Aurora Ave’s highway-like design is a recipe for an extremely dangerous street.

In 2022, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) launched a project to redesign Aurora Ave. The highest ridership bus route in Washington, Metro’s RapidRide E Line, carries 13,000 people along the corridor every day. Aurora Ave is consistently one of the most dangerous streets in Seattle. Over the past few years, SDOT has received thousands of responses from the public on how the street should be changed. Based on this feedback, the agency shared a few concepts in 2024. The long-term changes on Aurora will include the following infrastructure and safety improvements:

  • Sidewalks for comfort, safety, and ease of access
  • Better lighting for improved visibility
  • Safer, more accessible street crossings for people walking and rolling
  • Updated drainage to prevent water accumulation 
  • Making it more comfortable and accessible for people walking and rolling
  • Reducing crashes for all road users
  • Improving bus service so it’s more dependable and convenient

In the short-term, SDOT crews have installed 24/7 bus lanes and numerous other safety projects. These include No Turn on Red signs, leading pedestrian intervals, and hardened center lines at 77th St, 90th St, 95th St, 100th St, 115th St, and 135th St. The intersection of Aurora Ave & N 137th St is undergoing a few changes this month. SDOT is adding a new traffic signal, building a center median with cutouts for pedestrian and bike crossings, and installing curb ramps on all four corners.

Map of the intersection of Aurora Ave N and N 137th St with bike crossing markers, median islands, and curb ramps identified.  (SDOT)

The long-term project is now entering the next phase. SDOT is creating a Community Advisory Group to clarify goals and priorities, provide input on transportation planning, and advise decision-makers on the project. The Community Advisory Group will meet 8-12 times over the next two years and members will be compensated for their time.

Everyone is welcome to apply to join the Community Advisory Group. More information about the application process is available in SDOT’s Application Guide. Applications are due on Friday, May 15.

14 Replies to “SDOT creating Aurora Ave Community Advisory Group”

  1. As a long time Seattle resident , driving Aurora has become increasingly more difficult to drive safey More traffic , but the continued bus only lane changes have been a cause as well.
    Drivers are getting more frustrated . This causes more accidents. Drivers are running red lights more often etc .
    Not saying eliminate bus lanes. Many on Aurora were bus only during M -F and peak hours 6-9 , 3-6. These have all changed to Bus Only at all times seven days a week recently. WHY ? Because bus drivers complained ? Was there any consideration to actual driving impact? . The war on cars in Seattle seems very real.

    1. They are 24 hour bus lanes because the 13k people who use the E Line deserve some fraction of the priority given to drivers.

      It’s hard to hear someone complain about how hard it is to drive in seattle when drivers are held above every single other road user while simultaneously polluting our world and killing our residents

    3. If you’re running a red because you’re jealous of the bus system, you probably shouldn’t be driving at all

    4. The war on cars is very real. I see the impact of the bus lanes but I do agree with them. I live on a part of Aurora where it’s dangerous to turn off but the dedicated bus lanes made it safer for cars to turn off and onto Aurora. Yes it backs up traffic for a mile. I sort of wish they could build an express tunnel underneath but I imagine all the morlocks would go down there and smoke a bunch of meth.

      1. Cars are a war on cities, which is why the powers that be have spent so much time, money, and effort trying to make “war on cars” a thing. It’s a simple fact of geometry and physics. Cars take up a huge amount of space per person, and the whole point of a city is that space is used efficiently. Physics-wise, (friction, baby!) rubber tire on pavement is a really inefficient version of the wheel compared to, say, a steel wheel on a rail, and that’s especially exacerbated when the rubber tires on pavement are serving someone who ostensibly lives in a city but has been advertised into thinking they need to drag half their living room around with them everywhere they go.

      2. “Cars are a war on cities”

        That’s it in a nutshell. Most of the problems cities have are the result of shoehorning cars in, whether directly or indirectly. Cars are what forced streets to be wider and created large parking lots and driveways that make it harder to walk in neighborhoods and make the neighborhood less peasant and sociable. Cars kill pedestrians and bicyclists. All this causes alienation and mental health deterioration. Cars currently require fueling with a toxic flammable liquid that distorts and corrupts geopolitics and poisons the land and water. Cars cost hundreds of dollars a month to fuel and maintain, at a time when many people are hundreds of dollars a month short on housing expenses, healthcare, food, and education.

    5. You know what makes driving less dangerous? Slowing traffic down. Aurora should be four lanes, two bus and two general purpose lanes, and 25mph. It should look more like Madison than it does today. If you want to go fast just take i5 or the E line. I wish the war on cars were real because then we would get more transit improvements.

    6. When it comes to traffic, bus lanes (and similar infrastructure) have both a positive and negative impact. On the one hand, drivers have fewer lanes. On the other hand, taking transit is a lot more attractive. This explains why driving in a place like the Netherlands is so much better than in America (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k). Fewer people drive because there is a good alternative.

      But that is rare. Gas prices are high there. Driving often involves going a different direction, which means it is often slower than just taking transit (or riding a bike). American cities rarely go that far. We should, but we tend to take baby steps, like adding BAT lanes on Aurora.

      But I can’t think of any city, anywhere in the world that has done the opposite. Once you reach a certain level of traffic, you are doomed. You can keep adding lanes (like in L. A., Honolulu or Toronto) and you’ll still see major traffic jams. This had led to the “One more lane, bro” meme (https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/417/129/282.png). The point being, having that lane for cars on Aurora really wouldn’t help. It would fill up very quickly (and would include some people that currently ride the bus) and you would be stuck in the same traffic jam.

      Unlike a lot of people here, I routinely drive. Most of my trips are into the mountains. I’m retired, so I drive during the weekday. I get to drive on busy roads where there are no bus or BAT lanes at all. Let me tell you, it is no picnic (luckily for me, I’m usually going the other direction). For example SR-522 is often bumper to bumper from Monroe to Woodinville in the morning (and the opposite in the evening). SR-9 up in Lake Stevens is now a huge mess. There is no easy fix for areas like that.

      From everything I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot) the only thing that can dramatically reduce traffic quickly is congestion pricing. High quality transit (using transit lanes) is simply an alternative to paying extra or sitting in traffic. Thus if you really want traffic to more more smoothly on Aurora, I would suggest adding a lot of tolls. Good luck with that.

    7. Ah, the old “war on cars” thing rears its head.

      Let’s try a new one: trying to make cars the main way everyone gets around in a city is like trying to paint your living room walls with a set of hammers.

    1. I was looking through the fatalities on 15th for morbid curiosity. The majority of them follow this pattern:
      Time: 1:32 AM
      Weather: Overcast
      Pedestrian signal: (N/A)
      Streetlights: Off
      Vehicle hits pedestrian

      So it’s someone wandering across the road in the middle of the night, often in an area with no streetlights or crossings. Stroad problem, sure, but also lighting and crossing availability. Those are relatively low-impact compared to a full street redesign (though our normal beg-button yellow-light crossings wouldn’t work on something as big as 15th.

  3. Aurora is almost a mini freeway that functions also as a suburban commercial stroad north of Greenlake. That poses challenges when designing for safety for pedestrians —especially bus riders.

    Slowing the traffic down has unintended consequences. One is that traffic would move to adjacent corridors — and even nearby neighborhood streets may get more traffic.

    The committee has some trade offs to consider.

    In reviewing past incidents, I hope the committee looks at these incident factors:

    1. Nighttime versus daytime driving. For example, could the street be safer with a barrier blocking headlights or would that decrease a crossing pedestrian’s visibility? Is the street lighting change to LED making it easier or harder to see pedestrians?

    2. The effect of drunk and distracted driving. At what point do design changes quit having a significant impact? Changing road geometry doesn’t reduce drunk and distracted driving. I don’t know what does beyond what is already done but it’s likely a behavioral change of some sort. It’s the philosophical problem I’ve had with the “zero” conceptual goal because as long as drunk and distracted driving happens the more unattainable zero becomes.

    Before diving into big picture design changes, I hope the committee takes time to analyze recent data to see the magnitude of different factors. Solutions are usually better when they come after analyses rather than merely from ideas in people’s heads.

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