Deirdre wrote to tell us about huge traffic backups along N. 80th Street heading east towards Aurora Avenue.
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 families on 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 here: https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/citizen_response.htm or contact the City’s Signal Timing Engineer directly: (206) 386-4579 or by email at [email protected].
