The most dangerous intersections in Seattle and Tacoma

The most dangerous intersections in Seattle and Tacoma

Washington recorded 731 traffic deaths in 2024, a 9.6% drop from 2023's 33-year high but still 36% above 2019 levels, and 155 of those deaths were pedestrians¹. Those numbers are statewide. In the Seattle-Tacoma metro, the risk doesn't spread evenly across the map. It piles up at a short, repeating list of intersections and corridors, the same names that show up year after year in Seattle's own collision database and in Tacoma's Vision Zero crash records, both built from raw crash reports rather than estimates²³.

Where Seattle's crashes cluster

The city logs more than 10,000 crashes a year, an average of 28 traffic deaths and 180 serious injuries, by SDOT's own count⁴. James Street and 6th Avenue sits where downtown's street grid runs into the I-5 exit ramps, a half-block from the King County Courthouse. Since 2016, Seattle's collision database shows 120 crashes there and 64 injuries². Two blocks over, 4th Avenue South and South Jackson Street has logged even more injuries in the same stretch: 103 crashes, 68 injuries, four of them serious².

Aurora Avenue North, signed as State Route 99, carries a heavier toll than any single intersection. An SDOT study of crash data from 2015 through 2019 found that 17% of all traffic deaths in Seattle happened somewhere along this one 7.6-mile corridor, and that 88% of the pedestrian deaths on it happened mid-block, not at a marked crossing⁵. Eight more people died on Aurora after that study period closed, six of them pedestrians⁵. At Aurora and North 130th Street, the city's own crash data counts seven serious injuries among 33 injury crashes since 2016, the highest serious-injury total at any intersection in Seattle². Seattle voters answered with money: the $1.55 billion, eight-year transportation levy passed in November 2024 dedicates funding to rebuilding Aurora and to other Vision Zero safety work⁶.

Rainier Avenue South earned its reputation earlier. Between 2005 and 2014 it logged roughly 3,600 collisions, close to one a day by 2015⁷. The road diet the city installed that year cut injury collisions by 30% and total collisions by 15%⁷. The corridor hasn't gone quiet since: SDOT's data shows Rainier Avenue South and South Massachusetts Street alone has recorded 60 collisions, 45 injuries and one death since 2016².

Martin Luther King Jr. Way South has the worst fatality rate relative to its crash count of anywhere in the city. The intersection with South Alaska Street has produced three deaths and three serious injuries out of just 19 total collisions since 2016, and the intersection with Rainier Avenue South, a few blocks north in Columbia City, has added two more deaths on top of that². SDOT's 2023 top-to-bottom review of its own Vision Zero program found that the city's southeast district carried nearly half of all fatal crashes over the prior three years, that pedestrians and cyclists made up only 7% of crashes but 61% of fatalities, and that 40% of fatal crashes happened at a signalized intersection⁸.

Pacific Avenue, Portland Avenue and the Alexander Avenue rebuild in Tacoma

Cross into Pierce County and the pattern repeats along Pacific Avenue, also carrying the State Route 7 designation. Tacoma's Vision Zero crash dataset, drawn from WSDOT crash reports, shows 84th Street and Pacific Avenue with 10 people killed or seriously injured since 2016 out of 113 total crashes, more than any other intersection in the city³. Pacific Avenue and 72nd Street isn't far behind: 199 crashes and nine people killed or seriously hurt in the same span³. Pacific and 96th, and Pacific and 70th, both land in the city's top ten by that measure³. A few miles east, Portland Avenue shows the same clustering, with serious and fatal crashes concentrated at 27th, 28th, 38th and 44th Streets³. Citywide, 2023 was the worst year of the past decade for Tacoma, with 3,275 collisions and 34 deaths³.

Tacoma made Vision Zero official policy through City Council Resolution 40559 in 2020, setting a goal of eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2035⁹. This year's Road Safety Audits are targeting South 72nd Street, 6th Avenue and South 12th Street⁹.

The single deadliest intersection in Tacoma's own crash data, though, is State Route 509 and Alexander Avenue East near the Port of Tacoma: seven fatalities recorded there since 2016³. WSDOT had flagged the location years before that. A May 2020 Intersection Control Evaluation counted 107 crashes at the paired signals there between 2013 and 2018, and WSDOT engineers discussed building a roundabout to slow traffic well before anything changed¹⁰. Nothing did, until July 16, 2023, when a BMW reported traveling as fast as 80 mph five seconds before impact struck a Kia that had run a red light on Alexander Avenue, killing all six people inside it, the deadliest single crash in Washington in more than two decades¹⁰. The Washington State Patrol has since tied six fatal collisions on SR 509 to the corridor since 2018, three of them at or near Alexander Avenue¹¹. WSDOT finally rebuilt the intersection as part of the SR 167 Completion Project, collapsing what had been two adjacent signals into one, adding a pedestrian bridge over Wapato Creek, and reopening the roadway on June 1, 2026¹².

After a crash at one of these intersections

A crash at a location with this kind of documented history often turns into a dispute over fault, particularly when red-light running, speed or a known design flaw is part of the story. If you need help finding an attorney who handles serious crash cases in King or Pierce County, the legal directory is a place to start.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Washington Traffic Safety Commission, "Preliminary Traffic Fatality Numbers for 2024 Decrease from 33-Year High in 2023." https://wtsc.wa.gov/20555-2/

2. City of Seattle, SDOT Collisions - All Years dataset, Seattle GIS Open Data. https://data-seattlecitygis.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/SeattleCityGIS::sdot-collisions-all-years

3. City of Tacoma, Vision Zero Crashes dataset (WSDOT crash data), Tacoma Open Data / Vision Zero Dashboard. https://data.tacoma.gov/apps/tacoma::tacoma-vision-zero-dashboard/explore

4. Seattle Department of Transportation, "Vision Zero: Our top-to-bottom review provides a roadmap and new actions to reverse challenging trends in traffic safety." https://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2023/02/23/vision-zero-top-to-bottom-review/

5. KIRO 7, "Study says Seattle's deadliest street is Aurora Avenue North." https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/study-says-seattles-deadliest-street-is-aurora-avenue-north/ACYFH7YUUNHUDCMK4VWH4NX7RM/

6. City of Seattle, 2024 Seattle Transportation Levy Fact Sheet. https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/About/Funding/Levy/Seattle_Transportation_Levy_FACT_SHEET_20240821.pdf

7. MyNorthwest, "More changes coming for Seattle's most dangerous street." https://mynorthwest.com/1445733/seattle-dangerous-rainier-avenue-south/

8. Patch, "SDOT Findings Show Traffic Fatalities Continue To Plague Seattle." https://patch.com/washington/seattle/sdot-findings-show-traffic-fatalities-continue-plague-seattle

9. City of Tacoma, Vision Zero program page (Resolution 40559, Road Safety Audits). https://tacoma.gov/government/departments/public-works/vision-zero/

10. The Spokesman-Review, "Before 6 died in Tacoma wreck, officials knew intersection was deadly, lawsuit claims." https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/jun/15/before-6-died-in-tacoma-wreck-officials-knew-inter/

11. KOMO News, "Repeat crashes at dangerous Tacoma intersection spark calls for safety measures." https://komonews.com/news/local/tacoma-dangerous-intersection-sr509-alexander-avenue-rollover-crashes-speeding-port-of-tacoma-pierce-county-washington-state-patrol-safety-emphasis-patrols

12. Washington State Department of Transportation, "Less is more: Rebuilt SR 509 intersection in Tacoma opens June 1." https://wsdot.wa.gov/about/news/2026/less-more-rebuilt-sr-509-intersection-tacoma-opens-june-1