How many deadly crashes occurred in Tacoma last year? Data indicates a worsening crisis
More people are dying in Tacoma as fatal crashes climb to a point not seen in years, state data shows, even as city officials have undertaken focused efforts to try to improve traffic safety.
There were 35 fatal crashes in the city in 2023, killing 44 people, including six Arizonans who died in a wreck at a State Route 509 intersection in July, according to preliminary data from the Washington State Department of Transportation.
It’s the highest tally in both categories since 2015 — the earliest year tracked by the agency’s online data dashboard. The previous highs had been 24 fatal crashes in 2022 and 26 fatalities in 2021, the data shows.
“My gut reaction is disappointment and just sadness for the number of crashes,” City Council member Kristina Walker said in an interview.
Traffic deaths also trended upward across Pierce County and the state last year, the data show.
WSDOT’s overall crash data is current only through Aug. 31 although it reflects more recent fatal and serious-injury wrecks, spokeswoman Cara Mitchell said. That’s because law enforcement, which provides data to the agency, submits information about serious incidents more quickly than it does less-serious ones.
The number of reported fatal crashes and deaths for last year could still change before the data is finalized in June, Mitchell said.
The state’s Traffic Safety Commission, which serves as the official census for traffic fatalities in Washington, has yet to release any data for 2023. The commission has researchers who review crash incidents and medical examiners’ and coroners’ records. The commission’s figures don’t always exactly align with WSDOT’s.
Tacoma’s response to traffic deaths
While WSDOT’s official totals won’t be known for months, it’s clear that efforts by Tacoma have a long way to go to reverse the troubling trend of roadway deaths, city officials acknowledged.
In 2020, the city adopted the Vision Zero initiative, a campaign embraced by jurisdictions across the United States, with the goal of eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2035. Last year, the city lowered speed limits on residential streets and in four business districts. The program’s broader focus is on redesigning streets to be safer.
The initiative was delayed by the pandemic and related staffing shifts but is now on track, spurring a shift inside city government toward prioritizing addressing complex streets that have been the most problematic for traffic safety in Tacoma, according to city senior transportation planner Carrie Wilhelme.
“Vision Zero’s forcing you, like, ‘No, you have got to take on Portland Avenue; no, it’s time, here’s the data, you have to just start doing the work,’” she said in an interview. “And so, we started doing the work but, with any systems change, especially one that’s years in the making to create the conditions we have today, it’s going to take time — hopefully not much more time — before we start seeing the results or our community feels the changes.”
Last year, there were three fatal crashes reported on or just off Portland Avenue, according to WSDOT data. Only Pacific Avenue and Interstate 5, each with four, had more fatal wrecks in the city.
Streets across the United States were historically designed to get drivers to their destinations as quickly and efficiently as possible, but didn’t address the needs of those who can’t or choose not to drive, Wilhelme said. Portland and Pacific avenues are among the city’s widest and fastest corridors.
Unsafe behavior is effectively encouraged on streets that have limited crossing opportunities or traffic-light signals timed to allow drivers to speed for long distances, she said. The city’s approach, while supporting partners who educate drivers about safety, is to put its energy into something it can control: redesigning Tacoma’s infrastructure to slow drivers down. High-visibility crosswalks, streetlights, protected bike lanes, reduced lane widths and shortened pedestrian crossings, with new center medians, offer some examples.
The work is expensive and complex. Portland and Pacific avenues, for instance, consist of a mix of vehicular traffic, pedestrians and transit and commercial uses.
“Portland Avenue feels divided,” Wilhelme said. “They feel like they have this little mini-highway, connecting maybe-outside Tacoma residents to get to a freeway, and then now they’re paying those consequences through all these fatalities and serious injuries.”
The city recently won $2.1 million in grant funding from the Puget Sound Regional Council to change Portland Avenue’s design, and it anticipates beginning public engagement within a year on how to proceed with that redesign, according to Wilhelme. Pacific Avenue is being addressed through a development plan started in 2019.
Soon this year, the city will launch road-safety audits, where subject-matter experts walk high-risk corridors and identify issues in preparation for making significant changes that the city hopes will increase street safety. Tacoma plans to audit three streets annually, Wilhelme said. This year’s effort will focus on 72nd and 56th streets, with the third road still to be chosen.
Walker, who previously served as the executive director of nonprofit transportation advocacy group, Downtown On the Go, also sits on the transportation policy board with the PSRC.
On Thursday, the board updated its project selection criteria to put more attention on projects geared toward safety and climate change, she said.
“Safety has really come to the top for everybody ... on how we design our roads,” she said.
Despite being disappointed that figures showed traffic safety headed in the wrong direction, Walker was optimistic that the PSRC board’s vote will make it possible for the city to get more money for infrastructure projects and that the investment in Vision Zero will pay off.
“Transparency is key, pressure on us is important,” Wilhelme said, adding that she didn’t want traffic deaths to become normalized. “We need to make sure that this is not acceptable.”
Issue extends beyond Tacoma
Like in Tacoma, traffic safety appeared to be growing worse across the county and state in 2023.
The county’s 88 fatal crashes last year topped the prior year’s tally by two, although it was less than in 2021 when there were 91, according to preliminary WSDOT data. The number of fatalities (109), however, reached a three-digit sum for the first time since 2015.
Across the state, there were 694 fatal crashes and 768 fatalities reported last year, WSDOT data shows, which were the most reported by the agency in at least nine years.
In an interview, Traffic Safety Commission spokesman Mark McKechnie named two measures aimed at addressing traffic safety statewide, including a bill to promote the use of speed cameras, which the city of Tacoma is considering expanding its use of and which McKechnie said can reduce injury crashes by roughly 25%.
Another piece of legislation, left over from last year’s session, would reduce the legal blood-alcohol content limit for drivers from .08% to .05%. Sen. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, who proposed the bill, told The News Tribune last year he believed that “roads are more dangerous than at any other time in the history of our state,” as Washington grappled with a crisis not felt as badly in three decades.
McKechnie noted there was a significant increase in traffic fatalities in Pierce County from 2013 to 2022, with the Transportation Safety Commission recording 87 fatalities in 2022 and 98 in the year prior. Impaired driving and speeding have been the highest-risk factors, he added.
In August, a 31-year-old motorcyclist was killed after speeding on the State Route 16 westbound ramp and crashing into two vehicles on an overpass. The man was ejected from his bike, landing on the street surface below him. The unmanned motorcycle continued on Interstate 5 and hit a third vehicle.
In 2023, 18 fatal crashes in the county and five in Tacoma involved alcohol- or drug-impairment, WSDOT data shows. Authorities identified a driver to have been speeding in 21 and eight fatal crashes in the county and city, respectively.
Washington State Patrol trooper John Dattilo said the agency actually handled fewer fatal crashes in the county last year (29) than in 2022 (31) or 2021 (32), noting that last year’s figure was preliminary.
Most of the fatal and serious-injury incidents occurred on I-5 in Fife and Tacoma, between State Route 16 and the King County line, he said.
Speed, impairment, lack of a seat belt and distracted driving have been top contributors, he added, so the WSP encourages drivers to watch their speed, call a rideshare driver if drinking and buckle up. Pierce County’s seat belt rate in 2022 was lower than the state’s and fourth worst among 26 of Washington’s 39 counties surveyed by the state’s Traffic Safety Commission for a 2023 report, The News Tribune previously reported.
As preventative measures, the WSP has deployed more troopers on the roads and conducted targeted emphasis patrols.
The goal is simple: “Making sure that drivers know that ... if they’re driving dangerously, they’re gonna get stopped and we’re going to have a conversation,” Dattilo said.
This story was originally published January 30, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
