20. That’s the number of people who died on Spokane streets in 2024 alone.
An additional 102 were seriously injured.
Tragically, these numbers are on the rise, nearly doubled from 2019, when 10 people died and 62 were seriously injured. In the first three and half months of 2025, six people have already been killed. Two of those people were pedestrians.
Spokanites have had enough: safe streets advocates have been pressuring the city administration for more action for over a year , and across the city, 16 of 29 neighborhood councils listed walkability, speeding, traffic calming and similar topics in their lists of top concerns.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Mayor Lisa Brown, members of her administration and city council members stood on the asphalt at Post Street and Main Avenue in front of Riverpark Square (giving this columnist false hope that the long-dead Main Avenue lane reconfiguration had at last been revived) to announce a slate of plans and policies aimed at making Spokane streets safer for all road users.
“Spokane, we see you, we hear you,” Council President Betsy Wilkerson said. “We want to keep you safe.”
Here’s the rundown on a few of the new traffic safety policies the city’s going to start implementing.
No turn on red
Eagle-eyed observers might spot a spiffy new “no turn on red,” sign posted behind Brown, a clue to what officials were about to announce: the expansion of right (and left in the case of one-way streets) turn on red prohibitions on Main Avenue.
Intersections with the new signs forbid drivers from turning on red, giving pedestrians more time and comfort while crossing. Right turns on red are particularly dangerous because driver attention is focused on the traffic coming from the left, rather than pedestrians crossing parallel or perpendicular to the driver’s car.
Banning turns on red isn’t a novel idea: Seattle has at least 173 intersections where turns on red are prohibited and both the city of Spokane and Spokane County already have a handful. A study of no turn on red restrictions in Washington DC found that vehicle-to-vehicle collisions dropped a whopping 97%, and the failure of drivers to yield to pedestrians dropped by 92%.
Notably, the press conference took place just six blocks west of where community advocate Janet Mann was killed by a driver who turned against a red light.
The city plans to expand the list of intersections where turns on red are prohibited in the coming years, focusing on intersections with high pedestrian traffic.
Additionally, the city is rolling out Leading Pedestrian Interval signal timing, which turns the crosswalk sign to “Walk” a few seconds before the corresponding stop light turns green to increase the visibility of pedestrians, to roughly a dozen intersections.
Returning streets to the people
Next, city officials announced a program meant to ease closing of non-arterial streets for neighborhood block parties and community gatherings. The press conference was a little short on details, but a later release added more information:
“The Spokane City Council will also soon consider a proposal to establish a Play Streets Program. This program will make it easier for neighbors to temporarily close non-arterial streets to provide car-free safe spaces for neighborhood play and community activities, such as block parties. This program will begin in June and run through Halloween.”
This columnist hopes it will ease the burden felt by the volunteer creators of Summer Parkways , an annual community event coming up on June 17th which closes a four-mile loop of South Hill streets so individuals of all ages can walk, bike, or skate in a safe, car-free environment.
At long last, the traffic unit
Mayor Woodward’s budget for 2024 (passed in 2023) included a plan to spend $1.8 million from the Traffic Calming Fund to stand up a previously-disbanded Spokane Police Department unit focused on traffic enforcement.
Budget disagreements and staffing shortages led to a delay in creating the unit, despite potential funding coming from the Community Safety Sales Tax, passed by voters in 2024.
But today Chief of Police Kevin Hall announced that four officers will begin full-time work on traffic enforcement and education and three more would be focused on DUI enforcement. Currently, traffic enforcement is done by officers who can be (and are) called away from that job to address other calls, so having four dedicated officers should result in a more consistent enforcement effort.
Complete-r streets
Spokane’s complete streets ordinance was originally passed in 2011 after years of work by a few familiar faces: then-council member, now Director of Transportation and Sustainability Jon Snyder ; then-legislative assistant, now-council member Paul Dillon; and then-organizer, now-council member Kitty Klitzke.
The ordinance ensures that whenever the city is tearing up a road, it is rebuilt with all the master-planned bicycle and pedestrian facilities. But the ordinance is showing its age and city officials think it’s due for an update as best practices in the worlds of bike and pedestrian infrastructure have since evolved.
More automated red light and speed cameras
According to Hall, speed is the most common denominator in fatal and serious injury crashes in Spokane. The good news: automated red light and speed cameras are shown to decrease speeds and crashes.
As RANGE reported last year , the intersection at Mission Avenue and Greene Street sees more crashes than any other intersection in the city. City officials have been talking about installing red light cameras at the intersection for nearly a year , but today they announced the cameras will be installed in June.
And as the city builds up its judicial labor force to handle the increased volume in tickets, city officials say even more red light and speed cameras will be installed, though the process takes about nine months from ideation to completion.
Why crashes happen and what can be done
The final item on the press conference agenda was the creation of a Traffic Fatality Review team. The cross-functional team will consist of “police, fire, streets, engineering, planning and human services staff” and will identify root causes of fatal crashes in order to recommend mitigation efforts. The pilot program will run for a year and meet quarterly.
The team sounds a bit like the Strong Towns Crash Analysis Studio , which teaches advocates and city staff to find root causes beyond driver error. Spoiler alert: the Studio has found that the most common root cause of the crashes they’ve examined is what they call “High-Speed Road Design in Urban Areas” , which means that drivers speed because these urban roads feel like ones you can safely drive excessively fast on – wide lanes, unused shoulders and wide clear zones contribute to that feeling, and therefore contribute to the crashes killing and injuring our neighbors.
Other initiatives and policies not mentioned today that will contribute to safer streets
- Traffic calming cycle 12 projects will be built in 2025, including three rectangular rapid flashing beacons
- A batch of quick-build projects are going in
- Four additional pedestrian hybrid beacons will be built in 2025
- The West Central Infrastructure project will bring a slate of traffic calming mini-projects to the neighborhood
- New bike lanes on Lincoln Street and Maxwell Avenue
- Extensions of the Sunset Path and the Children of the Sun Trail
- Francis Scott Elementary safe routes to school improvements
- Stevens Elementary safe routes to school improvements
Other initiatives not mentioned- a footnote from RANGE’s City Hall reporter
Despite celebrating the launch of new bike lockers at a press conference much like this one nearly a year ago, the bike lockers in front of City Hall are still not available to the public — much to this reporter’s endless chagrin.
City communications director Erin Hut told us on Wednesday that they may have been overly optimistic about the quick rollout of the bike lockers. They’re working on a way to supply power to the bike lockers so they can be operated electronically, like through an app. This would make them able to be used by the public — right now, there’s one guy on city staff with a key who lets people on an approved list in and out of the lockers, which is not super feasible to expand to the public.
Hut said when there’s an update on the bike lockers, we’ll be her first call, so you’ll know when we do! ~ ES
If you’re reading this, you might enjoy an urbanism-themed bike ride hosted by Lauren and city hall reporter Erin Sellers on May 22nd at 5:30 pm. We’ll check out a handful of infrastructure and building projects, then end at Brick West Brewing for some social time.
The post The people want safer streets — and the electeds are listening appeared first on RANGE Media .