'Worst problem' in Fremont?

For more than five years now, longtime Fremont resident Bill Uznay has been complaining to Metro officials and anyone else who might listen that the intersection of Fremont Avenue North and North 35th Street was an accident waiting to happen.

So when he heard that a pregnant woman and her mother had been hit and critically injured by a Metro bus there Tuesday evening, he said his reaction was immediate:

"I thought, 'I'm surprised it took that long,' " he said. "I've been trying to encourage them to do something, but they just wouldn't listen."

Yesterday, while a Seattle woman and her mother remained in intensive care at Harborview Medical Center and a newborn boy took his first breaths without his mother beside him, other Fremont residents and longtime merchants joined Uznay in his demands.

They say that they have stood by long enough while Fremont's growth has brought more and more buses and impatient drivers, honking and whizzing through a neighborhood that has always been a pedestrian mecca.

"This is the worst problem we have in Fremont," lamented Reza Katirayi, the owner of Caravan Carpets at the intersection's northeast corner.

"The buses go way too fast," Katirayi said. "No one pays attention to the lights. This used to be a small community, but now all the high-rises come, and more people and traffic, and it causes major accidents."

At Harborview's intensive-care unit, the 29-year-old woman's condition was upgraded from critical to serious and stable yesterday while her 58-year-old mother was in critical condition, though her injuries had stabilized. Their family asked officials to guard their privacy by not releasing their names.

The younger woman had internal injuries. Her mother, who is from Cave Creek, Ariz., had severe head and chest injuries.

The 29-year-old woman's newborn son, delivered by Caesarean section after the accident, improved to satisfactory condition at Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center. The boy's father said through a Harborview spokeswoman that the 9-1/2-pound, full-term boy was "doing very well." His wife, the boy's mother, was a week overdue when she was hit.

The two women were crossing Fremont Avenue North from the southwest corner to the southeast corner about 7 p.m. Tuesday when the bus struck them, police said.

The Route 31 bus had come west on North 35th Street and was turning south onto Fremont.

A Metro spokeswoman said the 50-year-old driver, who felt "very, very bad" about the accident, reported that he was momentarily blinded by intense sunlight and didn't see the women.

He has been placed on routine leave while police and Metro officials investigate.

Police have issued no citations and say they don't know for sure that the women were crossing legally. Results of the investigation will be sent to prosecutors to review, police spokesman Duane Fish said.

In the meantime, neighbors near the intersection say turning buses have produced too many close calls and too much worry.

Uznay, for one, said he and a friend were nearly hit by a bus there recently. "The bus charged at us like we were supposed to just jump out of the way," he said.

Caryl Silverman, who has operated Dream boutique on the southwest corner for five years, said traffic has gotten to the point where even drivers are frustrated.

"Does someone need to be killed before something is done? Do we need a catastrophe before someone hears us say this is a dangerous intersection?"

The spokeswoman for the Seattle Transportation Department, Liz Rankin, said the city has received no reports that the traffic lights or pedestrian signals have been malfunctioning at the intersection, and a crew confirmed they were working after the accident. But she didn't respond to questions about the overall safety of the crossroads.

Metro spokeswoman Rochelle Ogershok said the intersection doesn't appear to be one of the county's more dangerous, based on reports to officials from the public and bus drivers. But as a result of the accident, Metro will review all its procedures there.

"I'm not aware of anything that would constitute a pattern," Ogershok said. "But when these accidents happen, we always want to look at what could be done to make our service safer."

At the same time, Ogershok said Metro has a pretty good safety record, considering how many buses are on the roads of King County.

Since July 1997, buses have hit pedestrians 100 times, according to Metro records. Of those, 74 have been ruled the pedestrian's fault, Ogershok said — a man steps in front of a bus that has the green light, for example.

The other 26 have been ruled "preventable," meaning "the driver could have done something to prevent the accident based on the very high standards we hold for ourselves," Ogershok said.

In that same time, Ogershok said, Metro buses have collectively clocked 205 million miles on their odometers.