$3 million for Seattle pedestrians

A new speed-trap camera van. Safer sidewalks and outdoor stairways. More books for the public library.

Flanked by schoolchildren as props, most members of the Seattle City Council held a news conference Tuesday to publicize highlights of their $926 million city budget plan.

Standing at the base of a concrete outdoor staircase near Delridge Way Southwest, council members largely focused the event on $3 million in pedestrian safety funding they added to Mayor Greg Nickels' proposed budget. That includes $1.5 million for sidewalk construction and repairs.

The council also added to Nickels' proposal $2 million for library collections and $4.2 million for human services in the budget it plans to finalize Monday.

High Point community activist Miranda Taylor called on the city to put some of the transportation money toward improving pedestrian safety on 35th Avenue Southwest. In the past 13 months, two pedestrians have been killed on the busy arterial, dubbed "I-35" by some locals, Taylor said.

"High Point has been lobbying for three years," she said. "I'd like to see High Point get moved up on the queue."

The pedestrian safety proposals also include:

$176,000 for a speed-limit enforcement van, equipped with radar and a camera, for school zones (traffic tickets would pay for operating the van, officials say).

$500,000 for "pedestrian safety technology" such as flashing crosswalks, crossing flags, pedestrian "refuge islands" and pedestrian-crossing countdown signals.

$250,000 to improve some of Seattle's 460 public stairways, such as the one used Tuesday by the council as a prop.

"Very many of them are in poor condition," said Councilwoman Jan Drago, chairwoman of the council's Transportation Committee. Some are deteriorating, overgrown with vegetation or lack sufficient lighting, she said.

"Our plan is to clean up and make safe stairways near schools and near transit centers.

"There's been decades and decades in (maintenance) deferrals. At the end of the day, it's really up to us."