Eight cities in Washington’s King County saw sharp increases in traffic fatalities, signaling a need for more robust road safety and traffic calming policies.

Pedestrian fatalities in eight cities in South King County, Washington have almost tripled in the last decade, reports Andrew Engelson for The Urbanist.
According to Engelson, “The trend has been on the rise consistently over ten years, hitting a peak of 97 in 2019 and dipping slightly to 70 during the pandemic year of 2020.” The pattern mirrors statewide statistics.
Some cities are using federal traffic safety grants to analyze dangerous streets and implement enforcement, education, and infrastructural fixes. Auburn revised its traffic calming plan to “take a more robust approach to reducing speeds at intersections and increasing safety for pedestrians and cyclists,” while Tukwila issued a plan focused on reducing driving speeds near schools and in residential areas.
But “the more difficult work of redesigning streets, roads, and highways for pedestrian safety is an expensive project that falls to an array of jurisdictions,” Engelson explains, causing bigger, more expensive projects to fall by the wayside. For example, “One especially dangerous road in South King County, according to Sara Wood, King County’s coordinator for the Washington Traffic Safety commission, is State Highway 99,” a hotspot of crashes involving pedestrians. But improvements such as adding stoplights and crosswalks to stretches of the highway “sometimes fall down the priority scale because of cost.”
FULL STORY: South King County Sees Alarming Jump in Pedestrian Fatalities

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

Chicago’s Ghost Rails
Just beneath the surface of the modern city lie the remnants of its expansive early 20th-century streetcar system.

Amtrak Cutting Jobs, Funding to High-Speed Rail
The agency plans to cut 10 percent of its workforce and has confirmed it will not fund new high-speed rail projects.

Ohio Forces Data Centers to Prepay for Power
Utilities are calling on states to hold data center operators responsible for new energy demands to prevent leaving consumers on the hook for their bills.

MARTA CEO Steps Down Amid Citizenship Concerns
MARTA’s board announced Thursday that its chief, who is from Canada, is resigning due to questions about his immigration status.

Silicon Valley ‘Bike Superhighway’ Awarded $14M State Grant
A Caltrans grant brings the 10-mile Central Bikeway project connecting Santa Clara and East San Jose closer to fruition.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Caltrans
City of Fort Worth
Mpact (founded as Rail~Volution)
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
City of Portland
City of Laramie