Last month, Roy Hobbs sent us this picture and said that he sees situations like this pretty often. He says the corner from 15th heading east onto Market is a tight fit for big rigs. The city agrees.
Aubrey Cohen of the SeattlePI asked the city about this predicament. Eric Widstrand, city traffic engineer with the Seattle Department of Transportation says that the city is looking at different options. “For example,” Widstrand says, “changing the intersection to allow longer commercial trucks to negotiate the turn more easily may create challenges for pedestrians by making the pedestrian crossing longer or by reducing sidewalk space at the corner.”
City aware of tough intersection at 15th & Market
And Widstrand does not think that huge rigs having to drive up onto the existing sidewalk does not make pedastrian crossing more challenging? Aaaaagh. Our city government drives me nuts.
I don't know about trying to get truckers to take a safe route. I'm not sure it would work. Some of those trucks are delivering to grocery stores and restaurants/bars in Ballard and have no other access except Market or Leary. Also, the two people I know who were truckers made their living snorting coke and driving for 72 hours straight before crashing for a few hours then starting the whole thing up again. I know that is not ALL truckers (a cousin of mine was a trucker and didn't do that) but I imagine it's not all that unusual considering the job description of “get it a long ways and fast”.
There is a Truck Routes map online and made available to the freight community. It shows major routes and arterials.
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/freight.h…
Balancing the needs of freight vs the needs pedestrians is complicated as those needs are so often at opposite ends of the spectrum.