The Seattle Department of Transportation will go ahead with plans to "skinny" up a portion of 24th Avenue Northwest in the name of pedestrian safety, reducing four lanes of traffic to three with a center turn lane.

The city proposed this "road diet" with bicycle lanes on both sides of the arterial between Northwest 56th and 65th streets last year. It's based on a federal pedestrian safety study that found marked crosswalks without lights can be more dangerous to pedestrians than no crosswalk at all.

The uncontrolled, "high risk" crosswalk at 58th has been the driving factor for the proposal because it poses a multiple lane threat, according to transportation officials. There have been five pedestrian accidents at that intersection in the last 10 years.

Pedestrians often have a difficult time finding a gap in which to cross the street on four-lane roadways and reducing the number of traffic lanes to cross is one way to make it safer. Reducing traffic lanes is also meant to control traffic speeds and passing hazards that are common with four-lane streets.

A similar configuration is already in place on 24th, north of Northwest 65th Street.

Seattle applied a road diet on 8th Avenue Northwest in 1994 and recently made the same decision for Stone Way North, but not without objection from the Ballard Interbay Northend Manufacturing Industrial Center.

Some industry business owners here have expressed concern that fewer lanes of traffic on 24th will impede the flow of freight traffic, which use the arterial daily. The street carries about 15,000 vehicles a day.

Susie Burke, a member of the North Seattle Industrial Association and a Ballard landowner, said she hasn't seen any proof that a road diet is safer. In other areas of the city that have had diets like Greenwood Avenue North, traffic seems to just get diverted to side streets, she said.

"It limits how many throughput vehicles you can get in (at peak times)," Burke said. "All in all it's a bad idea on a street like 24th which already serves the community very well. If we need a safe place to cross, put in a light."

She called the idea an "ill-conceived experiment" and said the city hasn't taken industry's concerns into consideration.

"We are stabbing ourselves in the back," she said. "With density that we've embraced as a city, we have to have more ways to move people, not less. Whether it's by bus, foot or bike - that requires more pavement."

The city monitors traffic volumes on all city arterials every three years, said Gregg Hirakawa, spokesperson for the transportation department.

Since the road diet on 8th, traffic volumes have increased by about 1,000 cars a day in the last ten years, "That's pretty minimal" (in terms of traffic congestion)," Hirakawa said. "You wouldn't even feel that."

When a roadway is reconfigured, the city also monitors side streets to make sure traffic isn't being pushed elsewhere. If there are no apparent problems, Hirakawa expects 24th to be evaluated again in about a year.

Steve Cohn, vice president of the Ballard District Council, said the council hoped the city would first measure how major developments in the area will impact pedestrian and traffic patterns before making any changes.

The area around the intersection has been undergoing significant growth. QFC announced it would renovate its store, adding five floors and 270 residential units. Metropole and NoMa condominiums on 57th and 24th will bring hundreds of new residential units and thousands of square feet in retail space.

Several more major mixed-use buildings across Ballard are under or near construction.

But a city traffic analysis that measured future growth in the area showed that vehicle capacity and operation along the street would be maintained with the lane reduction.

If it's a pedestrian safety problem, the city should just remove the crosswalk, Cohn said, especially since there is a controlled crosswalk one-block south at 57th.

"There are two questions; how does it work for pedestrians and cars?" he said. "We have to balance that."

Ballard resident Toni Cross said the city should abandon road diets altogether and instead increase visibility of existing crosswalks. A road diet on 24th will make it more difficult to deliver goods and services, potentially forcing businesses to leave the area, he said.

"The (city) continues to try to get us out of our cars and trucks without providing a viable alternative," said Cross. "It seems (they) think that if you 'unbuild' it, the drivers won't come."

Assistant manager of Javabean on 24th, Karen Gray, said customers often comment on how dangerous it is to cross the street using the crosswalk at 58th. She hopes having fewer lanes of traffic to cross will make people feel safer.

"If anything it will help that situation," Gray said.

Curb bulbs and bus bulbs, allowing in-lane stops, are possibilities for the street. Transit officials also plan to monitor King County Metro service along the corridor to ensure bus service isn't impacted.

Current on-street parking will remain.

The project will start late summer or early fall and should take about a week, said Hirakawa.

Traffic will move in both directions on the outside lanes while the center lanes will be closed for restriping traffic lanes. Parking will be restricted in certain areas.

Rebekah Schilperoort may be reached at 783.1244 or rebekahs@robinsonnews.com