Tag Archives: senate

News, Transportation

Legislature Taking Another Look at Safer, Slower Speeds on City Streets

If you lived here, you could have a car in your living room by now. This 24th Ave E & Montlake Blvd apartment's guard rail is put to heavy use each year. (Photo: MvB)
This 24th Ave E & Montlake Blvd apartment’s guard rail is put to heavy use each year. Unluckily for them, it’s an arterial, so slowing traffic would require costly engineering and traffic studies. (Photo: MvB)

The Neighborhood Safe Streets bill is back, says KIRO Radio’s Kim Shepard, saying there’s a “big push” to get it voted on this legislative session. The bill would allow municipalities across the state to lower speed limits on city roads to as slow as 20 mph without commissioning engineering and traffic studies (whose costs rise with the number of intersections involved). As the bill’s title indicates, the focus is on neighborhood pedestrian safety.

The bill applies specifically to nonarterial streets in residential or business districts, so the change in most cases would be just five miles per hour, to 20 from 25 mph. What’s the big deal? Here’s our earlier explanation:

It seems picayune. What difference could five miles per hour make? It turns out to be life-and-death, because the relationship of fatalities to speed is not linear.

Someone hit by a car traveling at 40 miles per hour has an over-80-percent chance of being killed. At 30, it’s still 37 to 45 percent. But at 20, it’s just five percent. The key factors are stopping time and response time–at 20 miles per hour, the driver is in control of their car, and can stop before hitting someone. As you increase speed, you have less time to respond, while stopping distance increases.

If a municipality wants to lower the speed limit on a stretch of state road, they’ll have to petition the state secretary of transportation. Studies will still be required for any increase in an existing speed limit, except that any newly lowered limit can be returned to its original state within one year.

It may seem like common sense to allow towns and cities this decision, but the bill got nowhere last session. This session, SB 5066 is being sponsored by Senators Billig, Litzow, Eide, Frockt, Rolfes and HB 1045, by Representatives Ryu, Angel, Moscoso, Clibborn, Upthegrove, Fitzgibbon  Liias, Pedersen, Stanford, Farrell, Morrell, Pollet, Bergquist, Fey. Shepard says the House Committee on Transportation is giving the proposed legislation its first hearing this afternoon.

News, Politics

Amid Celebration, Gay Marriage in Washington State Could Be Delayed by Referendum

Senator Ed Murray

The Senate’s Wednesday-night passage of legislation legalizing gay marriage in Washington State means that now the House of Representatives will have a chance to vote, sometime within the next few days to a week. The Senate’s 28-21 vote represented the larger hurdle–supporters are confident they have more than enough votes in the House.

Senate Bill 6239, publicly supported by Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, and Vulcan, opens the definition of marriage to between “two persons” (with the U.S. Supreme Court we have, this phrasing does open the door to corporate marriage). The addition of protections for religious institutions to continue practicing a less feature-rich form of marriage was enough to draw support from four Republican senators, though three Democrats voted against the bill.

The Nays were: Senators Baumgartner, Becker, Benton, Carrell, Delvin, Ericksen, Hargrove, Hewitt, Holmquist Newbry, Honeyford, King, Morton, Padden, Parlette, Roach, Schoesler, Sheldon, Shin, Stevens, Swecker, and Zarelli. But they could not rain on primary sponsor Ed Murray‘s parade. He would not call a “nay” vote a vote for bigotry, he said, but then neither could a “yea” be construed as an assault on family or religion.

“Marriage,” he insisted, “is how society says you are a family.”

But as in a fairy tale, the people whose antipathy has disinvited them from the wedding can’t help trying to spoil it. Following Governor Gregoire’s promised signature–“Tonight we saw the best of Washington and our leaders,” she said, after the vote–opponents of the legislation will have until June 6 to put gay marriage up to a public vote this year. According to Publicola:

If they submit what appears to be enough signatures (a minimum of 120,577 valid signatures are required to certify a referendum), according to Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed’s spokesman Dave Ammons, the new law would be in a state of “abeyance” until voters have their say on the referendum in November and the election is certified.

If the referendum signature-gathering falls short, gay marriage could begin June 7, 2012. If it’s successful, and the public still approves the legislation, gay marriage would be legal as of December 7, 2012.