On a rainy Monday around 8:30 a.m., Bothell Police Officer Erik Martin sits in his police SUV at an intersection near Frank Love Elementary watching traffic.

Despite arriving in the area only a half hour before, he has already pulled over one driver for going 10 mph over the speed limit just outside the school zone.

As elementary students march into the crosswalk wearing bright yellow vests and holding orange flags, drivers seemed to be on their best behavior.

“A lot of what we do is teaching manners to folks,” Martin said, watching for drivers making rolling stops, illegal right turns or not giving pedestrians the right of way.

On average, he said he sees around two or three accidents a day ranging from fender benders to serious high-speed crashes.

Martin is the traffic patrol officer for the city, an office which is normally filled by three officers, but due to injuries and reassignments, he is currently the only one.

As Bothell and Kenmore grow, it presents new challenges for officers and city officials trying to keep traffic flowing safely and smoothly, and pedestrians out of harm’s way.

Rerouting traffic

In addition to a growing population, new businesses and state route and interstate development undertaken by the Washington State Department of Transportation on Interstate 405 and State Route 520 have redirected traffic through roads owned or partially maintained by city municipalities.

“We’re very concerned about cumulative impacts over time,” said Kenmore public works engineer Kris Overleese.

Although toll lanes on Interstate 405 have only recently been implemented, anecdotal evidence from law enforcement, crossing guards and residents suggests it is increasing congestion on local roads.

The Department of Transportation monitors local roads which connect with state-owned routes and interstates.

According to available data, the department saw a five percent year-over-year increase in traffic on Filbert Road and SR 524 southbound, and a one percent increase northbound in its most recent measurement during the week of Oct. 12.

Similarly, traffic on 73rd Avenue Northeast in Kenmore was up one percent westbound and three percent eastbound during the same week.

Data on other access points was not available, but a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation said they will be collecting data for a more comprehensive review early next year, and that it generally takes traffic around six months to a year to figure out new movement patterns.

School zones concern locals

More cars may be increasing traffic in school zones, Bothell resident Elizabeth Stall said. She said traffic has become more chaotic lately, particularly around Northeast 160th Street near Woodmoor Elementary School and Northshore Junior High School.

“It seems like almost every day I see someone run a red light at that intersection, or drive through the crosswalk when kids and a guard are in the crosswalk,” she said.

Standing on the intersection of 121st Avenue Northeast and Northeast 160th Street on a recent afternoon, crossing guard Cheryl Albertson said earlier that day she had to pull a child crossing the street out of the path of a driver who could have hit him while making a right turn.

“They were looking (left), looking for cars,” she said. “I don’t think the car ever even saw us.”

Albertson said most drivers try to obey traffic laws, including driving 20 mph in school zones and yielding the right-of-way to pedestrians, but that she often sees people blowing through red lights, turning while people are in the crosswalks and trying to sneak around traffic laws.

“I’ll tell people ‘You need to wait,’ and sometimes they’ll shake their head and do it anyway,” she said.

Martin said he sees the most violations when parents are running behind and trying to get their kids to school.

Northshore School District spokeswoman Leanna Albretch said her district has been noticing more drivers on the roads too, to which she urged caution.

“Please slow down, follow traffic rules and let’s keep everyone safe,” she said.

More crowded schools are also part of the problem, with more parents driving to drop off their children at the same locations. The Northshore School District is looking at creating another school in the next few years to help alleviate the crowding and traffic, Martin said.

Solutions

To help control traffic violations, Bothell police officers have been setting up speed traps and measures around school zones, crosswalks and other problem areas. These include patrols by Martin, but also large signs which not only show a drivers speed, but collect data even when the sign is off.

This allows officers to pinpoint times when traffic is heavier or faster, allowing them to find even individual drivers who disregard traffic laws.

Martin said on his own, he can only make it to each of Bothell’s more than fifteen schools at the beginning of the day or when they get out, once every two weeks.

“There’s just not enough of me,” he said, although he said in his 16 years as an officer, the last four in Bothell, he’s never seen a serious crash in a school zone.

Bothell Police Capt. Bob Woolverton said they are actively trying to recruit officers to fill the vacant traffic positions, but two recruits failed to make it through the intensive, math-heavy courses required. The department is still searching for recruits.

Bothell city engineer Jamal Mahmoud said another problem facing the stretch of road around Northshore Junior High is a lack of consistent signs from before the city annexed the area. His department is planning on installing more school zone and speed limit signs in the area to alert drivers to the two schools.

Between Jan. 1, 2014 and Oct. 10, 2015, there were 15 pedestrian-involved traffic incidents in the city of Bothell. Of those, Woolverton said two were severe with many of the others being relatively minor accidents.

In Kenmore during the same period, there were more than ten pedestrian-involved crashes. After multiple pedestrian deaths in early 2014, the Kenmore City Council voted to enact a pedestrian version of the state-wide Target Zero initiative, focusing on eliminating pedestrian deaths in the city.

“As a community, we helped create a program. Some policies and projects that we could do to increase safety,” Kenmore community relations manager Leslie Harris said.

So far in 2015, there has been only one death in Kenmore, after a bicyclist turned in front of a cement truck along the Burke-Gilman Trail in September. City manager Rob Karlinsey said he doesn’t know why the cyclist turned in front of the truck and the incident is still under investigation by the King County Sheriff’s Office.

Similar to the Washington State Patrol’s Target Zero program, which focuses on traffic deaths in the state, Kenmore’s initiative focuses education, enforcement and engineering to tackle their problem. Bothell city officials said they also focus on these aspects to improve safety in their city.

City officials from both municipalities are also looking at future public transportation expansion by way of future Sound Transit development in the area, which could help reduce congestion by bringing more park-and-ride busses and infrastructure that would connect to the proposed light transit rail.

Even as officials are working to create safer roads for drivers and pedestrians, Bothell City Councilwoman Tris Samberg said the key is in changing people’s behavior.

“It lies in all of us to be aware of how our driving habits effect the quality of life in our neighborhoods,” she said.