Neighbors, family members, elected officials and Seattle Neighborhood Greenways gathered Saturday to walk in remembrance of James St. Clair and to call for a safer 35th Ave SW.
“I just hope my uncle’s death is not in vain,” St. Clair’s niece Darlene Saxby told KOMO. “I think it would make him happy if he knew his sacrifice could help others.”
His death in late December is the most recent of at least five deaths that have occurred on the street since 2006.
City Council Transportation Chair and West Seattle resident Tom Rasmussen was at the walk, and city officials said they would conduct a traffic study on the street to determine what options there are to improve safety.
For more, including some heartbreaking videos, see West Seattle Blog’s coverage of the walk.
Meanwhile, after a woman was struck — but not seriously injured — while crossing the street at 20th Ave NW and NW 57th St, the Ballard News Tribune asked: “Does it really take a death to get some action” on road safety?
Certainly, the city needs to invest to to their best to prevent devastating road collisions from happening again. But when are we going to invest enough that we can actually get ahead of the collisions, preventing them before another person like James St. Clair is killed.
Here’s the KOMO TV report:
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5 responses to “Neighbors and relatives walk to remember James St. Clair, call for a safe 35th Ave SW”
Thanks for the coverage. We’re hoping that crossings of “I-35” can be made safer for pedestrians and bike riders. I was riding home night before last (on the bike in KOMO’s picture) alongside a city traffic engineer who live in West Seattle, talking about it. He said that SDOT staff are already looking at changes that they can make.
[…] can read more about the recent heartbreak felt by friends and family or James St. Clair in our previous post. West Seattle Blog has also reported on other heartbreaks in recent years due to collisions on the […]
[…] of those people was James St. Clair, whose death while walking across the street prompted community action to remember his life and to demand changes to prevent this from happening to anyone […]
[…] St. Clair, who was killed while walking across the street a few months ago. Family and neighbors gathered in January to walk in his memory and call for safety so nobody else is killed or seriously injured on this […]
[…] Photo from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways: Gene Tagaban of the Tlingit RavenCoho tribe plays a song for paddlers facing an important but difficult challenge at the site where James St. Clair was hit. […]