Pedestrian Safety Summit

I attended "Pedestrian Safety Summit" on Thursday at Southwest of Seattle. I have to say that I was disappointed. I nearly ran over by cars crossing the street to get to the "summit"! What a "Pedestrian Safety Summit"!

To get to the "summit", according to the Metro online planner, I have to take two buses, and transfer from downtown. It would take me one and half hours to get to where the "summit" was held. I woke up very early that morning to catch bus to downtown. After more than 1 hour and 40 minutes on the bus, I got off at a 2-lane street full of cars passing by me at very fast speeds. A lady who took the same bus also got off here. Based on the map I printed out from Google, I need to cross the street. The lady seemed like she wanted to cross the street too. However, I noticed there was no sidewalks, nor cross-walks. The lady and I were standing on the street, scared. She and I waited for about one minute, and found a time there was only one car coming. We seized that moment, and ran to the middle of the street. Almost at the same time, two cars were coming from the other direction, and we had to stop and wait the cars passing. Thankfully, we successfully crossed the street without getting killed. I felt like I was a survivor.

What a wonderful location "Pedestrian Safety Summit" chose!

On the way back to Seattle, I learned that I was not the only person who took the bus to the "summit". There were two other persons. One is the lady who was on the same bus as me. The other one was a young fellow. The reason I took the bus is that I don't own a car. The reason that the lady took the bus is that her health condition doesn't allow her to drive. And the reason the young fellow took the bus is that he is blind. He even had to take the bus to the terminal first, and then take the bus back, because there is no cross-walk, and he couldn't cross the street. At the end, three of us were picked up by David, a pedestrian advocate, back to downtown Seattle.