KC Council approves traffic safety study in Fairwood

Even before a fatal collision at the intersection of Southeast 192nd Street and 140th Avenue Southeast on March 19, the Fairwood community has been calling for more robust traffic safety in the area.

By Bailey Josie • July 19, 2024 7:00 am
Cars drive northbound through the intersection of Southeast 192nd Street and 140th Avenue Southeast in Fairwood. An 18-year-old was driving over 100 mph southbound through this intersection on March 19 when his car hit a minivan, resulting in the deaths of one woman and three minors. Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing.
Cars drive northbound through the intersection of Southeast 192nd Street and 140th Avenue Southeast in Fairwood. An 18-year-old was driving over 100 mph southbound through this intersection on March 19 when his car hit a minivan, resulting in the deaths of one woman and three minors. Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing.

Nearly four months after a high-speed collision that caused the deaths of one woman and three children in Fairwood, the King County Council’s Local Services and Land Use Committee unanimously approved legislation on July 17,asking the county to evaluate strategies to improve traffic safety in the area.

“After many conversations with members of the Fairwood community, I believe it’s critically important to review all ideas for improving road safety in Fairwood — such as roundabouts, cameras, and increased traffic enforcement — so that together we can proactively avoid further tragedies stemming from dangerous driving,” said Councilmember Reagan Dunn, who sponsored the legislation.

The day before the legislation approval on July 16, the King County Council also approved Dunn’s budget request for more traffic patrols in for the Fairwood area, totaling $75,000.

Traffic control officers had been dispatched to monitor speeding around the area of 140th Avenue Southeast in Fairwood following the March 19 collision, where 18-year-old Chase Daniel Jones had driven through a red light at 112 mph and collided with a minivan driven by Andrea Hudson, 38, who had five passengers in the vehicle: Matilda Wilcoxson, 13; Eloise Wilcoxson, 12; Boyd “Buster” Brown, 12; and Hudson’s children, Nolan, 14, and Charlotte, 12. The Hudson children were the only survivors in the minivan. Jones was charged with four counts of vehicular homicide, two counts of vehicular assault and one count of reckless driving, and is currently awaiting trial.

In the wake of the fatal crash, Chase Wilcoxson, the father of Matilda and Eloise, called on local officials to research and analyze the road.

“These are not the first fatalities that have happened here in recent months and years, but with help, they can be the last,” he said. “We call on these authorities and leaders of our community to analyze and research what structural and other changes could be made here to make changes so that nothing like this ever happens again.”

The legislation calls for an evaluation of all available strategies to improve the traffic safety in Fairwood, an unincorporated area of southeast Renton. According to the Dunn’s office, these evaluations include “utilizing traffic enforcement cameras at high-risk locations, constructing traffic calming capital improvements and other appropriate roadway safety countermeasures, and coordinating emphasis patrols by law enforcement officers.”

A study of roundabouts at high-risk intersections on 140th Avenue Southeast — where the March 19 crash took place — would study possible roundabouts on the road and evaluate the use of cameras at the intersections near Carriage Crest Elementary School and other high-risk locations.

The legislation study will also include more law enforcement patrols throughout Fairwood, along with infrastructure improvements in the area which includes road diets, physical barriers in unused center two-way left-turn lanes, and leading pedestrian intervals.