A Seattle city street crew is installing rubber “speed cushions” on NW 73rd Street today. This one is going in just east of 2nd Avenue NW.
A second row of cushions will go in a couple blocks to the east. The crew will be back Monday to complete the job, because some homeowners apparently didn’t know about the work and didn’t move their cars.
At some later date a concrete traffic island will also be installed at the intersection with 1st Avenue NW.
According to the city’s Web site, speed cushions are used on arterial streets and non-arterial streets commonly used by emergency vehicles which have a wider wheelbase that can straddle the humps. This stretch of 73rd is commonly used by nearby Fire Station 21.
A group of street residents have been lobbying the city for some time for traffic calming measures to slow the speed of traffic on North and Northwest 73rd between Greenwood Avenue and 3rd Avenue NW.
14 responses so far ↓
1 Doxey // Dec 18, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Thank you SDOT! And thanks to all the neighbors that collaborated on this project.
Please note that if the reader isn’t careful they may be confused on the status of 73rd. 73rd is NOT an arterial, it is a residential street.
Also the article refers to an island, which will not be the case. The intersection did not qualify for an island due to technical parameters. Believe me, we tried. But SDOT engineered a speed dot, which is like an island, only different.
It is my hope that the speed dot, once installed, will help educate drivers on the status of that intersection as just another uncontrolled intersection. 73rd has no sort of preference or status over 1st NW. Whoever enters the intersection first has right of way, and if two cars enter at the same moment then the driver on the right has right of way, just like any other uncontrolled intersection.
Thanks for the post PhinneyWood.
Doxey
2 leukothea // Dec 18, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Can snowplows go over rubber cushions without tearing them up? Where I’m from (Minnesota) we don’t have anything like cat’s eyes, etc., on the streets because it would interfere with winter plowing. Then again, winter plowing there takes place 6 months of every year, as opposed to once every 5 years here…
3 Whopper // Dec 18, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Plowing? You must be new to Seattle. Plowing disturbs salmon’s sleep, so here in Seattle we just stay home for the week and twiddle our thumbs.
4 leukothea // Dec 18, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Oh, I remember last year… vividly! And have been watching as the Seattle snow policy evolves.
5 Katie // Dec 18, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Have there ever been any accidents on these 3 blocks? This seems like it’s unecessary, a minor nuisance, and a waste of money. I have lived in the area for a while and never seen any accidents; but I suppose I may be wrong.
6 Iron City Mike // Dec 18, 2009 at 7:19 pm
What some call “traffic calming” I call “traffic aggravating” - they are a nuisance and in my opinion more of a danger than having nothing there (never mind interference with snow removal as already mentioned).
7 Norm // Dec 18, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Good grief it only snows in town once or twice a year if at all, and it’s only once every ten years or so that mother nature takes longer than 24 - 48 hours to get rid of any snow she dispenses here. Residential streets like 73rd don’t need to be plowed.
8 amh98103 // Dec 18, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I have lived on this street for many years and have witnessed accidents and near misses. One time I was trying to make a legal left turn into my driveway with my turn signal on, and a car speeding up the hill didn’t want to slow down and wait for me to execute the turn so he tried to pass me on my LEFT! Fortunately I saw him in my left side mirror as he sped past me so I avoided the accident. Too many people treat this street as a bypass arterial.
9 dave // Dec 18, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the children?
10 poeky // Dec 19, 2009 at 8:06 am
This is cool.
Especially up at the blind crest of the hill where the Seattle philosophy of drive-in-the-center-of-the-road-until-I-see-a-reason-not-to nearly causes head-on collisions.
There is no parking on the South side of the street in this section, yet people coming up the hill still drive in the center. Not Smart.
11 david // Dec 19, 2009 at 8:24 am
Waste of money. Been up and down the street a couple times already. Didn’t need to slow for them at all.
12 amh98103 // Dec 19, 2009 at 10:14 am
More than anything I think the speed bumps are a reminder to drivers to slow down because this is a neighborhood street NOT a arterial bypass.
Most people will slow down and not take them as a personal challenge to see how fast they can go over them.
David, you probably didn’t need to slow down because you were already going an appropriate speed, but I watch people all day long going too fast on this street, and there are plenty of blind spots and unmarked intersections that they are blasting through as if they have the right of way.
13 david // Dec 19, 2009 at 6:05 pm
True, I wasn’t racing through. Ordinary speed bumps have a sudden “umph” to them, if you will. You know you’ve gone over one. These are milder and speeders may find them easier to ignore. Especially after they get used to them.
That said, I wouldn’t call that stretch of road treacherous only chancy. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen an accident there–however, most of the drivers I’ve seen have been reasonable and respectful so that’s probably why.
14 jorgebob28 // Dec 20, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Wheelbase is measured from front to rear. Track is measured from side to side, FYI.
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