(The following is a satirical response to this "opinion" piece in the Seattle Times. Seattle Library card holders can access the story here.)
Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on car mobility projects since the United States launched the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916 in 1916. Yet more people are dying. There are more and more lanes on the freeway, yet somehow it takes me an hour to drive to Trader Joe's in West Seattle and there's never any parking.
Fatal crashes have climbed dramatically since 2015, and pedestrians keep getting clobbered by giant SUVs all over the state of Washington. As the state continues to pour money into expanding highways, the question is whether it will confront the possibility that my commute still sucks and it's all their fault.
A natural assumption is that Seattle's worsening congestion is due to all the bikes, bike lanes, bus lanes, buses, bikes, and pedestrians. Did I mention bikes? Walking around the city shows the opposite: car traffic is caused by all the cars trying to get from parking garages under or near Amazon offices to one of 3 freeway onramps. This paradox -- more bikes yet the traffic is still all cars -- should be the starting point of any serious review.
Seattle has increased roadway capacity by converting lanes to bus and bike use. It has also added widespread traffic-calming and “no turn on red” restrictions. These measures aim to improve safety and — the city hopes — shift people out of cars. And that shift is happening — Lime ridership is at its highest point ever, and the Fremont Bridge bike counter is breaking records month by month in 2026. Indeed, the cars continue to suffer as they are squeezed into fewer lanes and everyone is still trying to get on to the same I-5 onramps on Mercer and Denny.
SDOT largely treats this byproduct of its road designs as an inconvenience to drivers. But what if it is contributing to the rise in idiots on our roads?
A 2021 peer-reviewed University of Barcelona study of 129 large European cities found that congestion’s safety effects are not linear: Moderate congestion can reduce deaths by lowering speeds, but in highly congested cities the relationship reverses: More congestion is associated with worse safety outcomes.
Why? Stop-and-go traffic leads to erratic driving and more conflicts — drivers making illegal moves that don't save them any time, blocking crosswalks and bike lanes and ignoring that anyone outside their vehicle might have a beating heart that could stop at any moment with a slight collision with their emotional support Cybertruck.
Yet no one seems to care about just solving the problem by removing all the cars causing all the traffic for the rest of us drivers. (When I asked Mayor "Big Katie" Katie Wilson why we haven't fixed traffic yet for us poor long-suffering drivers, she mumbled something about "late eights" and hopped in her 60 foot personal party bus with 100 other people zooming up Denny Way in their own dedicated lane.)
The way "success" is measured also raises questions. Drivers get stuck going just twenty miles per hour on Rainier Avenue South, when you used to be able to cruise at like 40 back when there were multiple lanes in each direction! This makes it take forever to get to Trader Joe's in West Seattle where I still can't find any parking. This does not prove causation, but makes clear the relationship between parking at specialty grocery stores and freaking bike lanes deserves closer scrutiny.
Vision Zero has shown the best results in cities where transit is robust, daily needs easily accessible and cycling practical. Seattle is trying to become this kind of city, but it's hilly and rainy and I haven't walked a quarter mile in the rain since 1999 despite living here that whole time. When I go to Los Angeles, the weather is amazing, and everyone still sits in their cars in even worse traffic, but they at least have lots of parking at all the TJ's.
For most residents, Trader Joe's isn't a choice; it's a necessity. Policies that penalize shoppers at that most delicious of institutions before Seattle builds more parking under, above, near, or around said institution won't get me delicious frozen foods and canned cocktails and will continue to fall most heavily on those with the least Trader Joe's next to their house.
SDOT’s “Vision Zero Top-to-Bottom Review” in 2023 identified gaps in crash analysis and found project outcomes are not consistently evaluated over time. Without a more rigorous and honest evaluation of what is and isn’t working, how can the city understand why serious injuries and deaths are rising?
The audit must also include a transparent, case-by-case analysis of every death and serious injury — asking not just what directly caused a crash, but whether we can accomodate even more giant SUVs and even more parking at every TJ's, PCC, and probably Pike Place too while we're at it.
If the city is unwilling to confront the possibility that its policies are part of the problem, the audit will fall short of what matters most: making sure I can find parking anywhere in the city and get there with no traffic and, maybe like prevent a few deaths here and there.