Malia Greening-Bechtel, a teacher and Olde Town resident, stood at the public comment podium before the Issaquah City Council Monday night. Next to her, looming large on the chamber’s projection screen, were a series of photos of pedestrian crosswalks along Northwest Newport Way, taken around 11:30 a.m. Going through each, she pointed out, one-by-one, where the yellow diamonds of the walkway signs were obscured by shadow and glare alike.
Greening-Bechtel switched over to a dashcam video showing how quickly crosswalk signs appear and pass at the posted speed limit of 40 mph. Then she finished with a video of a friend attempting to cross at Newport and Northwest Oakcrest Drive, the outlet for the Summerhill neighborhood. The woman waited at the corner while three cars passed without slowing. When she pressed the cross button, the visibility lights did not come on, which Greening-Bechtel said was the case four times out of five. (Anecdotally, the Reporter visited and crossed the crosswalk for photos on June 29. The lights did not activate from either side of the road.)
“As an avid cyclist, I’m usually quick to blame drivers in any situation,” she said. “But I attempted to take a driver’s perspective in this video and in these pictures of this busy 40 mph road.”
Greening-Bechtel was one of more than a dozen citizens to speak out against conditions on Newport following the death of 4-year-old Haochen Xu, who was struck by a Klahanie woman’s car June 26 as he crossed the Summerhill crosswalk with his mother. Many more attended in support, overflowing out of the council chambers.
Some shared emotional accounts of the final time they saw Xu, like Tina Conforti, who recounted how the boy played in her sprinklers the night before the accident — and was endlessly excited when Conforti gave him a peanut bar for a treat.
Others gave details of their own accidents on the road. Troy Sholzen told the council how, in 2012, he fell backward to avoid being hit by a truck only to see his two service dogs killed. Arkady Cherts displayed video of a car catastrophically rear-ending his own vehicle while he and family members were stopped for a left hand turn — an accident which left him disabled, he said.
Stephen Mak demonstrated a flashing light he said he uses to guarantee his visibility and safety when he walks to and from work along Newport.
Individual narratives differed but the speakers’ conclusions were the same: The villain in the most recent Newport Way accident was Newport Way itself.
“This was an unfortunate accident,” Summerhill resident Amy Miller said. “But from this point on, no one in this room gets to say anything that happens on that road was an unforeseen accident.”
Miller, in the week following Xu’s death, set up a petition calling on the city of Issaquah to improve conditions at the intersection of Newport and Oakcrest. The proposals included lowered speed limits between Southeast 54th Street and State Route 900, speed bumps on both sides of the intersection and a traffic signal or stop sign at the intersection. Miller said Monday night that 509 confirmed Issaquah citizens had signed the petition. The petition had 1,034 total signatures — Issaquah or otherwise — on GoPetition.com as of press deadline Wednesday.
Before the public comment session, Mayor Fred Butler noted that Issaquah police and Washington State Patrol continued to investigate the June 26 accident. The day after the meeting, Butler said the comment session was an opportunity for the community to voice their concerns and vent their emotions following the death.
Monday’s public comment wasn’t the first time residents of Summerhill and other neighborhoods along what some speakers called “the Newport Speedway” asked the city to revise the speed limit and make other safety improvements to the road.
Summerhill resident Mary Lynch sent the Reporter video of a June 17, 2013 city council meeting (video above, relevant material begins at 6:30), in which neighbor Hart Sugarman argued Newport’s 40 mph speed limit was inappropriate for a curvy, two-lane road with a then-new trailhead for the Big Tree Ridge hiking path. Sugarman told the Reporter he’s gone before the council multiple times over the years to request traffic revisions.
In the city of Issaquah’s Six-Year Transportation Improvement Program, most recently updated June 1, Northwest Newport Way west of State Route 900 is listed for a $13.6 million round of improvements to roadway capacity, transit support, sidewalks and other non-motorized vehicle paths. The project does not have a specified date.
At Monday night’s meeting, Sugarman said the need for improvements had become immediate.
“This incident has devastated the boy’s family, affected our entire community and will plague the woman driver from Klahanie for the rest of her life,” Sugarman said.
He added later: “Tonight, this is not a request, this is a demand; a demand for action to be taken, so another life will not be lost.”
The city announced Wednesday staff would undertake a review of city crosswalks with an independent expert. An as-yet unscheduled community meeting will take place in late July or early August.
