Traffic deaths on stretches of Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Seattle have doubled in the last five-year period, despite the city’s goal to reach zero traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030.

A KUOW analysis of recent city data shows how a city-wide push to lower speed limits can improve some elements of safety — but experts say there is still work to do when it comes to slowing drivers down and keeping pedestrians safe.

Throughout the Rainier Valley, MLK Jr. Way has 4 to 5 lanes of traffic and an at-grade light rail line, making it a wide, fast-moving arterial.

From 2015 to 2020, five people died in crashes on that stretch of MLK Jr. Way. The speed limit for the corridor — which includes busy transit stops, neighborhood hubs, and residential areas — was 35 mph during that time.

In 2020, the speed limit dropped to 25 mph. Despite the change, city data shows that the same stretch of MLK Jr. Way saw 11 deaths between 2021 and 2026. While deaths doubled after the speed limit change, crashes and injuries declined significantly — by 37% and 25%, respectively.

The increase in fatalities on MLK Jr. Way and similar busy arterials stands in stark contrast to Seattle’s goals under its Vision Zero program, a global road safety initiative to eliminate all traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. The city adopted Vision Zero in 2015. In the decade since, Seattle has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into making its streets safer, including programs that lowered speed limits on almost every road in the city.

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Despite these efforts, traffic deaths are up across Seattle — 219 people were seriously injured and 27 people died on Seattle streets last year — prompting city councilmembers to call for an audit of the program.

An emphasis on lowering speed limits gained popularity with transportation experts following a study by The Washington, D.C.-based AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety in 2011. A pedestrian hit by a car going 20 miles per hour has a 90% chance of survival, according to the study. A pedestrian’s odds of survival drop to 50% if the car is traveling at 40 miles per hour.

Venu Nemani, Chief Transportation Safety Officer and City Traffic Engineer at Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), told KUOW that this and similar data prompted a new focus on slowing drivers down to minimize injuries.

Last year, the Seattle Department of Transportation commissioned six speed tests along MLK Jr. Way in the Rainier Valley. The tests tracked driver speeds after the speed limit was reduced to 25 miles per hour.

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Despite added signage reminding drivers of the new limit, drivers averaged 30 miles per hour or higher on most stretches of the road. While drivers were far from following the new 25 miles per hour limit, SDOT says the number of people speeding above 40 miles per hour — an important safety statistic — did decrease.

 ”Those speeds have dropped anywhere from 12% on the corridor to up to 50% on some parts of the corridor. So we are definitely seeing a slowing down of speeds on MLK with just the change in the posted speed limit,” Nemani said.

In response to rising fatalities on this same stretch of road, transportation experts told KUOW that lowering speed limits without making ‘traffic calming’ redesigns to roadways can only do so much to slow down drivers. Nemani described roadway redesign as the next step in Vision Zero’s work.

That philosophy is evident on MLK Jr. Way near the newly opened Judkins Park light rail station, north of its intersection with Rainier Ave. The city narrowed the road to one lane, and added protected bike lanes and more crosswalks. Preliminary data from SDOT shows the redesign has resulted in traffic moving more slowly on this stretch of road, including a drop in drivers speeding at 40 mph or more.

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Clara Cantor — a Columbia City resident and community organizer with safety advocacy group Seattle Streets Alliance — said speed and safety are still significant issues on most of MLK Jr. Way and design changes further south could improve those issues.

Columbia City resident and Seattle Streets Alliance volunteer Michael Smith echoed the desire for a redesign on the southern stretch of MLK. One suggestion Smith has: Narrow the width of traffic lanes to slow drivers down.

“The wide lanes and the few turns in the road itself make it extremely easy to almost accidentally speed, because it feels like a road that you should go fast on,” Smith said. The city could remove one of the travel lanes on either side of the road, and that would prevent people from swerving in and out between cars since everyone’s in the same lane going the same direction.”

Clare McGrane and Teo Popescu are reporters with KUOW. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/08/16/seattle-lowering-speed-limits/