A popular choice for leaders unsure of which way to turn when it comes to important policies and programs is an audit. Measurement will be the next step as the Seattle City Council’s transportation chair Rob Saka says he wants to take a hard look at the city’s progress on Vision Zero street and safety initiatives.
Saka says his committee will push forward with an audit of Seattle Department of Transportation efforts rather than focus on new legislative safety thrusts to reach the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries in the city by 2030.
“By initiating this comprehensive review now, the City secures a critical multi-year window to implement data-driven adjustments,” a statement from Saka’s office reads, saying the West Seattle representative’s “proactive approach ensures Seattle is best positioned to meet its safety milestones and enhance road safety for all residents well before the 2030 deadline.”
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Saka says his effort is beginning with Thursday morning’s transportation committee meeting as SDOT officials provide a review of 2025 traffic safety data and an overview of 2026 Vision Zero projects.
As of Thursday morning, SDOT’s planned presentation had not been posted to the council’s meeting agenda site.
At least 15 people were hit and killed by drivers on Seattle streets in 2025.
Earlier this year, Lilli Moreno was struck by a driver and killed while crossing E Pine.
Meanwhile, Thursday’s session will also include consideration of a proposed resolution to honorarily rename a portion of S Jackson between 28th and 29th Ave as Dr. RL Manaway, Sr. Way
Reverend Dr. Robert L. Manaway, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in Seattle, Washington, where he has faithfully served for over four decades and is a respected leader and serves in numerous denominational and civic roles. For his 40-year service promoting residential and outreach services throughout the Pacific Northwest and with his ministry extending nationally and internationally through preaching, teaching, missions, and humanitarian outreach, he is recognized though this honorary street designation.
So grateful and inspired to see this bold move from the visionary transportation leader who wisely… [checks notes] spent $2 million of city money to remove a safety median so that he can turn left into his kids’ preschool. Nice work Rob.
great point…Saka is another one that needs to go.
Did he actually do that? Thats pretty appaling if true. Negatively impacting safety in front of a school solely for personal convenience.
Wondering if the transportation chair has wheels.
nice one
4 days ago. I saw an older lady walking across E. Pine on Broadway.
She stepped off the curb to cross with the light.
A gal making a right hit her hard enough for the pedestrians head to smash the wind screen fully and shoulder as well.
The lady in the car was looking left for traffic and didn’t even see the pedestrian or fully stop. She looked to be in a hurry. She was out of her car and started making excuses immediately. She never asked the pedestrian if she was okay or needed anything. It was everyone else who tended to the victim. Almost 5 minutes of excuses. Then when the cops etc. got there? Prolly more of the same.
Cars are a scourge. Electric cars are less so, but are still able to kill pedestrians. We need to figure it out. 25 MPH signs here would be nice. People do 35 MPH through here and faster. 40-45 MPH is common.
When school is out? 15 MPH in a school zone. We need to treat “The nightlife” area in the same manner. 25 MPH speed limits is not too much to ask. And cost very little money to implement.
Ya can’t cram thousands of people into a tiny spot on the map. Then leave the car rules and infrastructures the same. Cars turn the Capitol Hill Broadway neighborhood into a filthy, noisy mess.
SDOT cares more about graffiti removal at skate parks than protecting humans from cars
Ya make a strong point.
Lower speed limits would help. But they must be well enforced or they won’t make a difference. And after what you witnessed, its clear that a difference for the better must be made. I hope the lady who was hit will make a full recovery, and the lady in the car is held to account.
Nothing will happen to increase road safety in this city, nothing, not more signs, not more laws, until we actually start enforcing at least of a few of ones we already have.
It doesn’t matter at all that the speed limits have been lowered when motorists know they can speed with relative impunity unless they are in an active school zone…
It doesn’t matter at all if we put up more stop signs when motorists know they can roll through them and no one will say boo to them.
It doesn’t matter how many lights are programmed with a ‘pedestrian pause’ when drivers realize that what it means most to them is that several of them can run the red without fear of being t-boned… (yes, drivers do this sooo much these days)
It doesn’t matter how many crosswalks get new paint or flashing lights when drivers just ignore crossing pedestrians anyway.. Yo – drivers you are supposed to come to a full stop before you enter the intersection and stay stopped until the pedestrian is more than 1 lane away from the half of the roadway you are operating on that means that much of the time (on any street of 3 or fewer lanes) you need to stop and stay stopped until the pedestrian is finished crossing.
It doesn’t matter how many intersections get a no right on red, when drivers brag about defying them.
Pain is all many people will ever understand. Until we make it more painful to not follow the rules than it is for them to just be patient and wait a little we will not change their behavior.
^ exactly Andor
“Nothing will happen to increase road safety in this city,”
That’s not true.
Yes this is all correct, but the pain needs to come in the form of physical impediments to speeding traffic. Speed bumps to annoy them while trying to make the next green light before it changes. Pain for drivers in the form of smaller lanes with curbs that could fuck up their tires if they don’t drive slow enough to make sure you don’t. Curb bulbs that physically force the tightening of turns, requiring lower speeds lest the car jumps the curb and damages their rims or bollards that fuck up their paint and trim if too close to sidewalks or bike lanes. Not to mention, cars are already insanely expensive relative to most other costs in American life, and reports today suspect oil prices won’t drop to below $3/gallon until 2027 at a minimum (and that’s clearly east coast prices).
But instead, we put all our money into police and point at speed limits as if that was ever a solution. Speed limits were always a fake solution that catered directly to the auto industry…if we were serious we’d use physical speed governors that automatically limited the engine speed, like they did WHEN THE CAR WAS INVENTED. Compared to the safe, car-free, pedestrian paradise that expanded public transit would present us, expecting a limited number of police, who are already stretched too thin, to somehow meaningfully change the bad behavior of car drivers by arresting every one of them or sending them fines in the mail when they happen to get caught on a camera, is plain silly.
To use an exaggerated example to illustrate a point, that the laws we should be enforcing on drivers the most are the laws of physics, if every road had speed bumps in areas we wanted them to slow down…they would be slowing down. Until the auto industry lobbies congress to start allowing inspector gadget suspensions. We’ve chosen this auto hell by choosing politicians in favor of it, and we can choose to undo it by investing in transit and physical impediments to cars speeding.
Who needs cops for this… Cameras can do most of the work and can’t be accused of discrimination.
Speed bumps and street design beat both when the problem is speeding. No one needs cops OR cameras for this issue…it’s physical impediments to driving that are the only solution. Our current situation is a result of the goals for the existing transportation infrastructure (roads built for cars) being out of alignment with the goals of the citizens in the city, who want pedestrianization efforts to increase safety (roads built for people).
The problem solves itself when proper alternatives are “encouraged” or more accurately, “compelled” through forced compliance, via the threat of crashing your–now prohibitively expensive to purchase, insure, fuel, and maintain–car. People largely speed because they can physically do it with ease and encounter little impedance to their straight-line courses, not because they all have lead feet and a death wish. Philadelphia has plenty of traffic problems, but speed in the center of the city isn’t one because the roads are historic and prohibitively small. Also many one-way streets improve traffic flow for people on foot. Driving fast in that context is scary, and therefore people don’t do it. Same with Amsterdam Centraal. Pedestrian paradise. Though that change toward pedestrianization in Amsterdam came after the 70s gas crisis when it became too expensive for adding more auto infrastructure to make sense. Sound familiar?
You need to expand your thinking past ‘cameras good’. BTW, you know that none other than Jeffrey Epstein provided much of the funding for the surveillance company Carbyne, which is now being acquired by AXON, the vendor that the City of Seattle works with for its CCTV. And people think I’m weird for not wanting that in my neighborhood! Seriously, wake up from this fantasy of a tech surveillance utopia. It’s a scam and it’s all funded by sick psychos.
CM Hollingsworth should have been calling for this after the death of Lilli. Instead she just ignored the death and continued pretending like everything is fine