 cities studied. Click here for an interactive map of WA’ Cities, ranked by walking danger.

Dangerous cities for people riding bikes

Washington’s capital city of Olympia suffers a very high rate of bike carnage, along with Puyallup and Lynwood. Bellingham and Bremerton round out the Top 5 of Shame. Seattle is 7th worst. The top 5 safest are Burien, Sammamish, Edmonds, Auburn and Shoreline. As with pedestrians, the Tri-Cities of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco kill and maim far fewer cyclists than average. Click here for an interactive map of WA’ Cities, ranked by biking danger.

Pedestrian and bike carnage vs how people get to work 

Cities where fewer commuters drive alone are safer for people walking and biking. This result is intuitive; the more cars on the road, the more likely they are to hit someone walking or biking. The correlation for car-on-pedestrian crashes (R = 0.43) is stronger than for car-on-bike ones (R = 0.26). Commuter data is from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2023. 

Work-from-home vs road carnage has an even stronger correlation. Cities with a high percentage of work-from-home have a lower rate of car-on-pedestrian (R = –0.53) and car-on-bike (R = -0.36). Again the correlation is intuitive, people who don’t leave their houses during rush hour are less likely to get hurt by a driver. Sammamish’s very low rate of crashes seems strongly correlated to its extremely high rate of people who work from home and thus very low rate of drivers out causing crashes.

What type of streets kill and maim the most people?

Although the vast majority of car-on-human crashes occur on city streets, state highways are much more likely to kill or seriously injure a pedestrian or cyclist, likely because of high speeds and design flaws, as The Urbanist has reported. Proportionally, more cyclists than pedestrians are killed or maimed on county roads, likely because cyclists choose county roads for commuting and cycling, while walking is rare in remote areas.

But state highways are very, very dangerous for people outside of cars. A car-on-human collision on a state highway is 2.5 times more likely to kill or seriously injure a pedestrian than a collision on a city street. A county road is 1.3 times more likely to kill or maim a cyclist. A car-on-pedestrian crash is much more likely to be fatal or serious than a car-on-bike crash.

It’s not getting better

If you’re looking for good news in this report, there’s very little. But here’s one improving trend: there are fewer collisions between cyclists and pedestrians now, than before the pandemic. But the number of car-on-human crashes is returning to pre-pandemic highs, and the rate at which vulnerable road users are being killed and maimed is staying high.

Unfortunately, those collisions are getting more dangerous – a single collision is significantly more likely to cause a fatal or serious injury.  In 2018 and 2019, about 1 out of 5 (19%) of car-on-pedestrians and 1 out of 11 (9%) of car-on-cyclist crashes caused a death or serious injury. Starting in 2020, those rates of fatal/serious injuries surged, to 1 in 4 pedestrians (25%)  and 15% (1 in 7). That means even while there are fewer total crashes, any given car-on-human crash is much more likely to cause severe injury or death.

About the data:

Anytime data is presented, it can be warped or manipulated to bias the information. Below is an explanation of choices I made with the data. All these data are public available at https://fortress.wa.gov/wsp/collisionanalysistool/. You’re more than welcome to check or expand upon my work. 

Why focus on Jan 2021-Aug 2025

I attempted to look at the entire post-pandemic era at one time. 2020 was a very strange year, with traffic significantly reduced as people sheltered in place, worked from home and skipped vacations, so 2020 is excluded from most data shown here. Comparing 2018 & 2019 as a pre-pandemic baseline allows for comparisons with post-pandemic times.

Why combine fatal and serious injury data?

Most crash analyses, like the Washington Traffic Safety Commission’s data, focus exclusively on fatalities. But traffic deaths are relatively rare, there were only 13 bike deaths in 2024, smaller cities may go years between a bike death. By adding in the 171 serious bike injuries, we get a fuller picture of where and how bad cycling danger is. Besides, the difference between a very serious car-on-human injury and a deadly crash is often a matter of luck. If a car crushes your leg, not your head, you live. Lucky you.

How are injury severities tabulated?

Injury severity is reported by police agencies

How are city or street locations tabulated?

By police agencies. It is likely that crashes labeled in a city, actually occurred just outside of city limits, in unincorporated areas. I made no attempt to correct for that. Sorry.

Is WSP CAT data easy to work with?

No it is not. The data has duplicates which need to be eliminated. Errors on my part are possible in that process. Furthermore, the data is gathered by police officers who may make mistakes filing reports. The WSP data is cleaned up by data experts at the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, which releases an official, annual report. But those data don’t include data on non-fatal crashes. There are discrepancies – WTSC counted 168 traffic fatalities in 2024, my report tallies 170. Presumably their number is more accurate. Sorry.

Is it fair to treat all cities equally?

Probably not. The per capita ‘denominator’ only takes into account the city’s population, not others who visit the city. Seattle hosts huge events, sees tons of tourists and has popular bike/scooter share, all of which pushes up the number of people killed or maimed in the city, making it seem more dangerous in the stats. Smaller cities with large employment bases – like Olympia, Bremerton and Everett – probably suffer similar effects from inbound workers. A different ‘denominator’ would be the count of all car crashes, which would give a baseline of street danger, as separate from danger bikes/peds face.

The post Op-Ed: Ranking Deadliest Cities for Pedestrians and Cyclists in Washington State first appeared on The Urbanist.