Seattle rolls out plan to improve pedestrian safety

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels yesterday rolled out a pedestrian-safety campaign, a day after two people were hit by cars on Seattle streets.

The effort includes public-service announcements on television and radio, repainted crosswalks, billboards and signs encouraging safe driving, and stepped up enforcement of pedestrian-safety laws.

The city also will start installing traffic cameras to photograph cars that run red lights.

Nickels said the campaign will urge drivers to "concentrate on the road and the people who are in front of them."

The efforts had been planned before the accidents Tuesday in which an 11-year-old boy and 85-year-old man were injured.

The boy was struck crossing Stone Way North at a crosswalk at North 41st Street. Police said some cars had stopped for the boy, but one driver drove around the stopped cars and hit him — one of the more common causes of such accidents.

In the other accident, an 85-year-old man in a wheelchair, crossing against a red light, was struck by a car at Third Avenue and Pike Street. Both were taken to Harborview Medical Center. A police spokeswoman yesterday said the incidents were being investigated and did not know whether charges would be filed.

There are about 400 car-pedestrian accidents each year in Seattle, according to the city transportation department. In the past two years, 24 people have been killed and 56 others seriously injured as a result of those accidents, said police spokesman Sean Whitcomb.

So far this year, there have been two fatal accidents and eight serious injuries.

The new safety campaign will rely on money already budgeted, and several of the elements announced by the mayor had been under way.

Some of the actions mirror a "pedestrian summer" safety campaign championed by City Councilman Richard Conlin two years ago.

Among the actions announced yesterday:

• Public-service announcements for radio and television stations, including on the Seattle Channel, the city's cable television station. They also can be viewed on the city Web site at www.seattle.gov/mayor/issues/pedsafety/.

• New pedestrian safety signs and billboards at dozens of intersections.

• Improvements to walking routes around two elementary schools, T.T. Minor and Bailey Gatzert.

• Upgrades to or repainting of crosswalks at 50 intersections.

• Possible higher fines for drivers who fail to yield for pedestrians. The city has failed to persuade the Legislature to approve stiffer penalties, but will try again, said City Attorney Tom Carr.

• Deployment of mobile trailers that display how fast drivers are going.

• A pilot project deploying cameras at some intersections to photograph drivers who run red lights. The City Council already appropriated $500,000 for four cameras. The city has not decided where the cameras will go, said Marianne Bichsel, the mayor's spokeswoman.

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com