Feet First

Feet First helps people create more walkable communities. Across Washington, pedestrian transportation is broken and lacking. Every other mode of transportation has an organized industry and a professional lobby, yet pedestrians are lacking a basic right to safe, healthy mobility. Feet First conducts "crosswalk actions" as a way to educate drivers about the crosswalk law, to demand changes at dangerous locations and to build community in neighborhoods. These events are led by a person in a colorful chicken suit designed to shift people's attention, make drivers more aware of pedestrians and promote events that were fun for everyone involved.

The goals of this organization are to promote the rights and interests of pedestrians and to encourage walking.

Along with drivers, Seattle media have taken notice of the prodigious poultry, with prominent coverage from its first crosswalk action in April to their event walking four miles to work with county executive Ron Sims. Recently in a crosswalk action held to commemorate the one year mark in a middle-school boy's recovery from a serious head injury being hit in a crosswalk, two 7th graders auditioned for the role of the chicken. The event drew community residents, family and students from Hamilton International Middle School, as well as media from six news outlets. The student who had been hit a year earlier even donned the chicken suit for a poignant trip across the intersection.

The chicken suit and crosswalk actions have gotten the local government's attention as well. Feet First recently received a letter from the Seattle Department of Transportation advising them that a "road diet" will be conducted on this same stretch of road. Typical road diet techniques include narrowing the width of a vehicular travel lane and reducing the number of lanes to promote pedestrian safety and walkability. Feet First has worked with the freight community to get their support for the road diet, and they have found truckers sympathetic to pedestrian safety issues. The efforts of Feet First and Active Seattle have also generated improvements such as the set back of stop bars at dangerous intersections and other crossing upgrades. They continue to partner with local, city and state governments to raise the priority of funding and designing walkable communities.