A RESOLUTION endorsing recommendations for improving the City of Seattle’s traffic incident management response; affirming the City’s commitment to traffic safety and mobility; recognizing the application of the state’s “Steer It Clear It” law, RCW 46.52.020(2)(a), and “Hold Harmless” law, RCW 46.52.020(2)(b), to drivers and police officers in the City; and directing the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs to pursue an extension of the “Hold Harmless” protection to Seattle Department of Transportation traffic incident response personnel.
The report of the Transportation Committee Agenda Item ten Resolution 31618a resolution endorsing recommendations for improving the City of Seattle's Traffic Incident Management Response, affirming the city's commitment to traffic, safety and mobility. Recognizing the application of the state's steering. Clear IT law RTW 46.5 2.0 202a and hold harmless law RTW 46.5 2.020 2b2 drivers and police officers in the city and directing the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs to pursue an extension of the Hold Harmless Protection to Seattle Department of Transportation Traffic Incident Response Personnel. The committee recommends a full council adopt as amended. Thank you, Councilmember Rasmussen. Thank you. I'm sure that all of us remember the nine hour closure of the viaduct and the effect that that had on traffic throughout Seattle last March. And no one wants a repetition of that experience where it seemed that there were options to safely clear the collision and also move traffic, get more traffic moving smoother and faster than had occurred. As a result of that experience, the mayor commissioned a study of what Seattle can do to improve how it clears these incidents more quickly. And so this summer that we received a report from a consultant, it was an 84 page report with 90 recommendations in terms of how the city can improve its response to these traffic incidents. And among the improvements that are recommended in the report are a clear policy of the city making clearing of vehicles a higher priority than preserving or protecting the vehicles involved. And in the past, the department, particularly the Department of Police Department, gave preference and deference to the vehicles, not allowing the the owners of the vehicles to decide how and when the vehicles should be moved off the roadway. Now, the priority is to clear the vehicles off the road, and if that can be done in a safe way and not compromised. Also public safety. There also is a recommendation to improve training of our police officers, our Department of Transportation staff and better coordination between them. We need to improve how quickly the tow trucks respond to these incidents. There needs to be education also to the public to move their vehicles out of the way under the street and clear it law that actually is exists in state law. Also, we know that our public officials, our police department are immune from liability when they're clearing collisions, but our Department of Transportation staff and other staff are not. That is provided by state law, and we are including in this resolution the intention to include in our state legislative agenda, amending the state law to request that our Department of Transportation and other officials who are not included from that in that community also be covered. We want these recommendations to be implemented as soon as possible. And the resolution states that the Council and the mayor want most of them done in 2015 of what can't be done in 2015, according to the schedule that's included in that report, then they need to be completed by 2016. Of course, our first priority is always the safety and an appropriate medical response and investigation of these incidents. And the traffic of our bridge crash last week showed that that is our highest priority of our police and our fire emergency officials. We want to commend them and we've done that already with regard to how they responded. But I think that we should also recognize that our Department of Transportation did a good job of getting word out quickly on the incident. And they also created a transit only lane on Westlake in order to keep traffic moving. So our start is making improvements now in terms of how they respond to these traffic incidents. But of course it will take time to completely implement all of these recommendations. There have been a lot of lessons learned from these various incidents that we've had in the last year, and the city simply cannot continue to carry out its incident response as it has been in the past. I know that our police department and our Department of Transportation agree with me on that, and they are beginning to implement those improvements. Now, I want to thank the interdisciplinary team that was made up of our Department of Transportation and the Seattle Police Department for working together to meet with the consultants to come up with these recommendations that we have now before us. I also want to particularly thank Heather Marks of the Seattle Department of Transportation, who really did a great job of pulling this all together. And then Anthony Auriemma of my staff, who worked with both our staff and Speedy to. Bring this resolution finally to the full city council and the committee recommends approval. Thank you. Questions or comments? All in favor of adopting Resolution 31618 vote. I oppose Vote No. The resolution is unanimously adopted. The report and the chair will sign it. Report of the Energy Committee. Please read item 11. Through the first semicolon.