Rantz: Seattle Mayor, SDOT brag, but bury huge increase in traffic deaths

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and the Seattle Department of Transportation weirdly bragged about their Vision Zero successes in 2020. But their report buries a deadly statistic.

The goal is to get to zero traffic-related deaths, yet 2020 somehow saw a near-10-year record number of fatalities. This, despite fewer people driving on the roads due to COVID. They even manage to pervert the current data to downplay the deadly year.

The takeaway from this data is clear: Neither Durkan nor SDOT have any clue what it is they’re doing.

Record high fatalities… but Seattle is “bold”

Durkan tweeted the 2020 Vision Zero recap from SDOT, calling their strategy “bold” as they lowered speed limits across the city.

Buried deep in the SDOT report is a startling revelation.

Unfortunately, despite a drastic drop in travel and collisions, preliminary data indicate that 24 people died in a crash in 2020 in Seattle, making it one of the most deadly of recent years. Thirteen people were walking, one person was biking, one was riding a motorcycle, and nine people were in vehicles.

By recent years, SDOT means it’s been the deadliest year since 2013. That’s not very recent. This key detail comes near the very end of the report and manages to escape a direct mention in the summary of the report. Durkan nor SDOT want you to know this statistic.

Still, SDOT’s recap would “celebrate our key accomplishments from 2020 that elevate community safety and support Seattle’s long-term Vision Zero initiative to end traffic deaths and serious injuries.”

This year we took the bold move to lower speed limits across our city to better ensure the safety of drivers, pedestrians, and bikers. We have made a lot of progress in 2020 toward our commitment to Vision Zero – yet there is more work to be done. https://t.co/vEaXc48921

— Mayor Jenny Durkan (@MayorJenny) January 28, 2021

Seattle seems disinterested in explaining the data

The pandemic economy kept many drivers and bicyclists off the road and pedestrians off the sidewalks. So how did Seattle see more traffic fatalities? We don’t know.

SDOT seems disinterested in explaining the data. Though they do go to great lengths to show why what they’re doing works, citing studies and analysis. When it comes to the deaths, they offer nothing but platitudes. In place of an explanation, SDOT says it’s unacceptable, and downplays the data as preliminary. They’re hoping by December 2021, when we’ve forgotten about the report, they’ll get updated data suggesting some of the accidents were caused by medical issues that get the city off the hook for the stat.

But don’t worry, SDOT is still patting itself on the back. When it comes to fewer traffic collisions, SDOT takes credit. Never mind there were fewer cars on the road.

Why is the data so bad?

The likely culprit behind the traffic deaths is poor traffic management. I’m willing to bet if we had drivers on the road, the collision data wouldn’t look as rosy, either.

The city is managed by bureaucrats who don’t drive. Seattle’s traffic engineer doesn’t even own a car.

Consequently, some of our roads are exceptionally dangerous to drive on. And it’s not always driver behaviors, but the way the streets are designed. You have bike lanes squeezed onto streets in places that make no sense. You have cluttered and sometimes confusing street lights and signage.

You have pedestrians who justifiably jaywalk because the timing of some lights make no sense. You have bicyclists not obeying basic traffic laws because they’re entitled dum dums who don’t realize they will always lose a battle with a car.

It all equals a dangerous situation on the roads. And rather than address the issue, the city continues to push forward with plans to force people out of cars. Not only is that unrealistic, post-COVID it simply makes Seattle more unaffordable. The people who would have to stop commuting by car are the high-paid tech employees. Bringing more of them back to the neighborhoods around their workplaces will put a strain on the apartment supplies, which raises rents.

But cool: We got a new bike lane that few people use, even if it means more people are dying on the streets and our cost of living skyrockets, I guess.

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