Spokane and Seattle metros crack top 10 for road safety
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The Seattle and Spokane metro areas have some of the country's safest roadways, according to StreetLight Data's new "U.S. Safe Streets Index."
Why it matters: Road safety affects everyone — whether they're driving, biking, walking or using public transit.
By the numbers: The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro area ranked seventh in StreetLight's report, which analyzed the 100 biggest U.S. metros.
Zoom in: The Seattle area's high safety score was driven largely by having fewer vehicle miles traveled, or less overall driving activity.
- Areas with high vehicle miles traveled tend to have higher traffic fatalities, "reinforcing that more driving creates more dangerous roadway conditions," the transportation analytics firm said.
- The Spokane metro area ranked fifth overall, scoring points for low vehicle miles traveled as well as cars traveling at less variable speeds.
How it works: StreetLight analyzed five key factors: vehicle miles traveled, different speeds between vehicles, speed-based pedestrian risk, speeding in residential zones and truck activity.
The big picture: "Larger metros tend to perform better overall for roadway safety, despite popular misconceptions that big cities are more dangerous," StreetLight said in its report.
Yes, but: While the Seattle area scored relatively high overall, it placed among the bottom half of the top 100 metros — No. 53 — for residential speeding. That's defined as the share of vehicles traveling at least 5mph above the speed limit on residential roads.
- The Seattle metro also ranked 27th for pedestrian risk.
- That's an area Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has said needs improvement — especially after a woman was struck and killed last month while crossing East Pine Street in Capitol Hill.
What they're saying: "We have to do better," Wilson said during last month's State of the City speech, which she delivered a day after the woman was killed.
- "We have to make it safe for vulnerable road users — our people walking, our people biking, our people rolling — to get around this city."
What we're watching: Both Seattle and Washington state have set a goal of eliminating traffic deaths by 2030 — a goal Wilson said the city is "not on track" to meet.