Watch: presenting six years of traffic data to Snohomish County.
Why this started
A main road and a pattern I couldn't ignore
My name is Shyla Agrawal, and I live next to a main road in the suburbs of Seattle. Late at night, vehicles will race through the street at high speeds, jeopardizing the safety of themselves and others. At first it just bothered my family, disturbing our sleep and being distracting. Then, through further research, I learned Snohomish County records one of the highest rate of traffic casualties in Washington State, with over 450 crashes here in the last ten years. Learning this was when this issue stopped being an annoyance and started looking like a public safety issue.
I began researching neighborhood road safety efforts across the country and found that Snohomish County tracks vehicle counts and speeds for all roads annually. That led to a research project analyzing the last six years of Snohomish County traffic data, and eventually, to speaking directly with the county about what the data shows. Many populated areas of Snohomish County are consistently above the WHO (World Health Organization) recommended noise limit during the night.
Now I'm going door to door in my own neighborhood, because the data is only half the argument. The other half is knowing how many of us are bothered by this issue.