January 29

More street vigilantism on N.E. 103rd in Maple Leaf?

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Maple Leaf’s street vigilantes – or somebody – appear to have struck again.

This photo shows the “do not enter” signs on Northeast 103rd Street just outside the Maple Leaf Community Garden P-Patch.

Dana emailed earlier this morning: “Given your coverage of the non-SDOT ‘do not enter’ sign on 105th,thought you’d like to know that someone has put black garbage bags over all of the ‘dead end’ and ‘do not enter’ signs on 103rd. Doubt this was SDOT, either.”

The covered “dead end” sign is at 103rd and Fifth Avenue Northeast. The “do not enter” signs face west  midway between Fifth and Eighth. They are routinely ignored by drivers.

“What a little war we’re having,” DW commented on our earlier post on the apparently citizen-assisted “do not enter” sign on nearby Northeast 105th Street at Eighth Avenue Northeast.

The remains of that sign, which the Seattle Department of Transportation says it did not install, are shown below.

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Sara W

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  1. I worded my last comment poorly, apologies. I just meant that 105th ends at 5th because of the mall. Also, 105th doesn’t even go all the way to 15th so, again, it’s not comparable to 103rd at all.

  2. 105th does NOT dead end with 5th. It CONNECTS 5th with Roosevelt.

    And I am sick and tired of the cowardly high horse commenters who think that everyone on 105th is entitled house flippers. Most everyone has owned for 10+ years, some for 25+.

    Yeah, maybe we have a crazy person running around pretending to be SDOT, but they’ve done more around here than anyone’s done since SDOT redid the traffic pattern of 97-103rd way back in the early 90s. I don’t condone it, but there’s serious frustration around here. I’ve had drag races in front of my door. I’ve nearly been run over by people cutting through at a high rate of speed. Something needs to be done.

  3. “Local Access Only” signs aren’t enforceable and as such are ineffective. Making a street one-way, can have negative consequences such as encouraging people to speed or accidents can increase if drivers don’t comply with one-way designations. Our residential streets are public streets, and everyone has a right to use them. The main goal is to encourage those drivers that do use your street to drive safely”
    this copied from SDOT

  4. We can’t compare 103rd to 105th. 105th is less than 50% residential and dead-ends at 5th. 103rd goes all the way through to I-5 and is home to more than double the effected Maple Leaf residents.

    Lets not support the criminal activity of an obviously disturbed 105th resident.

  5. Our side streets/neighborhood streets have no speed limit signs, it’s common knowledge that these streets are 25mph. Would the Safe Streets legislation bring ugly signs into people’s yards and who would pay for it? I’m not convinced people would actually pay attention to such a change either. Seems like a spendy approach that will change little.

  6. My only problem with this, and I have said it a million times to my wife, is that “Dead End” is so profoundly incorrect that it almost seems insulting to rational thinking (especially with a standard operating traffic light giving people the green light). I obey the law and go around, despite living on Roosevelt and 103rd. Yet, I do feel this sign should read “Local Access Only” or if people really feel the need to shutter Maple Leaf off to those “Northgate riff-raffs” to preserve their sense of SUBurban living over urban, make it an actual dead end like the other streets (at least the sign would be correct). I would strongly prefer “Local Access Only” though, because I detest exclusivity (barriers to the public for specific groups).

  7. If you want slower speeds on our side streets, support the Safe Streets legislation in Olympia that will allow muncipalities like Seattle to lower speeds on SIDE STREETS to 20mph without traffic studies. It’s good legislation being blocked in the state Senate by manual-loving traffic PhDs who’d rather see kids and other pedestrians endangered than allow local flexibility.

  8. I’m going to repeat something “An Observer” said: “Please attend the Maple Leaf Community meeting and make your voices heard.”

    Tonight, Wednesday, January 30
    7pm
    Olympic View Elementary

    Parents, your voices are needed! FREE on-site child care provided by the state-certified, child care professionals at Collaboration Station.

  9. What, no love for NE 100th St? We get cars blowing through the Do Not Enter signs all the time. Seems worse since the speed cams went in.

    Maybe I can set up my own ticketing operation and keep the revenue…

  10. I’m thinking that while all the work was being done on Northgate Way folks found favorite shorcuts to get around it and they stuck. I haven’t seen anyone speeding in that area of 105th, partly because of the incline and the narrow road no doubt. The area continues to have more and more residents. We can’t reroute them forever.

  11. Hey, will whomever is putting up signs, please install a series of 15 MPH speed limit signs all through our neighborhood? Thanks.

    Oh, and can we ban all FedEx and UPS trucks that like to speed around our residential streets? Thanks again.

  12. It appears that NE 103rd is served by having it’s east end on Roosevelt made “Do Not Enter”, and it’s west end blocked by themid block closure, effectively making it a private street between Roosevelt and 8th. If anyone “bought a house on a residential street that ha(d) some traffic…
    buy(ing) cheap and then increas(ing) their property value at everyone else’s expense by seeking to unilaterally change established traffic patterns in their favor” it was the residents of NE 103rd between 8th and Roosevelt who pushed the original change in established traffic patterns.

    NE 105th is a ten foot wide “street” that drops off into a creek on one side with no guardrail, has a sewer/bulkhead on the other, the bulkhead serving as a pedestrian bridge that has neither a guardrail separating pedestrians from traffic or a railing to keep people from falling into the creek.

    It appears the City should either bring NE 105th up to modern standards, or close the street to vehicular traffic adjacent to the sewer bulkhead.

    When the tree fell across NE 105th this past summer, everybody figured out how to get home.

    Why does NE 103rd get “One Way” designation, and a substandard NE 105th is expected to absorb all the traffic, in both directions?

    Every east west street that crosses 8th from 80th northward to Northgate Way (thirty blocks) has either a traffic circle or Do Not Enter signs on it. Substandard NE 105th is expected to be the thoroughfare for people avoiding these traffic calming devices?

    I made the assumption the “Do Not Enter” sign on NE 105th westbound was put there as part of the recently completed second left turn lane project on Northgate Way. The timing of it seemed to make sense.

    North Maple Leaf needs curbs and sidewalks on every street from 93rd thru to 105th.

    The coming transit center project will only reinforce the need for a comprehensive retooling of the streetscape in the area. They are planning a $5 million pedestrian bridge to funnel folks over the freeway, yet Sound Transit is shunting off pedestrian improvements onto the City for the area between Roosevelt and 5th NE?

    Please attend Wednesdays Maple Leaf Community Council meeting and make your voices heard.

    Close NE 105th Street, or make it a legitimate two lane road with curbs and sidewalks. The present situation is ridiculous.

    Please review

    http://www.seattle.gov/parks/projects/thornton_creek/park_6.htm

    This plan can be replicated on each and every street from 92nd to 105th.

    We are a Designated Urban Growth Center, lets demand to be treated as such, demand the infrastructure improvements that such a designation implies.

    Do you suppose the “vigilante” knocked the tree down across NE 105th last summer as a test?

  13. Maybe more people heading South on 5th are cutting through 103rd and 105th because they don’t want the new cop cameras to film them a few blocks more South. One change a few blocks away on the main arterial can impact traffic on all the side streets.

  14. “In reality, most of us know that people blow through that Do Not Enter sign on 103rd all the time, and for locals, frankly, that’s cool with me.”

    The Do Not Enter is for everyone, including those who live on the street. I never ignore the signs and get tired of seeing people blow past them. Perhaps SPD should be enforcing the existing signs. Or someone can photograph those who disobey. Otherwise, get rid of the Do Not Enter signs entirely.

  15. From what I can see, the traffic plan is to frustrate Northgate traffic passing through Maple Leaf. They put that chicane on 103rd to keep it from being a thoroughfare from the Transit Center up to Roosevelt or 15th. That’s a good plan. In reality, most of us know that people blow through that Do Not Enter sign on 103rd all the time, and for locals, frankly, that’s cool with me. Maybe a Local Traffic Only sign should be there instead, but an unenforced Do Not Enter is probably more effective at keeping commuters from filling up 103rd.

    Anyhoo, somebody ping me when they start pulling up the chicanes on 103rd and building an overpass at Roosevelt. Alternately, let me know when the 103rd people and the 105th people start picking gang colors, so I know how to dress when I’m going east-west.

  16. Non-SDOT speed bumps next? Maybe a personal toll road booth? Got to imagine the person is getting tired spending the time and money doing these actions themselves without approval.

  17. Agree with Michelle. Those traffic revisions (two-way NE 105th St; Don Not Enter on NE 103rd St.) have been in place for 15 years, probably longer. Those are residential streets, that do have some amount of traffic. It’s not a cul-de-sac. Anybody who bought their house in the last 15 years (or longer) had that amount of traffic factored into the price of the house they bought. If you want to live at the end of a dead-end street, where there is no thru traffic at all, then you can buy a house there.

    Yes, people should be mindful of speeds when they drive through residential streets, and most people are. Some people are not. It’s a fact of life that some people are jerks. It’s hard to eliminate ALL impact of jerk behavior, and still live in a fairly dense area, like a city.

  18. I don’t think there is a “war” here. I think there is one person who lives on a 105th and has a bee in their bonnet about the traffic on that street. They want to make 105th one-way and 103rd two-way to reduce the traffic on their street.

    Whoever this big baby is they need to reconcile themselves to the fact that they bought a house on a residential street that has some traffic. If they don’t like it they should sell and buy a house on a cul-de-sac somewhere and pay the increased price that comes with that.

    But instead what they want to do is buy cheap and then increase their property value at everyone else’s expense by seeking to unilaterally change established traffic patterns in their favor. It’s a form of attempted theft, quite frankly, and whoever they are they need to grow up.

  19. Well done. The neighborhood salutes whoever tore this immature/illegal sign out.

    As for the garbage bag signs… ehhhhhhhhhhh they are completely unreasonable but you still shouldn’t be vandalizing them like that. At least it’s the most non-damaging way possible and doesn’t harm anyone. GG rebels.

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