The City of Seattle & King County shouldn’t blame the pedestrian.

In the previous post, we provided a glimpse of what the Seattle City Attorney argues to deflect responsibility about its design of the pedestrian crosswalk of the protected bike lane (PBL)at the University District transit island. This island is directly in front of the UW Roosevelt Medical building, where countless patients, employees, and visitors use to/from the sidewalk. However, the issue is that a bus shelter obstructs the view of both the bicyclist traveling down that PBL and the pedestrian who looks to check for oncoming traffic.

Remember: This PBL is on a roughly 5% descent and bicyclists can’t help but pick up momentum. The PBL also jogs a bit, or, as an SDOT engineer explains in a deposition, it “tapers”. (See previous blog post for the details). Thus, engineers should consider sight lines and visibility issues, which the City didn’t in this project.

Our Opposition to the City’s Motion for Summary Judgment points out that SDOT failed to make even basic sight distance calculations. Below is a view that a bicyclist on the descent down the Roosevelt PBL. Notice the bus shelter to the left that sits north of the pedestrian crosswalk that my client walked across?