Richland parents want slower speed limits after 2 students are hit in 3 days

Laila Krowiak says she’s watched Richland roads become less safe for pedestrians for decades.

“I’ve lived in Richland for 30 years. I always had the freedom to walk and bike to school,” she told the Herald.

This started to change after she started walking her daughter to school. They needed to maneuver around cars that were parked on the sidewalk and were ignored by drivers as they tried to cross at the corner of Williams Boulevard and Thayer Drive.

“I want to live in a town where my family can walk and bicycle through town,” she said.

Krowiak and a group of other parents planned to take their concerns about pedestrian safety to the Richland City Council this week after a 12-year-old girl was seriously hurt Monday crossing a parking lot driveway on Lee Boulevard near Carmichael Middle School.

And last Friday, a young bike rider was hit by a driver who failed to yield at the intersection of Jadwin Avenue and Catskill Street.

For their part, city officials agree the city’s main thoroughfares need to be made safer for pedestrians, and they are working on several different initiatives.

The efforts include making sure roads are designed with pedestrians and bicyclists in mind, a 2019 study that looks at making downtown streets more pedestrian friendly and a new flashing crosswalk lights at various locations.

Fewer lanes, slower speeds

Krowiak is heading an effort to lower the speed limit in the core of the city to 25 mph and to make sure the streets are safe for pedestrians and bicyclists.

“When you pull off onto a smaller or an arterial street, you’re not thinking of yourself as a very powerful and a very deadly guest in a public space that is reserved for all modes of transportation,” she said. “We’re designing roads for cars and not for people.”

While people think higher speeds will get them home faster, Krowiak said a 25-mph speed limit along George Washington Way would only extend a trip across the city by five minutes.

Slower speeds have a direct impact on how seriously someone is hurt, according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study. As the speed increases past 25, the number of fatal and incapacitating injuries increase.

“People think that driving at a faster speed will save them time, but most of their time is spent stopping at lights,” she said. “Driving slower makes a huge difference for people walking and biking, but it makes little difference to people driving cars.

Another Richland parent, Molly Van Wagner-Petersen, raised another issue — the five lanes of traffic on Jadwin Avenue.

Many people don’t walk to the nearest crosswalk and risk the crossing somewhere else on the block.

Just over a year ago, two students crossing Jadwin Avenue near Chief Joseph Middle School were hurt when a driver didn’t see other people were stopped at a crosswalk to let the boys cross the street.

The city added flashing yellow warning lights to the crosswalk in the spring. They were planning the project before the students were hurt.

In some situations one car may stop for a passing pedestrian, while another doesn’t pay attention to the other stopping cars.

The cheapest solution though is to just slow cars down, she said.

What the city is doing

City officials have been working to make the streets safer for pedestrians, city Public Works Director Pete Rogalsky said. When people bring in their complaints, he said they are speaking to a friendly audience.

The city council made an official policy in 2017 something that the city has been working on for more than a dozen years — to design every street with bicyclists and pedestrians in mind.

This includes separating sidewalks from where people drive, adding bike lanes and making the sidewalk bow into the road at the crosswalk.

They have applied those standards as they work on Duportail Street from downtown to the bridge will soon cross the Yakima River.

This move already meant the city trimmed lanes from a recently repaved section of Jadwin Avenue to add bike lanes and move traffic away from the sidewalks.

Making more changes to Jadwin will be more difficult after Initiative 976 slashed the city’s budget for street maintenance by getting rid of the Transportation Benefit District, Rogalsky said.

The city planned to use a $20 car tab fee to support its road repair program.

The city hasn’t given up on efforts to add warning lights to other crosswalks.

Two are going in along George Washington Way with another two possible, three are going in near Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, and other ones are planned for Jadwin, McMurray, Wellsian and Duportail.

The city is also getting ready to unveil a comprehensive plan for the city’s downtown core in January. The plan takes a look at all of the aspects, including speed limits, between Falley Street and Williams Boulevard.

City leaders want to make sure people can walk through the downtown.