City targets pedestrian safety near Sartori Elementary

Published 7:30 am Sunday, March 8, 2026

The city of Renton will be implementing traffic safety measures around Sartori Elementary School to increase pedestrian safety during school hours.

The north Renton community has had growing concerns for the safety of kids and parents around Sartori Elementary School after a woman was struck by a car while crossing a nearby street last year.

“I am also a parent of two small kids, one who attends Sartori. Last spring, my five-year-old daughter and one-year-old son witnessed a mother from our Sartori community being hit by a truck while she was crossing the crosswalk on Park and 4th. This is the crosswalk that my family uses multiple times a week for school dropoff and pickup,” Anissa Gastine said at the Feb. 2 Renton City Council meeting. “As a parent, I had to explain to my children why someone that they saw injured and bleeding in the street might not be OK, and why I could not confidently promise that they would be safe walking to school moving forward. This is not a conversation any parent should have to have with their children.”

On May 19, 2025, the Renton Police Department was notified of an accident involving a car hitting a 37-year-old female at 3:30 p.m. at the intersection of North 4th Street and Park Avenue North, according to Sandra Havlik, a spokesperson for the Renton Police Department. The officers cited the driver for distracted driving and the investigation was turned over to the department’s Traffic Investigations Unit for further review.

The Renton Reporter made a public records request on Feb. 5, 2026, for the Renton Police Department case report of the incident, but has not received the report as of press time.

At the March 3 Public Safety Committee meeting, Renton Police Chief Jon Schuldt broke down a traffic report of the 66 collisions at six intersections surrounding Sartori Elementary School from Jan 1, 2023, to Feb. 5, 2026. He said about 30 of those happened on weekdays between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“I’m not not minimizing any of the concerns that the community had. I think 30 is still a pretty significant number to have, just in that general area with that extra number of children around,” Schuldt said. “We did identify two of those collisions in that area that were vehicle-pedestrian and both of those we attributed not to speed, but more so to driver inattention.”

The findings showed the majority of the accidents in those intersections were due to driver inattentiveness, not speed. Schuldt said most of the distractions were from the environment and not phones.

“One of the collisions that involved a vehicle-pedestrian was the driver making a turn actually while he was looking at his child on the sidewalk,” Schuldt said. “Talking to his child, he just didn’t see what was going on in front of him.”

The police department is currently conducting a speed study to see if a speed camera can and should be installed.

Improvements

Renton Principal Civil Engineer Flora Lee presented safety improvements the city is working on at the following Transportation Committee meeting. Looking at five-year crash data from the Washington State Department of Transportation, they identified the intersection of Park Avenue North and North 4th Street as the most crash-prone with 33 crashes and 10 injuries. Park Avenue North and North 3rd Street was second with 25 crashes and 10 injuries.

The city implemented some improvements in 2025 with “turning vehicles stop for pedestrians” static signs, no left turn signs, flexible posts to encourage wider left turns and refreshed crosswalk markings. Lee said they also asked Renton police to emphasize speed patrolling in the area. The intersections will receive further improvements this year.

“The number one thing that we looked at was to separate pedestrian intervals to walk and flashing don’t walk, and the left turn vehicles,” Lee said.

They are also proposing an exclusive left turn signal at Park Avenue and North 3rd Street to separate when pedestrians can cross and when cars can make left turns. They plan to also convert the shared left-through lane to a left-turn-only lane on Park.

Since there is no left turn lane on Park at the intersection with North 3rd Street they can’t add a left turn phase, but they can still separate car and pedestrian crossings and give pedestrians a head start to enter the crosswalk before the parallel right-turning vehicle gets a green light.

“The walk time will start a few seconds before the vehicle green light, so it’s easier for (the driver) to pay attention,” Lee said.

Proposed infrastructure improvements include upgrading pedestrian push buttons to the Accessible Pedestrian Signal system to comply with ADA and other guidelines, and to replace existing “turning vehicles stop for pedestrians” static signs with LED-based signs.

“It will provide a much higher visibility in all weather and it will catch their attention,” Lee said.

Lee also proposed they install traffic cameras for “traffic safety performance monitoring and measures.” She said there are currently no cameras on Park between 1st and 6th streets and it would be good for their engineers to monitor traffic and safety on that stretch.

Lee expects improvements on Park to be finished before the start of the school year in 2026, but the improvements to Garden Avenue will take longer. They still expect completion of the entire project in 2026.

Additional funds will be needed to fund the $245,500 project, and the city’s transportation staff will install the improvements. The project will be under the capital account Traffic Safety Program and be part of the 2026 quarter one budget adjustment.