Comments on: Surface traffic jam safer than Viaduct traffic jam? SPD explains decisionmaking behind 5-hour, 4-mile Highway 99 closure

By: RayK

RayK — Sun, 29 Jun 2014 20:14:02 +0000

I’m not sure what role SDOT would have in this incident. Having a tow truck on site would not expedite the traffic through the site until SPD allowed the wrecked vehicles to be moved away. That would be hours after the first call at best. Some relief could have been to have traffic officers open the northbound lane into two way traffic to “bleed” the congestion through the site.
SPD owns this response; not SDOT.

By: bolo

bolo — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 02:48:57 +0000

@That cant be true: Tuesday, it was a Tuesday, call it Tuesdaygeddon.

By: wakeflood

wakeflood — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 14:25:06 +0000

jw, I get your point. My unwritten assumption was that there was going to be an investigation and whether it was 1 hr. or 20hrs., they were going to close the viaduct and create a traffic mess.

I was (mistakenly) under the assumption that SPD would actually WANT to mitigate the chaos. If they did, they certainly chose the least effective way to do it. I think my cat would have picked better options.

By: That cant be true..

That cant be true.. — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 01:25:35 +0000

My Dear Higgins,I wouldn’t even know where to start unraveling your reasoning on this, and you no doubt feel the same way about mine. It sounds like the police officer who visited your physics class made a big impression on you, however many years ago that was. Education is a wonderful thing.

And as cool as the skid mark demonstration must have been, and the triangulation, and identifying every little piece of debris (“This piece is red, clear plastic, Hmmm. I’ve got it! Tail light fragment number 200!), taking photos of everything and then drawing the exact same things by hand, that I understand. As for getting the exact GPS coordinates, I’m not so sure. Couldn’t they have asked any one of the thousands of drivers they had on lock-down to check their phones, or ask a teenager. But really, the most important piece of information about that location, the one that actually would have required a little thinking and leadership, the one SPD choose to ignore, is that closing down one of the few major commute routes in the City, a city with some of the worst traffic in the country, on a beautiful Friday afternoon and evening commute, the worst possible time, for a non-fatal two car accident, would turn the entire region into a parking lot. And that it was just fine. Wow. They must have seen the same accident investigation demonstration that you did that time in high school, and been equally as impressed.

By: jwright

jwright — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 00:11:35 +0000

wakeflood I agree with A and B but not your preamble. What public good does an extensive investigation that impacts thousands and thousands of people serve? With respect to what higgins shared, I don't doubt that the police could find things to investigate for 6 hours. They could probably find another 6 hours worth of stuff to investigate if they really wanted to. Doing a cost/benefit analysis, I just don't see how the benefit of a prolonged investigation justifies the cost of plunging the city into total gridlock.

By: wakeflood

wakeflood — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 23:15:11 +0000

Higgins, most of us aren’t primarily concerned that there was an extensive investigation. The primary issue for many of us is that –

A)SPD/SDOT seemed unprepared to deal with something as predictable as a major accident during rush hour on one of our two major N/S routes through town.

And B)There appeared to be no sense of urgency to mitigate the resulting traffic issues for thousands of folks.

Neither of those issues require them to “speed up” an investigation.

By: higgins

higgins — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 21:58:06 +0000

In my high school physics class we had an officer come and talk to us about how they use physics to investigate traffic collisions. After listening to him talk and helping him collect data from a “accident scene” that he had created for us in the parking lot, I fully believe it could take 5-6 hours to properly investigate a serious collision. There are so many factors to take into consideration, and the scene must be kept intact until everything is documented correctly. Here’s just a summary of what must be done: securing the scene, placing traffic cones and flares, recording weather and road conditions, containing and mitigating any hazards (leaking gasoline, blood pools), interviewing drivers and witnesses, photographing the scene and vehicles from different angles, diagramming and measuring skid marks, recording any damage to property (guard rails, sign posts, etc), diagramming and classifying any debris, examining and recording exterior and interior damage to vehicles, taking precise GPS coordinates, triangulating the direction and speed of the vehicles, creating test skids, and so on. And don’t forget the time it takes to clean up the scene – towing cars, sweeping debris and removing oil and other fluids from the roadway. What it comes down to is that a traffic collision involving an injury or death is a crime and must be treated as such. We would never suggest that a murder or shooting investigation be rushed or criticize why it takes so long, the same should apply to a collision investigation. In short, if you are not a traffic collision investigator, you have no right to say how long it “should” take. Just like a traffic collision investigator has no right to tell you how to do your job. The fact that SPD answers to the public does not automatically mean we get to criticize a process none of us have any professional knowledge about. We have a right to ask questions and hold SPD accountable, we do not have the right to say we always know best.

By: TGL

TGL — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 17:56:59 +0000

REALLY disappointed in SPD response. Why? Simply because this type of issue is one of the few really typical scenarios we should have STANDARD RESPONSE PLANS ALREADY IN PLACE for, so that all that’s left is to execute it.

We have interagency earthquake games every few years, it doesn’t take much to build a plan for something like this. There’s probably only 4 or 5 events that need to be planned for. Shut down of the one of the major north/south corridors or one of the major east west ones through downtown during rush hours.

SPD/SDOT/WSDOT should all know who goes where, who DOESN’T and who manages traffic.

AND THEY SHOULD TELL US WHAT THOSE PLANS LOOK LIKE AHEAD OF TIME SO WE CAN PLAN TOO.

Did anyone see a coordinated traffic control response OFF of the viaduct on the surface streets to prevent intersection blocking? You could have saved HOURS of sitting on those surface streets and it has the added benefit of looking like SOMEONE KNOWS WHAT THE HELL THEY’RE DOING and has a plan.

This isn’t rocket science. It’s essentially the same as having events at both stadiums and a concert at Key Arena at the same time. Sure, it’s not going to be pretty but it doesn’t have to turn into a 6 hr. cluster.

By: sophista-tiki

sophista-tiki — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 16:31:13 +0000

SPD can attempt to cover their asses all they want. Plenty of us can see right through that line of bull. Bottom line- they pretty much don’t give a crap if we’re all stuck in traffic until we dry up and turn to dust. They are more concerned with game traffic . Ever been stuck trying to even move one block while the ” traffic directing cops” purposely funnel everyone the wrong direction. Then combine that with simultaneous ferry traffic and its a gigantic infuriating cluster FK. Traffic in this city gets worse by the day and the more road construction they do the worse they make the mess. Heres a clue, how about don’t cripple EVERY SINGLE ROUTE AT THE SAME TIME.

My analogy for traffic in Seattle is. Its like an old western where they heard the cattle into a box canyon and theres no way out.

By: Kc

Kc — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 13:17:31 +0000

Smoke and Mirrors to CYA… Shut things down to keep everyone safe and investigate until 3am, I don’t care. But there was no reason at all to close all exits even initially, the West Seattle exit is 1/4 to 1/2 mile to the north of the accident area. This is the exact response I thought would come, to say it was done to keep people safe and close to services and allow for emergency response in the back up to that I say BS. Even through the construction area you could move to the right and squeeze three cars wide if you had to. To say it could not of hit at a worse time, I would agree and say all the more reason to re access 30 min into it get people turned around and clear the area between the accident and the West Seattle exit block the road at the exit and allow it to remain open. If they saw the bridge backing up due to increased volume they could have posted officers at the major intersections in West Seattle if that was needed to clear things out just like they do after the games at the stadiums.
Change will happen with new chief in town, instead of CYA it would have been better to have said we made a error in judgment and we will learn from this and do better next time… with that statement this story fades and goes away instead it will linger for a long time. Welcome aboard Chief O’Toole, I hope you brought your boots, the muck is very deep these days

By: Mel

Mel — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 03:35:26 +0000

Rationalizing a rash decision doesn’t make it any more sensible. There was incompetence here – the kind where instead of one bad decision, it’s a chain of bad decisions that act as a multiplier – and it will be interesting to see what happens.
.
And something WILL happen, because as we learned in the Blizzard of 2008, the one thing Seattle citizens will not stand for is not being able to drive where they want, when they want.

By: jwright

jwright — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 01:52:08 +0000

Totally agree with what This can't be right? posted. What's to investigate for 6 hours? I do not see what possible public good could have come from hours 2 through 6 of the investigation that would be worth causing a city-wide traffic jam for the duration. Very disappointed the folks at SPD seemed to lack the ability to think through the consequences of their decisions. Also disappointed (but not surprised) to learn that SPD has carte blanche to do whatever the heck they feel like in this sort of situation without any accountability.

By: This can't be true

This can't be true — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 01:46:42 +0000

Higgins and Lamont: Yes, I know there are those who think that the public should have no say in how the police do their job. I hope they did a good one given that they tied up the entire city for nearly six hours – traffic was gridlocked from North Seattle nearly to South Center. Even the most conservative estimate would put the number of hours commuters wasted that day at 100,000 plus. I understand that you think this is an appropriate response and use of the public’s time because this really very straightforward accident may or may not have involved drinking? But I count at least 20 emergency vehicles in the above photo. And between them it took almost six hours to figure that out? Surely they must have taken blood samples at the hospital. Just last week the Justice Department reported, again, that SPD is an extremely opaque organization and resistant to any kind of change. And while other police departments are using high quality video to document accident scenes like this, precisely to prevent these kind of fiascoes, SPD and it’s union have fought this kind of stuff tooth and nail. If they could figure out the what happened at Dealey Plaza by looking at one 8mm film, doesn’t it seem entirely possible that HD video from every angle might tell us everything we need to know about this every day kind of accident? I’m sorry you don’t have better things to do with your time. I do. This was absurd.

By: jrr

jrr — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 01:31:39 +0000

The thing that gets me with this response is this: the viaduct isn’t new. They’ve had since 1953 to put plans in place for alternate routes and directing traffic should a situation like this arise.

By: Kim

Kim — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 00:30:05 +0000

Ann, thanks for posting the survey. Everyone should take a moment to complete it and express interest in more transit options for West Seattle. Things won’t improve until we have more alternatives that don’t involve roadways.