Is there really a pedestrian battle for sidewalk space in Seattle?

While drivers struggle to find space to both park and drive, with many lanes being converted to bike lanes 3.1 percent of commuters use and spots that are converted to oft-ignored parklets, pedestrians are also unhappy.

In an epically-long Pacific Northwest Magazine piece, Susan Kelleher explains how pedestrians in Seattle are rudely fighting for space to walk during their commutes to and from work. She writes of harrowing near-miss pedestrian/driver collisions. She explains, “Instead of ‘After you. No, after you,’ we have ‘Screw you!’ as we encounter people who can’t see beyond their own electronics [as they’re walking].

Part of me believes this could happen, but the feature reads like she’s trying to exaggerate the reality to make an otherwise boring story a bit more sexy and readable.

Related: Parklets are symptomatic of Seattle’s anti-car bias

Now, part of why I believe this could be the case is because the city is rushing to force people out of cars and onto the bus, bike, or on foot. The problem is they didn’t create an infrastructure to actually handle the consequences of the behavioral shifts they’re creating. And you see that with certain bus routes, you’ve got people waiting 30-45 minutes just to get onto a bus that they can fit on. So it makes sense that people are walking but don’t have much room. The city is simply awful at planning things (that’s what happens when you govern solely by ideology, as is the case with the Seattle Department of Transportation Director Scott Kubly and Mayor Ed Murray).

But I feel her story is somewhat exaggerated when she argues: “Increasingly, though, sidewalks are places for disconnection and aggravation, places where the act of passage is an exercise in entitlement.”

As someone who routinely walks around Seattle (though not as much during afternoon commutes), I haven’t seen the aggressively rude behavior she describes in her story. I’ve seen people rushing to get to where they were going, but hardly shoving people to get by and certainly not screaming out insults like “Screw you!” I’ve seen somewhat crowded streets, but as the article points out, we’re hardly New York City. The worst I’ve seen was an open-air drug deal (in the spot that the SPD implemented their 9.5 blocks strategy).

Related: Is this Seattle’s most insane bike lane idea?

And I’m also a driver and hardly recognize what this article seems to imply is a regular occurrence. Kelleher writes:

One car does stop on Denny to let pedestrians pass. This simple law-abiding act triggers rage in the driver of the next car in line, a gray BMW sedan. As three people cross the street on foot, the driver’s face congeals in disgust. She talks to herself for the full 15 seconds it takes for the crosswalk to clear, and, at the first sign of an opening, zips into the intersection, shaking her head disapprovingly with enough force to bounce her hair around her shoulders.

How else do you make an article about walking on pavement exciting? You exaggerate some details. After you read the piece (and it is an interesting one), let me know in the comments section what you think. Is this what you’re experiencing or is there a bit of embellishment going on?