SDOT's Plans for N 80th St at Aurora Ave N

Eric Widstrand, SDOT Traffic Operations, attended the steering committee meeting on April 4th. He told us that congestion at N 80th and Aurora N has brought them to a design that eliminates left turns both eastbound and westbound from 80th onto Aurora and changes N 80th to a configuration with 2 lanes eastbound and 1 lane westbound from Linden to Wallingford.

What?

Congestion is inevitable. It's just a matter of when. More than enough of our rights of ways are taken up for vehicular lanes. 80th is a small street that passes by many single family residences and Bagley Elementary. I think the context suggests a narrowed corridor of safety, visibility, and slow speeds.

Some street trees and other plantings, broad sidewalks, textured crosswalks, a ped light at the school crossing at Stone, and a left turn arrow in the signal cycle at N 80th (and Greenwood Ave N) would be a logical direction to go and a reasonable use of the right of way.

More lanes for vehicular traffic is not a relevant direction to go in 2007. Limiting circulation of cars onto the state route is counterintuitive. The streets around 80th and 85th are already heavily burdened with cut-through traffic and not a calming device in sight. No lefts from arterials to state routes just exacerbates the situation.

Enabling killing speeds of vehicles in a school zone is unreasonable.

A little congestion is something we need to get used to. More lanes for cars in such a limited right of way does not make a complete street. Let's put our transportation dollars where our policies and propaganda are. Walkable Seattle, right? These glorified ramps from I-5 to Puget Sound have got to stop. Now would be a good time.