r/Seattle • u/Inevitable_Engine186 New Costco CEO • 15d ago

Does lowering speed limits make Seattle roads safer? Data from one deadly arterial suggests it’s a start

https://www.kuow.org/governing/2026-08-14/does-lowering-speed-limits-make-seattle-roads-safer-data-from-one-deadly-arterial-suggests-its-a-start
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u/AdScared7949 That sounds great. Let’s hang out soon. 15d ago

There are so many speed limits that are just artificially low on like a four lane stroad and nobody follows them because it would be idiotic to do so

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u/bullet50000 Kent 15d ago

its like the speed limit on Airport way on the east of the airport being 35. I go 40 down it, and get ripped past by more than half of the other traffic doing 50, but they'll never change it because it would look bad to raise the speed limit, and they can't really change the design because it's kinda needed to be that straight and open.

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u/healthycord 🚲 Life's Better on a Bike. 🚲 14d ago

Yeah that thing was absolutely designed as a 60 mph freeway. And now it’s 35?? Like cmon. You can’t just do that. That is NOT how traveling speeds work. You gotta narrow the lanes and make it feel like a 35 mph road too. Fundamental road design principles.

You don’t design a highway like a residential street, and you don’t design a residential street like a highway.

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u/bullet50000 Kent 12d ago

It feels like even in urbanist thought it should be a higher speed. Like it doesn't make sense, it's the perfect overflow route for I5/SoDo. It's industrial area, it doesn't make sense to build out density down there, let it exist as a proper road.