Outside Cleveland High School on Friday, Mayor Wilson unveiled her Vision Zero Executive Order. This long-awaited executive order re-prioritizes Vision Zero for the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and for other city agencies. In 2015, Seattle committed to reaching zero serious injuries or fatalities on the city’s roadways by 2030. In the decade since, 280 people have been killed and 31,000 people have been injured while traveling around Seattle. The executive order has five sections with specific deliverables from various city agencies.
Accelerating Project Delivery
Section 1 focuses on speeding up the implementation of road safety projects. Far too often, safety projects are bundled with street repaving or other infrastructure upgrades that take years to design and complete. Rather than wait on those changes, this section directs SDOT to implement safety improvements earlier while the larger projects are designed. This could include lane configurations or parking on arterial streets. In addition, this executive order directs SDOT to deliver following projects earlier than scheduled:
- SW Wildwood Place protected bike lane between Fauntleroy Way SW and 45th Ave SW (by the end of 2026). This is where Maridee BonaDea was killed in June.
- 12th Ave S. Phase 2 Safety Corridor between E Yesler Way and S King St. (by Q3 2027). This is where Christian Salyer was killed in June.
- Traffic calming on high-speed arterial corridors, including Martin Luther King Jr. Way S., Swift Ave S., 15th Ave NE., 1st Ave S., and Dexter Ave N. (by Q2 2027).
- Safety upgrades at 19 identified high-collision locations, including locations on Aurora Ave N., Rainier Ave S., and 5th Ave (by Q3 2026).
- Head-start walk signals (leading pedestrian intervals) at 40 intersections (by Q3 2026).
- Intersection daylighting (an effort to clear sightlines for improved visibility of conflicting movements) at 20 intersections (by Q2 2027).
Section 1 also calls on SDOT to determine ways to accelerate project delivery for different project types, such as expediting community engagement, streamlining project scopes, and improving coordination with Seattle City Light (SCL) and Seattle Public Utilities (SPU). SDOT is also directed to implement intersection daylighting at any intersection that receives other improvements (similar to the No Turn on Red rollout process). Finally, Section 1 calls for an analysis of arterial road lighting conditions to identify areas that need lighting upgrades.
Safer Vehicles
Section 2 focuses on improving city-owned vehicles to include protections for other road users. The Department of Finance and Administrative Services (FAS) is tasked with developing a plan to retrofit city vehicles with enhanced safety features or replace vehicles with smaller, lighter weight options. In addition, FAS will need to deliver a report that outlines the impacts of requiring all City-contracted vendors’ and sub-vendors’ large vehicles to be equipped with convex mirrors, cross-over mirrors, blind-spot awareness decals, side guards, vulnerable road user detection, automatic emergency braking, and Intelligent Speed Assistance.
Safer Speeds
Section 3 calls on SDOT and the Seattle Police Department to rollout speed cameras at ten locations around Seattle by March 31, 2029. SDOT is also tasked with identifying roads where signal timings can be adjusted to reduce vehicle speeds or increase pedestrian crossing times.
Team Effort
Reducing traffic injuries and deaths requires coordination from several city agencies. Section 4 of the executive order tasks SDOT with creating an interdepartmental team that will meet monthly on Vision Zero progress. This team will include representatives from SDOT, SPD, SFD, SCL, SPU, the City Attorney’s office, City Budget Office, and the Mayor’s Office. This section also calls on the expansion of the School Streets program to include 40% of eligible public schools.
State Legislative
The fifth and final section of Wilson’s executive order sets the priorities for the Office of Intergovernmental Relations (OIR) on a few key issues: reducing liability following street improvement projects, increasing dollar value limits on City crew projects, legislative best practices around Vision Zero, supporting local control on No Right on Red policies, supporting efforts to lower the blood-alcohol content limit to 0.05%, and increasing the maximum weight of certain vehicles subject to transportation benefit district vehicle fees.
The changes outlined in this executive order will expedite the City’s efforts to reach Vision Zero by 2030. This strong initiative has largely been missing from political leaders for the past decade. SDOT has implemented a few city-wide policies as part of the effort to achieve Vision Zero. In 2019, leading pedestrian intervals became the default option for all new or updated traffic signals. The following year, the City reduced the speed limit on almost all arterial roads to 25mph. Since 2023, No Turn on Red signs have been added to hundreds of intersections and will be applied to all new or modified intersections. This policies have seen positive results, but are not sufficient to reach zero serious injuries and fatalities by 2030. With the addition of Mayor Wilson’s policies introduced yesterday, Seattle may be able to reach its goal in the next four years.
Adding no turn on red doesn’t help safety if there is no enforcement and based on my experience around Ballard there is no enforcement (haven’t seen ever) or compliance (in majority of cases).
Same with Westlake Ave. I am unsure why this was done, but the question is enforcement – which is negligible.
It’s true, but it’s worth putting up the signs despite the fact SPD has so many structural problems preventing effective enforcement of, well, anything.
Lack of enforcement is a weak argument against any law – a universal/existential conflation. Should speed limits be removed on freeways?
If a majority of the population follows a law, then the danger of the bad consequence the law is supposed to prevent gets cut by more than half.
If the law is not enforced on 99% of those breaking it, but the other 1% get caught and warned or punished, does that not deter (reduce, not eliminate) the behavior?
That said, assuming someone will follow the law and stop to let you cross, without seeing that they see you, is an avoidable risk.
The vast majority of people obey the law. This means the drive behind the driver follows the law even if they don’t want to. You can see this when they have a road diet. A driver speeds when there is two lanes going the same direction. But with one lane they have to wait behind the person who is driving the speed limit.
I understand the purpose of those signs in some areas – particularly downtown – but some of them are at intersections with little pedestrian use and very clear sightlines, especially in daylight. I don’t blame people for ignoring them.
Right of way is limited. Consider 12th Avenue South; it carries routes 9, 36, and 60. To add PBL, lanes will be taken and bus-bike humps will be added. Transit is left behind in congestion. There will be friction between bus patrons going between the bus and the sidewalk and those using the PBL. On hills, the bikes and e-devices will have more downhill speed; will they yield?
The several multilane transit arterials are the most dangerous to vulnerable users on the outside. They are Aurora Avenue North, Lake City Way NE, MLK Way South, Rainier, 1st, 4th, avenues South, East Marginal Way South, 15th and Elliott avenues West. They need access management: channelization of left turns and driveway consolidation; some lack sidewalks on lengthy segments. They carry frequent transit.
Adding no turn on red to a transit arterial with BAT lanes clearly slows transit; are there enough pedestrians to make it worthwhile? There are many pedestrians in most of the urban centers.
Safety experts think so. One solution is to use right-turn arrows but allow buses to proceed straight, which is in use at a handful of locations (15th and Market, for example).
Yeah, right turn arrows should be added wherever there is a bus (and left-turn arrows on the perpendicular streets). That clears out the intersection much faster than right-on-red and is much safer as well (since pedestrians have to stop). It doesn’t slow the pedestrian down, either, as they wouldn’t be able to cross (because of the people turning left). Once you notice right-turn arrows it isn’t hard to find places where they should be added.
For example, consider 130th & Aurora. If you are headed east or west on 130th you have a left-turn arrow. This means that Aurora (north or south) should have a corresponding right-turn arrow. The right lane (both north and south) is already a BAT lane. Thus you aren’t allowed in the lane unless you are driving a bus or turning right. By adding the right turn arrow the lane empties out quickly and the bus gets right to the front. Oh, and the same thing is true going the other direction. That will be more important when the 77 goes east-west.
When bikes and transit are forced to fight for 2nd priority behind cars, everyone loses. Vision Zero is failing because vehicle movement is prioritized over pedestrians and bikes, and administrative solutions (e.g. no right on red, speed limit signs, assuming e-bikes and scooters are synonymous with e-motos) are less intrusive than structural solutions (modal filters, speed bumps, road diets).
Perhaps mountable curbs should be considered for bus lanes on busy streets? Maybe freight & bus lanes on major truck streets (Rainier, Aurora, others)
I’m glad to see the need to focus on daylighting targeted intersections.
It’s still unfortunate that Vision Zero keeps focusing most deterrents on places that don’t need them and have no history of fatalities or serious injuries. It’s like prescribing antibiotics for the wrong infection.
And bad street lighting along with drunk and distracted driving are what seems to be the biggest factors behind serious injuries and fatalities. Better pedestrian level lighting (not hidden in tree canopies), reflective paint (can’t see paint lines in the rain) and more late evening transit service (an alternative to drunk driving) and what I think would be better ways of making streets safer.
So, reactive treatments only? Can’t fix any intersections until someone dies?
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that the many years of making change after change is having little effect.
SDOT needs to rethink the current tools in its toolbox that it’s been applying for several years now and develop different tools. SDOT also needs to analyze time of day safety as some times during the day are much safer than others.
A no right turn on red sign or a leading pedestrian interval will not save a person from getting hit by a drunk or distracted driver as they walk across a badly lit street at night! The pedestrian is often not being seen at all!
Or when street paint is not very reflective or a driver is dodging potholes, the drivers are too distracted to see hazards ahead.
Or the overly bright LED lighting creates blind spots in fields of vision — and a different light environment is needed.
Or when street traffic is forced into a newly-striped single lane but the signal heads are not repositioned so a driver can’t see if the signal is green or not if there’s a big vehicle in front of them.
Take a look at the accident statistics. It’s clear that crossing streets when it’s dark is significantly more risky than when it’s daylight. Yet the nighttime issue gets mostly ignored. SDOT is only looking at signs and pavement markings and signal timings.
SDOT routinely collects and reports on this kind of data. You can also easily filter by “light condition” (which is so granular that it includes streetlights on or off) or time of day on the SDOT crash dashboard.
No, but removing traffic lanes and other traffic calming plus daylighting to shorten the intersection will make it much faster for the pedestrian to cross and much harder for the driver to go so fast that they kill or their slowed reaction time matters. This EO is trying to push these kinds of interventions forward.
These are all problems, but I think daylighting, lane removal, and other traffic calming have a much larger effect on safety.
First of all, no they are not―they have actually been installing bike infrastructure and intersection daylighting, and this EO specifically directs them to focus on these kinds of interventions. Second of all, signs+pavement markings+signal timings definitely aren’t all we should be (or are) doing, but they can save a lot of lives―SDOT re-striped and re-signed a stretch of Rainier Ave S in 2015 and eliminated serious injuries and deaths on that stretch.
I get that there are gaps in SDOT’s approach, but I really do think we have been applying many of the right tools, it’s just that we haven’t applied them fast or widely enough. This makes it a political problem, not an engineering problem.
Oops, my second-to-last paragraph got caught in the quote block.
I think I fixed it.
Yes and yes. I try, and usually succeed at not driving in Seattle. A while back I had to drive MLK at night and it was damn near impossible to see anything; and it wasn’t even raining. Fixing pothole and cracks, especially those parallel to direction of travel would help bikes. Most serious bike commuters avoid the worst of the roads like Rainier and MLK. But I see people, no helmet of course, on Lime bikes riding erratically in the traffic lanes on Rainier. I’m really surprised there aren’t fatalities happening all the time.
Bellevue’s answer to Vision Zero is mostly to lower speeds on neighborhood arterials from 35 to 30 which in reality means people might drive 35 instead of 40. I think they are also starting to change some residential streets to 20mph. Enforcement is “hit and miss”. And even if enforced the effect is more a reduction in the seriousness of injuries rather than prevention.
I’ve long wished Seattle would be known as a city known not just for coffee, grunge, and cloud computing, but as a city that gets the basics right like fixing the broken sidewalks and roads. I’m still waiting.
Maybe you’re referring to something else, but this is not true for this executive order. The part of the order that involves adding quick-build safety improvements before we can do a full redesign is targeted at roads where either a) someone has been murdered by a car or truck or b) are listed on the high-injury network—and are places where many people have been seriously hurt.
Which US city is doing best at achieving its Vision Zero goals, and why? What are they focusing on?
Hoboken, New Jersey. (CityNerd video) It hasn’t had any ped or bike fatalities in several years after a vision zero retrofit, and is also full of 15-minute cities.
That link didn’t work for me. I looked up Hoboken and found this article. “The city where traffic fatalities vanished. For nine straight years, Hoboken, New Jersey hasn’t seen a single fatal crash. Here’s how they did it.” Granted, there is a big difference in size and population between Hoboken and Seattle, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn something from them.
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/the-city-where-traffic-fatalities-vanished/
I fixed the link.
Did any of you get the text that was used to poll Mayor Wilson’s popularity?
No.
SDOT seems obsessed with speed cushions this year. They are putting in ones that are less than 50-70 feet from a stop sign, which makes little sense to me. Cars are already moving slowly that close to a stop sign.
And recently these are appearing on bus routes. So standees on a bus get a jolt and may topple. And the bus suspensions are already beat up so this is making things worse.
Aren’t the gaps in the speed cushions supposed to be spaced for large vehicles like buses and fire trucks?
If they are they sure as heck not working. I witness two big jolts at every cushion! The bus route I ride now has about 10 new speed cushions on it so that’s 20 jolt/ thud every one way trip on a bus.
The conspiracy theorist in me sees a parting gift from the previous administration. It seems clear that some wanted to recall the mayor even before she got elected. This reminds me of the council’s atrocious behavior before (and after) Mayor McGinn took office.
I thought speed pillows were a tool to discourage car drivers from using side streets.
“They are putting in ones that are less than 50-70 feet from a stop sign, which makes little sense to me.”
The speed cushions slow down drivers so that they will see the stop sign and be able to stop in time. Makes perfect sense to me.
Is failing to slow down in time to stop at stop-sign intersections a thing? Granted, failing to stop before, rather than on top of, crosswalks is still a thing.
They put some cushions in on the tiny 9th Ave NE, just south of NE 75th St in Maple Leaf. They are about 30 yards before the freeway onramp. I support cushions overall but I thought that was a strange location choice
As a taxpayer, I appreciate the approach to public safety that takes data and makes one-times fixes to public safety hazards, as compared to hiring enforcers in perpetuity.
I am somewhat annoyed that some advocating for foot traffic surveillance cameras (and I am still agnostic on their utility) have not been there when pushback has come from drivers against traffic cameras, whether it be for bus lanes, emergency responder parking zones, or school zones.
By now, all school buses should have the swinging stick that stops traffic in the lane to the left. But many students in Seattle ride Metro. They are not afforded the protection of the swinging stick. Imagine if all Metro buses had the swinging stick (just as a thought experiment here). Everyone in the next lane would have to stop. And the bus would not be blocked by a line of cars oblivious to the law requiring them to yield the lane to the bus when it starts moving again.
Imagine if all Metro buses had the swinging stick (just as a thought experiment here).
That would be awesome. Better lights on the bus would help. Unfortunately the flashing lights that signal that the bus is stopping look very similar to the flashing lights that signal that a bus wants to merge left, into traffic. Only relatively recently did they add a center light break-light for cars. Before then the tail lights just went red. Perhaps buses should have something similar (with an arrow) and then we can remind people that once that arrow is on, you can’t pass the bus. A stick would work too though.
I spent two years driving a school bus. On four lane roads people will sometimes blow past the stop flag. Bellevue installed cameras and the fine was stiff enough that it even got wealthy “I’m above the law” residents to take notice… and the threat of losing their license. But to be fair to drivers, you’d have to install all the flashing lights and signs on a school bus with notices that you can’t pass. People know about school buses and the schedule is fixed. Introducing this to Metro buses would be hard. A laser mounted cannon that evaporates cars trying to pass would work ;>)
I noticed yesterday that the traffic lights are gone from Beacon Ave S and S Lander St (the intersection at the northwest corner of Beacon Hill Station). But the wait/cross lights are still there. I assume this is an oversight, given its uniqueness.
Are full-pedestrian-priority asphalt-level flashing lights coming to that intersection, and the next intersection to the south? (Which would make three straight intersections of full pedestrian priority, including next to the library)
Credit to the Harrell Administration for rolling out these bike lanes, bus bulbs, and space for two buses to board, in conjunction with replacing a water main. We have been blessed with administrations mostly favorable to Vision Zero. Durkan’s administration was the only one that stuck out like a sore thumb as not getting it.
I wonder when the first pedestrian incident will happen at 155th_bothell way? All because metro decided to kill rhe 372 to
force people ontoi link….
Metro deleted the 372 because either:
A. It thought overlapping Stride north of Seattle would be overservice and would have insufficient ridership. Suburban ridership is lower than city ridership.
or
B. It didn’t have enough service hours to do that and all its higher-priority needs in north Seattle.
When you say force people from the 372 to Link, people living where going to where?
The transfer point is actually 145th & 30th but I get your point. The Metro change was a long time coming. They should have done it years ago. It is hard to justify both the ST route and a Metro route on that corridor north of Seattle. As it is, the 372 doesn’t go north of Lake City on weekends anyway. The 322 runs peak (weekdays). So basically it is a loss of weekday, midday service along a suburban corridor that is served by other buses. In the grand scheme of things it isn’t that bad.
The big mistake was done by Sound Transit. They were the ones that decided to send the 522 (and future Stride Line) to 148th Station instead of the current location (Roosevelt) or the obvious choice for a supposed BRT line (the UW). If the bus just followed the existing corridor would folks be griping about the 72 no longer going to Kenmore and Bothell (but running a lot more often)? I doubt it. I’m not saying Metro did a great job in handling the issue but compared to the other mistakes the Metro planners have made with Lynnwood Link, this is a minor one. The big mistake here was made by Sound Transit.
Some bus riders along the 522 corridor north of Seattle apparently wanted the quickest connection to the rail spine.
Regardless, having the 65 go to South Shoreline Station seems a pretty good outcome for Seattle riders, other than the question of the safest possible bus stop locations along 145th.
The goofiness of the rest of the northeast Seattle route restructure is a topic for another day.
“In addition, FAS will need to deliver a report that outlines the impacts of requiring all City-contracted vendors’ and sub-vendors’ large vehicles to be equipped with convex mirrors, cross-over mirrors, blind-spot awareness decals, side guards, vulnerable road user detection, automatic emergency braking, and Intelligent Speed Assistance.”
That is well intended but a terrible policy. Most contractors will not do that, reducing competition and leaving only a few players to go after projects and then only big projects where its worth it. Small scale improvement projects will get no responses from vendors/contractors.