Curley: The real solution to Seattle’s traffic congestion

Two city council candidates are proposing a billion dollar plan to create a Seattle trolley system to solve mounting congestion.

But John Curley believes that the solution is far more simple and cheaper than a billion-dollar trolley.

“As more people move into the city, more people work in the city, we can’t build more roads, we have filled the roadways with as many cars as it can handle. And the stopping and the going based upon traffic signals has people waiting in lines too long,” John Curley said on KIRO Radio.

“The problem is not the cars, it’s the slow pokes. The slow pokes I am referring to are those lumbering across the street … It takes people thirty seconds to go 15 yards across the street,” he said.

The key to fixing the congestion and waiting lies in a change in the right-of-way for cars and pedestrians.

“[Turn on] a red light for all cars going at a four way stop. Everybody crosses anyway they want to go, diagonally, shooting this way and that way … like ants without an ant hill scurrying around, and scurrying is important,” Curley said. “And it would say it in the law: ‘must scurry.'”

“And you have a reasonable amount of time &#8212 five seconds,” he said. “Then boom, there’s a sound like s bell or maybe a cannon goes off and now you are back on the sidelines and then the cars proceed. The car can make a left-hand turn.”

“It costs nothing other than the adjustment of the lights. It doesn’t take a billion dollars to put a street car in,” he said.

Curley’s co-host Tom Tangney had a different perspective and thought of a different plan, though he was able to convince Curley to concede to an 8 second crossing time for pedestrians.

“The problem is,” he said. “I think they ought to adjust the traffic lights. When you have a lot of pedestrian traffic, it doesn’t allow a lot of people to turn left before the light switches.”