UPDATE: 1 to hospital after 2-car crash on 35th SW in Gatewood

IMG_5262 (1)
(WSB photos)

11:17 AM: Seattle Fire has sent an “automobile rescue” response to a crash scene reported at 35th and Southern [map] in Gatewood. Per scanner, southbound 35th SW will be closed at Elmgrove. More to come.

11:27 AM: Our crew just arrived. Two cars involved – a VW Bug and Ford Escort.

southern1

SFD had to cut into the latter to get to a patient. No word yet on injuries.

11:37 AM: Neither driver is seriously hurt, so this will not be a long-running investigation situation; the Escort’s driver will be taken to a hospital via private ambulance to be checked out.

southern4

11:50 AM: KM mentioned the southbound Route 21 reroute in comments – and now there’s an official alert from Metro:

12:!5 PM: Reroute’s over, meaning the road’s open again, per Metro alert. Also, we’ve added two more photos from the SFD response earlier.

24 Replies to "UPDATE: 1 to hospital after 2-car crash on 35th SW in Gatewood"

  • wayne August 26, 2016 (11:33 am)

    what happened to the safety of the one lane road

    • Mat August 26, 2016 (12:20 pm)

      1. What kind of thing is that to say when one of your neighbors is in the hospital? Classy. 

      2. I don’t recall the road changes promising an end to all accidents, but more aspiring to fewer fatal ones. So far this isn’t fatal, I hope it stays that way and that the person in the hospital is OK. 

  • KM August 26, 2016 (11:42 am)

    The 21 is currently rerouting down 32nd Ave from Holden south. It might affect the Kenyon stops for those waiting.

    • WSB August 26, 2016 (11:46 am)

      Thank you. No text alert from Metro on that one but this isn’t likely to last too long – most of the SFD response has cleared – it’ll be a matter of waiting for tow trucks now. – TR

    • WSB August 26, 2016 (11:49 am)

      You beat Metro’s alert by 7 minutes. Thanks again.

      • KM August 26, 2016 (12:05 pm)

        You bet! It was an unusual site down the street :-)

  • Will August 26, 2016 (11:52 am)

    The bus is currently stuck on 32nd. No idea why.

    • Will August 26, 2016 (11:53 am)

      Bus is unstuck. Carry on.

  • A August 26, 2016 (12:29 pm)

    First and foremost I’m really glad no one was seriously injured. This is the part of 35th that has the road diet/lane reduction/whatever you want to call it. This part of 35th is not less accident prone as is evident by this collision. It is not more safe for drivers, pedestrians or the side streets running parallel to 35th. Why are we dealing with the traffic mess this reduction has created when it is not making this road or surrounding roads safer? Please fix your mistake mayor and SDOT. I think Mr Murray is going to create a position called director of lane reductions and give it to one of his buddies and pay him an annual salary of 137k. 

    • AMD August 26, 2016 (1:54 pm)

      Road diets don’t drive cars for people.  Accidents are still possible.  But they’re less serious, and that matters a lot more than getting to the backup on the West Seattle Bridge 23 seconds faster.

    • Peter August 26, 2016 (2:39 pm)

      No, one accident is not evidence that the rechanneling didn’t work, that’s like saying one house fire means fire safety code doesn’t work. As someone who travels on 35th daily I can tell you the road is much safer, especially for pedestrians, than the section farther north that has had no revision. And I’m not sure what “traffic mess” you’re refering to, I’ve encountered no traffic problems at all, none. And I live on one of the side streets one block off of 35th that the naysayers try to claim will get diverted traffic, but that is also false, there has been no effect on traffic on my street. The restructuring of 35th was a good idea and it is making the road safer, especially for pedestrians.

  • Polly August 26, 2016 (12:36 pm)

    I was wondering why a bus came down my street today    32 nd & thistle

  • Paul August 26, 2016 (12:42 pm)

    Accidents will happen.  They idea is to make them less serious.  It sounds like there weren’t any serious injuries, so this is not a failure of the road diet.

  • A August 26, 2016 (2:20 pm)

    My point exactly Paul. Collisions will happen whether there are 4 or 2 lanes on the road. People cause collisions, not roads. To my knowledge, there has been no serious/fatal collisions on the 4 lane part of 35th since the lane reduction took place. The 4 lane part is no more dangerous than the 2 lane part. Why is our mayor and SDOT manufacturing a traffic mess on 35th to please a few people when the majority of us are pissed off about it? Why do we not have a say in this? Can you answer these questions Paul?

    • Peter August 26, 2016 (2:56 pm)

      “Why is our mayor and SDOT manufacturing a traffic mess …” There’s that phantom “traffic mess” again. Somehow I keep missing that while travelling on 35th every day.

      “The majority of us are pissed off about it …” No, just because you are does not mean a majority are. It is not valid to project your opinions onto the majority. If you have data (not anecdotes) showing that an actual majority are “pissed off,” please share it with us.

      “Why do we not have a say in this?” We do and did. SDOT does significant ourtreach and surveys for projects like this, plus they have a phone number and email address where you can contact them, and there was significant coverage on this site. It was no sectret, and complaining after the fact does not mean you didn’t have a chance to give input. Even so, having a say does not mean you get everything your way; people who disagree with you also get a say. 

    • Oakley34 August 26, 2016 (3:16 pm)

      Ahh life in the echo chamber.  

    • Paul August 26, 2016 (4:28 pm)

      People drive faster in the four lane section of 35th and my perception (aligned with my own behavior) is that people used to drive faster on the part that is now two lanes.  The risk of a fatality or serious injury in a collision goes up a lot with speed.  It isn’t rocket science, but it is physics.  Also, the turn lane helps reduce the number of rear end collisions.  

      Quite a few people spoke up and asked for the changes to 35th.  I was one of them.  Lots of people complain that government doesn’t listen to them, but don’t realize that there are plenty of people speaking up with a contrary opinion.  Someone is being listened to, but it isn’t always you.

  • EvilTwin August 26, 2016 (3:20 pm)

    I wonder if anyone has tracked the difference in the amount of collisions in the road diet area and north where it hasn’t been done yet. I live around 35th and Thistle and have absolutely seen more crashes from Holden south. Anecdotal, maybe, but it went from almost never seeing a crash to “really, another crash?” For/against….whatever. For those of us against, again, it’s not about 23 seconds. It’s about sudden unexpected stops. People not being let in from side streets, people whipping u-turns when frustrated, and the the basic principle of “was this a good idea, does it work?”. The people like me who don’t like it aren’t “mad” about their commute time increasing 23 seconds that’s ridiculous. Saying “safety” doesn’t mean something nets a positive result. Actually for example there are rules for workers in the WAC that say if the WAC makes you less safe don’t obey the WAC!

    I feel as though I’m a careful, attentive driver but in the road diet area I have had a good half dozen near misses easy. Either almost rear ending someone or almost being rear ended.

    • WSB August 26, 2016 (3:34 pm)

      This is NOT scientific and NOT all-inclusive but if you want to do your own research on crashes along 35th, one way to do it is to use the text data created by the online SFD 911 log. This covers EVERY SINGLE DISPATCH that Seattle Fire makes, whether it’s one engine or 20 pieces of apparatus. You can sort the dataset for 35th SW – then sort it for MVI-Motor Vehicle Incident – choose a date range see what comes up.

      Important distinctions:

      Not all crashes are MVIs. That’s the typical dispatch for a crash that probably doesn’t have injuries requiring hospitalization.

      If a crash involves a pedestrian or bicyclist, it will likely be dispatched as a Medic Response, 6 Plus Rule. **BUT** not all Med 6’s are crashes.

      An “automobile rescue” call – which today’s was – IS a crash. Most of the time “heavy rescue” is, too. So you can look for those as well.

      Our archives are thorough for major injury and deadly crashes, of which we have indeed not had any on 35th in quite some time. But we don’t respond to every single crash, so I can’t offer site search as anything comprehensive for ALL crashes.

      Final note – there are some crashes which don’t even get an MVI response, usually because police have already been on scene and determined nobody was hurt. SDOT does get notification of those but the only place you might see a mention is on Twitter – http://twitter.com/seattledot – so if you want to search that Twitter account for 35th SW, you might come up with a few incidents that are not in the SFD files.

      Ought to be a better way … but if there is, I haven’t heard of it!

      P.S. I should also mention, the city data includes nothing on severity or duration … there were at least three reported crashes in 35th that we went to check out in the past few weeks that were cleared out of traffic lanes within minutes. One was at 35th and Juneau the night of the 35th walking tour (August 9th) and I thought it would be an interesting thing to include in the story … but it cleared very quickly.

    • Jon Wright August 26, 2016 (3:43 pm)

      Have you asked Jim Curtin? In my experience, he has always shared the data SDOT has.

  • Jerry August 26, 2016 (4:35 pm)

    So 35th goes down from 4 lanes to  2 , a bike lane, multiple bus turn outs  and they slow the speed from 35 to 30 all in the interest of safety.  Yet Delridge has as bad or worse road surface, 2 lanes, curves, more stop lights, shorter left turn lanes in areas, bike lanes bus turnouts, as much or more congestion during rush hour and the speed limit is 35.  I guess I don’t understand but probably shouldn’t have mentioned it.  They’ll be out tomorrow with the 25 mph speed limit signs.  This hole thing makes as much sense as the tunnel we’re digging.  The viaduct is 6 to 8 lanes depending on where you count and is always juggled up and they think 4 lanes will carry the same traffic load.  When will polititions start listening to the people??

    • Mike August 27, 2016 (7:16 am)

      The viaduct is also 20+ years past it’s lifespan and if we don’t replace it, it’s going to kill thousands of people when a big quake hits, guaranteed.  It’s not if it will, it’s when it will.  Unless it’s replaced.  Tunnels are safer, you might be claustrophobic, but they are statistically safer AND tunnels are structurally stronger to withstand earthquakes AND have a far greater longevity than raised road surfaces.  We will also get to benefit from having a viable water front, like Vancouver.   I know most of the people on here don’t remember and didn’t grow up here, but the initial plan to replace the viaduct with a tunnel was started in 1991, after the San Francisco quake.  City officials, state officials, and others started intensive research into structures in Seattle that were most likely to have catastrophic failure when we have our big quake (not the Nisqually quake in ’01, that was tiny).  I’m talking our expected 9.x+ devastation beyond comprehension quake.  So ya, let’s leave the viaduct…good call.

  • TheKing August 26, 2016 (9:21 pm)

    Hope everyone’s ok. Just curious….how did this accident happen?

    • WSB August 26, 2016 (9:23 pm)

      Don’t know; only one officer was on scene and too busy to talk with us as he also had to direct traffic. Not that they usually speculate anyway; it wasn’t a major investigation since no one was seriously hurt.

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