Within minutes, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) provided information about the overturned fish truck to drivers via social media and traffic-alert signs, King County Metro was instructed to change its bus routes accordingly and police responded to Aurora Avenue North to divert traffic. Still, the piecemeal measures to clear the fish truck and its ensuing traffic jam over the next nine hours demonstrated that the city has no further plan of action.
The report, made public July 20, gave various singular recommendations, such as dispatching tow trucks sooner and training police officers and city workers to clear traffic incidents quickly.
But it was also made clear that the city needs a comprehensive traffic management plan involving various departments, the report stated, to clear traffic emergencies using the same protocols — especially for inside the future Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel. It even suggested that the city could learn from the Washington State Department of Transportation, which responds to accidents on nearby Interstate 5.
SDOT director Scott Kubly told KOMO 4 News, “I think [we] need to have a heightened sense of awareness of how traffic in traffic backups can impact not just that scene but the entire city.” His experiences with the Chicago and Washington, D.C., transportation departments apparently didn’t teach him otherwise.
Traffic is not a new problem for Seattle. The city is widely known for its problematic hourglass-shaped geography and hilly topography. It has been named on numerous annual lists for cities with the worst traffic, placing higher and higher each year. An ever-growing population in a city marked by construction cranes only exacerbates the situation.
It’s unthinkable that the city can actively prepare for the inevitable earthquake to strike, but there isn’t an urgency to handle even the unavoidable traffic that occurs regularly outside of the morning and evening rush hours.
Traffic response can’t just be about discouraging use of personal vehicles and promoting mass transit and bicycle use. It’s also about clearing the roads of obstacles for all means of transportation, because they all use the same roads.
While it may be easier to shut down the city for traffic accidents as we reputedly do for snow, that’s not how a world-class city operates. Seattle’s leaders should work together to learn this.