Seattle to start fining drivers $124 in the fall for 'blocking the box'



SEATTLE -- Many of us are guilty of  it -- of "blocking the box," or intersections -- during heavy traffic.

The city is going to start fining people for it, but many drivers say they are not the problem -- it's the downtown infrastructure.

“It takes forever,” driver Mike Nesteroff said.

Drivers say that on bad days it takes 15 minutes to go less than three blocks along Mercer Street.

“You sit on Mercer, you don’t really drive,” Chesed Johnson said.

We've all pretty much done it. You think you can make the light but you end up blocking the box.

“We’ve done it before,” Johnson agreed.

City Council member Sally Bagshaw is so annoyed with the bad habit she wrote a blog called "Don’t be a jerk."

“It’s a problem whether you are driving, whether you are a pedestrian, or whether you are riding a bike; that is where 'don’t be a jerk' came from,” Bagshaw said.

A study by the Seattle Department of Transportation studied seven intersections where hundreds of drivers routinely block the box. Most of the violations are happening during the afternoon commute.

Fairview and Valley, 9th and Howell, Dexter and Mercer are some of the most clogged intersections.

“Every light cycle, someone is out and in the middle of the intersection, preventing other people from getting through,” SDOT Director Scott Kubly said.

Soon there will be a costly consequence. Starting this fall, police will start ticketing drivers $124 for each violation.

“When they start writing tickets, they are going to block traffic even worse,” Nesteroff said.

Nesteroff believes drivers should be held accountable but he and other drivers blame the design of Mercer and the timing of traffic lights for much of the gridlock.

When Q13 FOX News asked Kubly if the problem is drivers or the city’s infrastructure, this was his response:

“I think it’s a human nature issue, of everybody is trying to go through life as best they can, blocking the box more in the afternoon, I don’t know, people probably want to get home to their kids."

Kubly and city leaders admit drivers are not all to blame. They are in the process of upgrading the traffic light systems for better timing. They are also studying whether stopping right turns at red lights could help the problem.