(Image: Seattle School Traffic Safety Committee)

Wednesday’s first day of classes for Seattle’s public school kids begins with city streets that still need important safety improvements but with a better path forward to achieve safety goals, a city report says.

The Seattle School Traffic Safety Committee report (PDF) cites the addition of a new “Safe Routes to School” coordinator funded by the city and new policies at the Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections intended to make it easier for school campuses to implement safety and traffic improvements as important changes in 2023 that should put Seattle on route for safety streets for school kids in coming years.

More immediate improvements have come through Seattle Public Schools with increased bike parking capacity and new and renovated campuses, increased and improved bike education as part of PE classes, and a much improved bussing systems under the contract with Zum, a new provider.

The 2023/2024 school year will also be the first in which all students ride free on public transportation under the new statewide program put in place last year.

But the report says there is also plenty of work to be done as many important projects are on hold due to a lack of funding. An important example is the plan to double the number of school speed zone cameras which is now on hold due to planning and staffing delays. The report says loss of ticket revenue including speed camera tickets will further hamper Seattle Department of Transportation budgets and the committee recommends renewed efforts to decouple safety spending from ticket revenue when possible.

Ticket funding from school bus stop paddle sign violations has also dried up from King County, the report says, putting a hole in funding that had been used to hire crossing guards. Staffing issues are also a major challenge when it comes to making sure there are adequate guards for the city’s public school campuses. The committee is calling on SPS to better plan for crossing guard funding.

But the biggest problem for more immediate safety improvements are SDOT’s “slow timelines” and “inconsistent guidelines.”

“Street Improvement Permit (SIP) timelines for school projects are far longer than SDOT’s targets, often more than 2 years,” the committee’s report reads.

The committee says SDOT has plans for improving its performance on school projects and that it has asked the mayor’s office to do a better job of tracking accountability at the department.

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