A recent op-ed (“Spending on safety isn’t making Seattle streets less hazardous,” May 12), asked why Seattle’s effort to reach Vision Zero — zero fatalities and serious injuries for people traveling on our streets — is not making sufficient progress. It’s an important question. However, the author’s conclusion that the most important solution is to reduce car congestion by designing streets for efficient car use is completely off-base.
First we should consider the context. Across the United States, speeding is rampant, distracted driving is increasing, intoxicated driving remains stubbornly high and the proliferation of SUVs and passenger trucks is having deadly consequences for pedestrians in particular.
In the face of these headwinds, Seattle is safer than many of our peer cities such as Denver, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. That’s a laudable achievement, and it’s thanks to our Vision Zero program’s efforts to set safer speed limits, implement traffic calming and build safer crosswalks. But we must do more. In 2025, more than 200 Seattleites suffered life-altering injuries and 27 lost their lives.
The good news is that the solutions to keep people safe while traveling on our streets are known. The problem has been a lack of political will — at all levels of government.
Federal policies could help through safer vehicle design like European style mandates for safer vehicle front ends, passive in-vehicle drunken driving prevention, Intelligence Speed Assistance and distracted driving detection. But sadly, adoption of these lifesaving technologies are not expected anytime soon.
At the state level, despite being named a top priority, direct safety investment represents less than 5% of the state’s biennial transportation budget, according to the Transportation Choices Coalition. And the Washington State Department of Transportation needs additional policy direction to prioritize its responsibility to help redesign dangerous state routes that run through communities, like State Route 99 (Aurora Avenue North) and State Route 522 (Lake City Way).
And at the city level, Seattle has been talking about the same dangerous streets since the beginning of the Vision Zero program in 2015. In Seattle, 80% of pedestrian fatalities occur on multiple-lane arterials. In particular, the top five most dangerous streets have remained Aurora Ave North, Rainier Avenue South, Fourth Avenue South, Lake City Way Northeast, and MLK Jr. Way South. When the Seattle Department of Transportation has been allowed to make changes, like the reconfiguration of the section of Rainier Avenue South through Columbia City, it led to reductions in speeding, crashes, injuries and deaths. However, SDOT has not had the backing of previous mayors to implement full redesigns of our most dangerous streets.
If Seattle’s new mayor directs the department to get Vision Zero back on track, what could that look like?
It would look like giving the department backing to overhaul our most dangerous streets — not just tinker around the edges. But these major projects will take time. What can be done now?
SDOT could quickly scale a portfolio of small but effective safety improvements such as “hardened intersection daylighting” that Hoboken and Jersey City have used to reach Vision Zero.
And while we wait for the federal government to adopt best practices from overseas, Seattle can look to our city’s Nordic roots for inspiration. Oslo reached Vision Zero in 2019 and that city’s mayor attributes that success to “large investments in public transport, bicycle lanes and facilities for pedestrians, along with restrictions on car use and speed limits.” Helsinki reached Vision Zero last year, and city officials attribute their success to investments in safe walking and biking infrastructure, as well as a reduction in dangerous speeding through street design and automatic enforcement cameras.
Getting Seattle back on track to eliminate serious injuries on our streets will not be easy, but it is possible, necessary and the proven strategies are known. And with Mayor Katie Wilson we may finally have a mayor with the commitment to follow through and make sure everyone gets home safely to their loved ones.
