A Renton resident is forming an advocacy group focused on making Renton roads safer.
Tristan Kochen said he is starting Safe Streets Renton to encourage the city to make it safe for everyone to get around Renton, with or without a car, and to make the city more accessible to people without a car.
Kochen said he grew up in a rural setting where people had to drive everywhere because it wasn’t safe to walk on the roads. He said he didn’t learn to ride a bicycle until he was 17 years old because there was nowhere safe for him to ride.
“Anyone under 16 can’t drive and, for them to get around safely, for them to have that mobility that I didn’t have when I was a little kid living in Poulsbo, that’s definitely something that is important to me,” he said.
Kochen started walking, biking and taking transit when he moved to Renton.
“Over the past couple of years in Renton, I’ve become more and more interested in how people get around,” Kochen said. “I noticed it’s really dangerous for people to get around outside of a car and, even then, it’s also dangerous for people driving.”
Kochen said Renton has many streets without sidewalks, and a goal for Safe Streets Renton is to make sure those sidewalks are completed and designed properly.
He also would like to see more funding toward the Trails and Bicycle Master Plan, which is six years into a 20 year plan.
“We want to make sure that when these projects are done, they are not making things more dangerous,” Kochen said. “There are bike lanes that have been put in areas that are right next to cars that are parked and if you ride in them, you run the risk of getting hit by a car door opening.”
Another focus of the group will be making the streets safer for kids walking to school. Kochen said when he used to walk to Renton High School he had numerous “close calls” from cars making right turns and not looking or from poor visibility.
“There’s so many roads along schools that were not designed with pedestrians in mind or they have designs from 50 to 60 years ago that haven’t been updated to modern standards for safety,” Kochen said.
Kochen listed Oakesdale Avenue as a road where people are comfortable traveling 60 to 70 mph in a 35 mph speed limit, and it has sidewalks like an urban road. The city is currently resurfacing and channelizing the lanes on Oakesdale Avenue and he advocated during city council meeting’s public comments for safer options.
“It’s a road where the traffic volumes are such that one lane in each direction would be more than enough” Kochen said. “It would make it so much safer because you wouldn’t have people dangerously passing to go well over the speed limit and the sidewalks would have a much larger buffer between them and trucks going that high speed.”
Kochen participated in the Renton Civic Academy earlier this year to learn more about how the city operates to help him get an advocacy group started. He is currently seeking others who want to be civically engaged and get involved in his cause. He can be contacted at safestreetsrenton@gmail.com.
