The city’s Stay Healthy Streets program to restrict motor vehicle traffic on select streets to create more open space during the pandemic is adding sturdier signs to help better protect people from drivers as they walk, bike, and roll.
The new signs aren’t exactly barriers but officials hope they will be less susceptible to breakage and loss as bad weather and bad drivers have taken a toll on the city’s collection of a-frame style signs deployed early in the pilot project.
The city has marked (PDF) around 20 miles of Neighborhood Greenways as Stay Healthy Streets opened to people walking, rolling, and biking and restricting traffic in the area. CHS reported here on the Central District’s Stay Healthy route which is set to become a permanent addition to the streetscape.
New #StayHealthyStreets signs at arterials seem like an improvement. What do you think? Looking forward to permanent beefy planter boxes or similar. Thanks @seattledot pic.twitter.com/v9IKd20eoT
— Gordon Padelford (@GordonOfSeattle) December 7, 2020
The signs could also help the citizen-led effort to augment the program. 14th Ave E south of Volunteer Park is one example of a Stay Healthy Block, a citizen-led effort to establish an area of reduced car traffic. If you would like to explore adding a Stay Healthy area like 14th Ave E, you can learn more and apply here.
PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
We live near the corner of 14th and E John and have been constantly amazed over the last few weeks at how people not just ignore but actively destroy the blockade signs at that intersection. None has lasted an entire day. Yesterday morning four different signs were put up next to each other across the street, each with a different base and all more substantial than the previous signs, and by mid-afternoon all four had been knocked down and pushed to the side of the street (which leads me to believe it’s not just “bad drivers” but actively-malicious pedestrians doing the damage).
It would be great to incorporate intersection divides to prevent vehicles from using these streets as thoroughfares while still accommodating bicycles and pedestrians. They exist on Capitol Hill and encourage traffic to stay on main streets. We live near a “safe street” in South Seattle abused vehicles as a bypass. It’s incredibly dangerous.
This would be wonderful. I am currently in Columbia City and our safe street signs are constantly moved to the side by drivers. I’ve seen people intentionally drive over them, and the street has more traffic than before the closure. It’s incredibly frustrating.