Pedestrians an endangered species in Kent

Kent is the kind of Republican town that makes you self-conscious about who you are and your place in the world. Given the fact that minorities are marginalized or ignored in the formation of any public or private policy (except, of course, by the police), it shouldn’t be surprising that some people are affected by the “I’m not one of the them” disease, as if that matters in the eyes of to whom it may concern. We live in a superficial world, and I certainly don’t live in a world of illusion.

But what I really hate about Kent is that it is the most pedestrian-unfriendly places I have ever encountered. Kent is crisscrossed with what are called arterial roads, which are high capacity “streets” that mainly serve to expedite traffic out of Kent as quickly as possible, which I wouldn’t blame anyone. Many of these roads are actually highways in disguise; for example, “Washington Street” runs all of one block, since it is actually “68^th Avenue” which is actually “West Valley Highway” which is actually State Route 181. James/240^th Street, seems to exist only to make it faster to reach SR-169. 104^th Avenue is actually SR-515, while Central/84^th Avenue/East Valley Highway is actually part of SR-167.  And then there is Kent-Kangley Road/272^nd Street, which is actually SR-516.

The only roads in Kent where you don’t have to run for your life are the very low capacity streets—like, say, in “downtown” Kent. Motorists in Kent are so confident they have the “right of way” that you cannot expect to cross a street safely even when a walk light is on. You stand at a corner seemingly forever before the walk light turns on (or finally determine that it doesn’t work), and then you encounter the person who thoughtlessly makes a turn right in front of you, or yells out some obscenity if you have the temerity to engage in your Constitutional right to cross the street. Some walk lights start flashing red after one second, and by the time you get to the other side it is already at full stop, and drivers can't understand why you are in their way. Then of course there is the person blocking the sidewalk who has his or her eyes glued to the left to make a right turn, completely unconscious of pedestrians walking down the sidewalk in the other direction; this is an especially dangerous situation on arterial roads or highways. 

It is a wonder more people don’t get killed because of oblivious drivers in Kent, or anywhere for that matter. The presence of walk buttons at every street corner testifies to the fact that pedestrians are second class citizens and a major “annoyance.” It is interesting to note that while the trend is that traffic fatalities for motor vehicle drivers and/or occupants has actually seen a sharp decline in the past decade, pedestrian deaths has held steady—to the point that the 4,432 pedestrians killed nationally in 2011 accounted for 14 percent of all traffic fatalities.