Walking in Seattle

The laws governing when and where pedestrians can legally cross a street may not be universally clear. Fortunately, the Post-Intelligencer’s Seattle 911 blog has addressed quite a few of these issues in the past, so let’s take a look how the laws apply to pedestrians.

First off, pedestrians can legally cross a street at any intersection, even if it’s not a marked crosswalk (except where specifically prohibited, of course). And, of course, cars are required to stop:

State law says drivers must stop and remain stopped to allow a pedestrian to cross the roadway within a crosswalk, unmarked or marked, “when the pedestrian us upon or within one lane of the half of the roadway upon which the vehicle is traveling or onto which it is turning.” (There are exceptions for curb ramps.)

However, at an unmarked crosswalk, cars are not required to yield for you until you’ve begun to step out into the roadway:

At an uncontrolled intersection (no signals, signs, or marked crosswalks), if a pedestrian is standing on the sidewalk or off of the roadway and has not stepped out onto the roadway so as to indicate an intention to cross the street, vehicular traffic is not required to stop.

However, once the pedestrian steps or is in the act of stepping into the street, he/she has indicated an intention to cross the street and vehicular traffic must come to a complete stop and allow the pedestrian to cross.

And, in case you were wondering, the same laws apply to the Seattle Streetcar.

Also, apparently, crossing the street at somewhere other than an intersection is legal as long as you yield to traffic.

Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway.

However, to be clear, this doesn’t apply to arterials:

Seattle police spokesman Mark Jamieson says if you’re crossing in the middle of the block and not at an intersection, then that would be illegal. “If somebody tries to cross the street in the middle of the block because they see an opening, then they would be jaywalking and would be subject to ticket if they were stopped.”

So, I suppose that means that you can cross any neighborhood street pretty much anywhere, but can only cross arterial streets at an intersection or crosswalk. However, the streets of Pike Place Market are legal to cross anywhere:

The Seattle Municipal code prohibits pedestrians from crossing an arterial street other than in a crosswalk except upon the following portions of streets within the Pike Place Market Historical District

At signaled intersections, it’s illegal to cross when the “don’t walk” signal is flashing. However I rarely see anyone observing that, as most people seem to prefer scampering across the intersection before the light changes over halting their momentum to wait for the next walk signal.

Anyway, hopefully this helps clear things up a little bit about what you can and can’t do (legally) as a pedestrian.

The PI’s Seattle 911 blog answers a question about whether a jogger can jog in the road when a sidewalk is available:

“It is not legal for pedestrians to walk or jog in the street if a sidewalk is available,” Seattle Department of Transportation spokeswoman Peg Nelson said. “Any enforcement of this practice would have to come from the Seattle Police Department.”

Seattle pedestrians are hesitant to jaywalk, but I think the occasional uneven or overgrown sidewalks probably make breaking this law a little more tempting.