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Turn arrow at 80th and Aurora causing traffic congestion

What do you think? (15 Comments) May 16, 2010 at 10:41PM

A note from Deirdre Cross:

About two months ago the City of Seattle installed left-hand turn arrows where 80th Street intersects with Aurora Avenue.

Many of you have probably noticed the activation of the new light has greatly compounded the traffic problem on 80th street going eastbound toward the lake. Its not uncommon for the light to back traffic up all the way past Linden to Fremont Avenue while people sitting at the light lay on their horns and scream expletives out their car windows. It’s really terrible for those of us in the vicinity.

The city has explained to me that they can only allow 80th Street to interrupt the flow of traffic on Aurora for a limited amount of time for each light cycle. This means that the turn arrow is taking up a significant portion of the time while no one is trying to even turn left. This would improve if they change it to a flashing yellow left turn arrow with a solid green light for eastbound except for during peak morning travel hours.

Please help out the residents of 80th Street and the surrounding side streets by asking the City to change the timing of the light at 80th and Aurora. You can voice concerns using SDOT’s Customer Request/Feedback Form or contact the City’s Signal Timing Engineer directly: (206) 386-4579 or by email at enrique.garcia [at] seattle.gov.



Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with the neighborhood, Deirdre.

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What do you think? (15 Comments)
  • RC

    I turn left to southbound Aurora most evenings at this intersection. My life is much less in danger now because of that signal!

    In my experience eastbound 80th drivers used a yellow as a sign to run the light. Before the turn signal 1 or maybe two could turn left at the light…generally after the westbound signal was yellow or already red…blocking Aurora traffic to do so.

    So, no, I don't support your desire to basically disable the left turn signal.

    Bottom line, both 85th and 80th are too narrow for the traffic volumes they carry (as is Aurora.) Until the city widens both to 4-6 lane boulevards and takes out a bunch of homes and businesses along the way, traffic is going to find the fastest route. At least with this left turn arrow, the near accidents and accidents I observed in the prior 3 years have largely been eliminated. That is more important than the backup on 80th.

  • Rachel

    I agree with RC. I also turn left from the greenlake side of 80th to southbound Aurora every day. The arrow has made turning much safer. I've never experienced any additional back-up coming from either side due to the turn signal either.

  • Thad

    I agree that this is a seriously unsafe intersection. Also, where am I supposed to park while I stop by Than Bros for some pho on my way home to Woodinville? Parallel parking my Suburban is so difficult, and then during the evening rush hour parking is restricted! I almost got towed there once!

    Seattle is just so backwards sometimes. Hopefully once the city starts taking out a bunch of homes and businesses to make Aurora and 80th wider, they will do away with all those useless bus stops too and put in some more surface parking lots. Then people wouldn't have to ride that nasty old 358 bus so much. We could finally just drive everywhere like we want!

    I don't see what's stopping Seattle. I mean, it worked for Detroit and Buffalo. Why not here?

  • http://www.michaelcornell.com/ Michael Cornell, REALTOR®

    This is another example of the disconnect between traffic/transportation engineers in Seattle, and the lives of the citizens who live here.

    Why can't Seattle have electric traffic eyes or sensors that know when someone is in the turn lane, rather than just a timer? Other towns have had them for decades! This way the turn light wouldn't register when the turn lane is empty.

    Is this all part of the concerted effort on the part of our leaders to make using a car in Seattle so difficult that we will abandon our cars and hop onto the inadequate and worsening public transportation system? This is a broken concept, but our city leaders cling to it. We are not all like the ignorant Suburban driver Thad is characterizing, but their policies assume we are.

    Please follow the links in the post and register your concerns. One point you need to make (because many city officials will be HAPPY that your motoring exeprience is miserable) is that using a private vehicle is still a necessity for 84% of Seattle citizens and will be for the forseeable future and the city and its officials need to provide for today's reality and not just plan their idealized future. If you don't make this point, these government employees will assume you are ignorant Suburban drivers and don't understand that they are trying to discourage you from driving a car.

  • Greg

    Hi Michael – I understand how you feel, but I think you're really missing something here. Our city leaders aren't the ones who are going to make a system that is totally reliant on private cars undesirable. It's the utter lack of vision on the part of both national leaders and our citizenry that is putting our current way of life at risk. Those crazy lefties at the Financial Times put it well:

    http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/04/21/ar…

    So, sure, the city should try and optimize the light at 80th. But don't kid yourself – the Mayor is a smart guy – he doesn't want to make driving hard – he wants to position us so getting around is possible come what may.

    That's going to require supporting other modes of transit – and that will as a side effect mean that cars may have to slow down or being inconvenienced somewhat. But better that than to leave us totally open to every price spike and petro-dictator whim.

  • http://www.michaelcornell.com/ Michael Cornell, REALTOR®

    I am not missing anything, Greg, except for possibly failing to mention that I support a good public transprotation system; I support forms of transportation other than the personal automobile. Unfortunately, those other forms just don't work for the majority of our citizens. Current policy and attitude on the part of our politicians and other officials is one of punity. They want to make it as hard as possible to get around by car. I am not referring to inadvertent side effects. I am talking about intentional efforts to worsen the experience of using a car. That is wrong. We have quite a bit of now to live through before the vision you think I lack becomes reality.

    Most of us do not work in a cubicle downtown from 8 to 5, Monday through Friday, and then commute out of downtown to our homes at the same time every day. Anyone who does that and drives a personal automobile to work is, in my view, socially and environmentally criminal, whether the law says so, or not. Most of us in the real world don't have the luxury of having such simple lives and the public transportation system simply does not solve our transportation problems. I have tried, and tried, and tried to make it work. It just doesn't. I am not the only guy who has a different schedule every day, or may need to be in Green Lake at 10:00, Magnolia at 1:00 and Bellevue at 3:30. That kind of schedule is the reality of many 21st century jobs. Cubicle jobs are going to India and China.

    I am also not singling out the current Mayor. He is not the first and he is not alone in the misguided and overly idealistic efforts of which I write. He is just one of the people carrying that torch right this minute. I also saw that one of his first acts in office was to allow parking around a light rail station, where it had not been allowed before. This pragmatism impressed me. I hope that continues.

    My concerns about being careful about how responders file their complaints was ratified by your comments. You assume that I am missing something or I just don't get it. I assure you that I do get it. I hope the people who read the complaints will have open minds and not just assume the complainants are ignorant.

    Thanks for your feedback!

  • horseknuckle

    I realize that I am weighing in on this little debacle WAY TOO LATE, but I don't care about 80th and Aurora (kidding, I do, but it just isn't relevant to my existence). Instead, has anyone ever in their lives sat at the light at 50th and the I-5 north-bound offramp? Well, if you have sat there, then you have spent your entire life there. Particularly after rush hour. Say around 7:00 p.m.

    The light is seriously messed up. It will cycle and cycle for traffic on 50th, but if you have to pee and are trying to get home in a big stinking hurry, then make sure you pack an empty water bottle, because making a left onto 50th is a test of both patience and bladder control. Somebody, fix it now. And while you're at it, fix the one on 80th too.

  • horseknuckle

    I realize that I am weighing in on this little debacle WAY TOO LATE, but I don't care about 80th and Aurora (kidding, I do, but it just isn't relevant to my existence). Instead, has anyone ever in their lives sat at the light at 50th and the I-5 north-bound offramp? Well, if you have sat there, then you have spent your entire life there. Particularly after rush hour. Say around 7:00 p.m.

    The light is seriously messed up. It will cycle and cycle for traffic on 50th, but if you have to pee and are trying to get home in a big stinking hurry, then make sure you pack an empty water bottle, because making a left onto 50th is a test of both patience and bladder control. Somebody, fix it now. And while you're at it, fix the one on 80th too.