An East Tacoma neighborhood is calling on city leaders to fix an intersection they say has led to too many close calls and serious crashes in recent years, including one on Wednesday evening.
They say that as you move north down East McKinley Avenue near Division Lane, the roadway suddenly dips, swerves, and widens.
Tacoma police say a driver who lost control hit four parked cars on Wednesday. The driver and a pedestrian sustained non-life-threatening injuries and were taken to a local hospital.
Xammantha Stone was working nearby when it happened Wednesday night around 9 pm.
“We heard a loud boom. It kind of sounded like one of the buildings had gotten hit. Coming outside, we saw there were four cars that had gotten hit,” Stone said.
Buildings were spared in the Wednesday crash, but business owners say that just two years ago, an SUV lost control and pushed a parked car into the patio outside the Top of Tacoma bar and café.
“The SUV - that came down - hit a smaller vehicle,” Justin Everman told KIRO. “The car took this light pole out and crushed the smaller SUV into this patio, and you can see how this is all dented in. This was actually bent back into shape, but this entire thing was crushed in,” he said, pointing at the wrinkled metal.
Everman, who’s owned the Lux coffee shop on McKinley for seven years, says it’s well known that cars often drive too fast, hit the blind curve on McKinley, and lose control.
He feels the city is moving too slowly to fix the problem. “There’s a sense that if this was happening in a more affluent part of the city, it would’ve been rectified by now.”
The city of Tacoma would need money to narrow the roadway or add a roundabout to slow traffic.
Tacoma city council member Sandesh Sadalge, whose district includes East Tacoma, said funding for the project could come from a levy on the August 4th primary.
“That would give us the funding to retain engineers, the designers, the grant applicants,” Sadalge said.
According to a City of Tacoma website, Proposition 1 “Connect Tacoma Safe Streets and Sidewalks” levy is a ten-year measure that would generate an estimated $200 million, as well as $120 million in grants, by raising property and utility taxes.