Earlier this week, a pedestrian was killed on 175th Street in Shoreline, Washington.
Despite what you may have heard on social media, this was not an isolated incident.
According to city traffic reports, more people are killed or seriously injured along 175th Street than any other Shoreline road outside of the state highways.
In 2018, after injury collisions doubled on 175th, the city commissioned a technical analysis from an outside consultant.
That recommendation and the recommendation of the city’s own traffic engineers was that this road needed to be put on a diet: reduced from four lanes down to three lanes to make it safer.
The project was completely funded through the city’s own pavement resurfacing fund.
But after contentious pushback from a North City business owner, the city quietly backed out of the NE 175th Street road diet plan.
In 2019, Shoreline resurfaced the roadway, but they did not make this into a three-lane roadway.
Studies say road diets make streets safer.
In 2003, Shoreline put nearby 15th Ave NE between 150th and 175th on a road diet despite opposition from a North City business owner and some city council members.
A study from 2007 found the road diet resulted in slower speeds, decreased traffic volumes, fewer crashes, and a 30.9% drop in the number of injury collisions.
Last year, the city of Shoreline was awarded a $2.3 million grant funded by a federal Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) grant, but those funds are now uncertain.
