The NE Greenwood Homezone area spans Greenwood Ave N to Aurora Ave N, from N 85th St to N 105th St. In 2020 a group of neighbors secured a Community Partnership Grant through the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods to install blue barrel planters along key streets in order to slow traffic and make our streets safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and children. These blue, self-watering planter barrels are a low-cost and nimble traffic-calming alternative to more expensive permanent concrete barriers or chicanes.
The Community Partnership Grant included phased stages, first implementing the blue barrel planters and then introducing street murals. In 2022, Volunteers coordinated and painted two intersection murals at 101st and 102nd & Evanston Ave N (read article). These two intersections lack traffic islands or any signage telling drivers to yield or slow. Research shows that visual cues, like brightly colored street art, can slow drivers and make neighborhood streets safer.
In 2024, volunteers painted a street mural on Phinney Ave N between N 90th St and N 92nd St. A year later in 2025, volunteers led a refresh update on the Evanston P-Patch and painted two additional streets murals, one extending the Phinney Ave N mural from N 92nd to N 95th St and another at Linden Ave N and N 96th St.
By placing planter barrels and street murals at critical locations, the NE Greenwood Homezone traffic calming projects have reduced cut-through traffic from speeding cars entering from Greenwood Ave N and Aurora Ave N on many of our residential streets while still allowing emergency, delivery, and service vehicles access.
Where would you like to see strategically-placed planters and street murals that will calm traffic in the NE Greenwood Homezone?
This project was funded by a Community Partnership Grant - Neighborhood Matching Fund award from Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. Thank you!
