In an embarrassing and humbling admission, today the Seattle Department of Transportation confessed that for years they thought its “Vision Zero” goal had always been about getting to zero pedestrians, not zero pedestrian deaths.
“If you’ve been wondering why we haven’t tried to shut down thru-traffic on Pike Place and why literally 10,000 blocks of a major American city like Seattle don’t even have basic sidewalks, now you know,” said SDOT Director Greg Spotts. “It’s also why we’ve been on a tear building and planning crosswalks across giant eight-lane stroads like on the new waterfront where only the most athletic can outrun a pissed driver coming from the north who just found out they can only get on the ferry if they drive a whole mile south of the terminal, wait forever to make a U-turn to get back to it, then wait another eternity to turn left into it.”
SDOT reportedly only realized the mistake after a damning report released today showed that last year more pedestrians were killed by drivers in Washington state than any year on record.
“We were like oh! So that’s a bad thing? Yikes, awkward,” Spotts said. “We’re sorry for the mistake and we hereby commit to turning things around by using the next $1.45 billion transportation levy to fund building almost 3 percent of the total sidewalks this city needs and maybe a quarter-mile of a bike path.”
At press time, Spotts was seen drinking out of a flask as Mayor Bruce Harrell patted him on the back for being the lucky face of his innovative Space Needle-thinking at SDOT.
