Neighbors say this Pasco street is becoming a dangerous raceway. What can the city do?
A group of concerned residents who live on West Court Street in Pasco are pleading the city to address traffic safety issues they say are putting lives at risk on their neighborhood street.
Since 2021, residents have made repeated complaints to the city about cars speeding above the 30 mph limit and street racing on a nearly two-mile straight stretch of the road.
Bicyclists and pedestrians travel on the Sacagawea Heritage Trail that runs along a section of Court Street from Road 100 west to Harris Road and connects Chiawana Park and McKeever Park. The trail is marked by painted white lines on the road.
That’s the area that residents are most concerned about.
Community members are asking the city to reduce the speed limit to 25 mph on that section, install physical structures including speed cushions and speed limit radar feedback signs, and decrease the street’s classification from a collector road to a local road.
There are 95 homes with a direct driveway or access that fronts West Court Street between Road 100 and Harris Road. A majority of these homes were built between the early 1960s to early 1990s, before annexation and the explosion of development in Pasco.
What was once a residential road has become a busy thoroughfare for drivers traveling to different destinations, including to and from I-182.
And with more residential development to come nearby, residents are desperate for immediate change.
City’s response
Pasco Public Works staff and Sean Messner, a traffic engineering consultant from Spokane-based CivTech, evaluated conditions on West Court Street at the end of 2023.
Speed and traffic data on Court Street was collected as part of a citywide speed limit and injury minimization study evaluating more than 100 locations in Pasco.
Public works staff told the Herald that data was collected on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, a baseline time period that follows standard practices for traffic data collection.
City staff and the consultant concluded that speeds are “reasonable and expected for the conditions,” according to the Oct. 11 city council agenda report. Public works staff told the Herald that recent police traffic data also is consistent with that conclusion.
“Our concern is the outliers, not the average speed,” West Court Street resident Dallas Green told the Herald.
After the city made its determination, the team developed a traffic calming implementation plan that Pasco Public Works Director Maria Serra presented at the Oct. 15 city council meeting.
Traffic calming refers to a set of design strategies aimed at reducing vehicle speeds and enhancing safety in residential and pedestrian areas.
The city is now proposing three wide-ranging options that could be implemented to address the traffic issues on West Court Street.
Costs range from $40,000 to $6.1 million.
- Traffic calming - Minimal build
Estimated Cost: $200,000
Timeline: Two months
Delineators, striping and signage would be used to create narrower travel lanes and encourage slower driving through road conditions.
- Signs-only installation
Estimated Cost: $40,000
Timeline: One month
Speed limit radar feedback signs would be installed in the vicinity of Road 101 and Road 111. To speed up installation, the city would initially install existing equipment while new equipment is on order.
- Full Streetscape Project for Court Street Improvements
Estimated Cost: $6.11 million
Timeline: 2027-2030
A consultant would help the city design a suite of traffic calming measures, including adding sidewalk and bike lanes on both sides of West Court Street, curb extensions (bulb-outs) at intersections, enhanced pedestrian crossings at specific locations and median islands.
The project is already part of the 2025-2030 Transportation Improvement Plan and preliminary Capital Improvement Plan. The timeline could be accelerated, if no grant funding is involved, and if Pasco City Council chooses to move forward with the project.
“These traffic calming measures are in our toolbox to apply to any streets,” Deputy Public Works Director Mary Heather Ames told the Herald.
“They’ve been proven in other places to address heavy traffic and speed, so we know that they are good options.”
City council looks to lower speed limit
Pasco City Council is currently considering these three alternatives. But council members are also pushing city staff to do more.
On Oct. 21, members of city council attempted to move forward a motion that would change the speed limit on West Court Street to 25 mph.
Mayor Pro Tem David Milne made a motion to direct staff to draft an ordinance to reduce the speed limit. Milne lives in the West Court Street neighborhood.
But city attorney Eric Ferguson quickly stepped in to redirect the council.
Ferguson explained that there must be a specific procedure in place for city authorities to change speed limit in Pasco in lieu of a speed study.
Milne’s motion was struck down in a 4-3 vote.
The same night, Councilman Peter Harpster made a motion to direct city staff to develop a procedure to establish a maximum speed limit for citywide streets.
Harpster’s motion passed with a 6-1 vote. Mayor Pete Serrano was the lone dissenting vote.
Councilwoman Melissa Blasdel challenged the idea that changing the speed limit would change drivers’ speeding behavior.
“It’s an ongoing issue no matter where you live in the city. I don’t think that dropping the speed limit is necessarily going to fix the problem...It’s not going to matter.”
Green later told the Herald that he and other residents were disappointed by Blasdel’s comment.
“It’s very discouraging for residents and taxpayers, and it really shows bad governance, when Councilwoman Blasdel basically said we can’t fix the problem of speeders.”
The council also directed city staff to seek out another consultant to recommend traffic calming measures on West Court Street.
Council members discussed city staff’s proposed option of installation of two speed limit radar feedback signs and directed city staff to bring back the topic of project alternatives to an upcoming city council meeting for further discussion.
Possible change to road classification
Meanwhile, there’s been concern that the city or the state could administratively change West Court Street’s designation to an arterial type in the future.
The new designation would, in effect, increase the street’s speed limit above the current 30 mph.
“The irony is that we have a situation where we have a trail running right next to the roadway and we need to slow the traffic down for the safety of the users of that trail and the neighborhood,” Green said.
“And yet at the same time, the city is increasing the status of the street and putting incredible risk to residents and trail users.”
Ames told the Herald that the city’s public works staff cannot predict whether the classification will change in the future.
“Classification involves state and federal guidelines,” she said. “It’s not, however, a simple formula. Mainly, it looks at mobility and access. Other things that go into the classification are the length of the route and the distance between other streets of the same classification.”
Ames explained that local roads are residential streets that are short and would have many driveways. They have the lowest speed limits.
Arterials serve longer stretches and are more spaced out. Arterials and highways have the highest speed limits.
“It would be irresponsible, and likely beyond the liability of the city that currently exists, to further increase the classification of this road,” Green said.
“Really what the city should be doing is returning our classification back down to local road.”
Court Street’s current classification as a road (collector type) has not been changed since it was annexed in 2001.
“The classification likely makes sense when you’re looking at the network of roads itself,” Serra told the Herald.
She explained that West Court Street is part of a larger grid of roads, rather than a small grid of local streets.
History of the project
In February, staff from the city’s public works department and Pasco Police Department participated in community meetings in the neighborhood.
There were 57 residents who attended.
“We held a meeting in my garage,” Green said. “Their presence clearly showed the Pasco police knows that this is a problem and they would like to see a solution.”
Public works staff and the CivTech consultant presented data from the speed study and proposed an initial traffic calming implementation plan at the July 22 Pasco City Council meeting.
The study evaluated five segments of Court Street between Road 84 and Road 111.
The data collected from the speed study indicated that the speed limit on West Court Street should remain at 30 mph.
Recommendations at the time included installation of additional signage, double yellow striping and speed limit radar feedback signs. After a follow-up speed study, there would be the possibility of lane narrowing devices (center islands and chicanes) and more striping.
Some Pasco City Council members were unsatisfied by these recommendations.
“I think more can be done. I want to reinstate the 25 mph speed limit,” Mayor Pro Tem David Milne said during discussion at the July meeting.
“If you go down there at 8 or 9 a.m., you see quite a lot of people that are using the bike path. I know it’s a collector street ... I don’t think 5 mph is going to kill us if we lower it.”
