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Nathan Morris's avatar

Slip lanes at intersections, where the curved slip lane cuts a pedestrian crossing, seem designed for maximizing vehicular speed rather than pedestrian safety. When walking the dog, I watch the behavior of drivers in my neighborhood's major arterial road intersection. The popular way of approaching the slip lane (and its associated pedestrian crossing) is for drivers to proceed at a high rate of speed, seemingly in order to facilitate merging left after the turn, and then focus their attention on looking backwards at the cars on ghe cross street.

As the drivers go through the pedestrian crosswalk, instead of being concerned with pedestrians and cyclists who might enter the crosswalk, the drivers are looking backwards. The goal: merging with cross street traffic, ideally without slowing down. A few weeks ago, as a driver did this maneuver, two 12-year-old boys were waiting at the crosswalk. Even with the boys a few feet away (and having right of way to walk into the pedestrian crosswalk), the driver followed this "drive fast, look backwards for cars, merge" approach.

The driver had to stop due to oncoming cars, so the boys started to cross, but the now-stopped driver's attention stayed firmly on the oncoming cars on the cross street. When the road was clear of cars, he accelerated forward, with nary a glance around him at the now-walking boys.

TL:DR -- slip lanes are a menace to pedestrians

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Iskra Johnson's avatar

The urbanist belief that eliminating parking minimums is always good is actually a class issue as well as a safety and economic issue and it is complicated. What I have seen happen in Seattle over the last 10 years is that more and more buildings are built without any parking or with very little parking —yet virtually everyone in the buildings have cars and they park on the streets. Our many older neighborhoods were not built with wide streets. When they are packed on both sides with cars, they become effectively one-way streets that are extremely dangerous. Again, and again a driver ends up in a face off with an oncoming car. One or the other car then has to back up into a sometimes very busy street. There is also the risk of road rage incidents and simply hitting other cars while trying to get through these narrow corridors.

In the neighborhood, commercial districts, this residential parking of cars due to lack of parking garages takes away the parking for businesses, and one by one they have gone under. Instead, Amazon rules, DoorDash and delivery rules and small businesses are crushed.

I have yet to see rent do anything but go up even though of course the claim is that not having parking makes apartments and homes less expensive. I have been trying to get city or state legislatures to require open books on exactly where that no parking provided discount is indicated in lower rent with no luck.

Working class and lower income people often have multiple jobs starting very early and ending very late. I have been that person. I spent daily at least three hours on the bus or walking up to 5 miles in a given day to get to my jobs. When I got a car, my income and my options were exponentially larger. Studies on the increased job opportunities for people with cars have backed my experience up.

When we take away protected parking, we take away protections for those who need to use their car to get to work. Seattle is a high car theft city, and when a low income person loses the only car they have it is an enormous financial blow. I just don’t buy the movement to lift parking minimums as a benefit to society. Here and there it may be appropriate but overall what I see in Seattle is a net negative.

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