(Image: CHS)

The Seattle Department of Transportation’s $1.55 billion levy plan for 2025 includes Broadway safety improvements, an E Union “Revival,” and transit safety investments. But few of those projects will be more than planning this year.

The guerrilla Capitol Hill Department of Transportation?

It works faster — though its projects don’t tend to last.

Over the weekend, someone completed the latest rogue addition to the neighborhood’s streetscape, secretly installing stop signs on the busy intersections along E John above 12th Ave where pedestrians hoping to cross are often left waiting — or sprinting — to get to the other side.

“Anyone know anything about the new stop signs that went up on E John St (East & West) at 13th & 14th? I just watched some VERY CONFUSED drivers create some very unsafe pedestrian and driving conditions because of them,” a neighbor posting in the CHS Facebook Group wrote about the installation. “Usually when the city puts up something like this there’s “traffic control change” signs, stop lines painted in the street, and are more visible than these new stop signs that seem very ‘rogue.'”

CHS’s calls to the city about the project turned out to be a bit of a FIND IT FIX IT moment. An SDOT spokesperson passed our information along the department’s crew assigned to remove the signs. As suspected, they were very, very rogue.

“We were notified this morning about unauthorized stop signs installed at E. John St. and 14th Ave,” the SDOT spokesperson told CHS Monday afternoon. “Our crews promptly removed the signs in the eastbound and westbound directions later in the morning.”

The signs at 13th Ave were news to SDOT but they were planning to send a crew back out.

“Safety is our top priority, and we are taking steps to ensure traffic control devices are properly installed and maintained,” the spokesperson said.

Though the signs were city-grade, the installation was not and the flimsy stakes made it easy for other self-assigned neighborhood street planners to knock a couple of the signs down.

(Images: CHS)

The E John incident follows the 2022 installation of a mostly well executed rogue crosswalk at Harvard and E Olive Way at another busy intersection where crossing on foot or bike can be nearly impossible. The city also quickly wiped away those markings while reminding citizens that a planned project would eventually make the crossing safer. Last September, a pedestrian was hit by a driver at the intersection where the planned “Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons” crossing system still had not been installed.

The basic stop sign has been a go-to safety feature in SDOT’s toolset as it tries to reshape Capitol Hill traffic patterns to make the area safer for walkers, riders, and drivers. E Pine intersections got the treatment last year to join a similar re-engineering of E Pike’s core to better control traffic and improve safety from I-5 to 15th Ave, upgrading intersections on the only remaining Pike/Pine blocks not already controlled by a traffic signal or a 4-way stop.

CHS is not aware of any such project lined up for John above 12th but we’re checking.

In the meantime, the Capitol Hill Department of Transportation is likely planning its next projects.

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE THIS SPRING
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻 
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍