City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, were dressed in new holiday style Friday, as Seattle police deployed orange barriers that can block rogue vehicles.
They protected crowds at the annual tree-lighting celebration Friday afternoon at Westlake Park. Seven units were arrayed next to Fifth Avenue, and another row faced Fourth Avenue. Police vehicles barricaded the Pine Street road lanes.
These or similar devices have been used at other events including Mariners baseball games and Seahawks football games, according to Sgt. John O’Neil, a police spokesperson.
The 700-pound steel devices are sold by Meridian Rapid Defense Group, based in Pasadena, California, a label on the barriers says. The angular shape, resting on a flat base with teeth, is designed to lift and bounce vehicles without wounding the driver.
Seattle has paid Meridian $270,576, according to an online city list of contracts. A City Council record this March shows a federal Homeland Security grant of $300,000 for barriers to defend so-called “soft targets.” They’re to be shared with Everett, Bellevue and Tacoma police departments.
Seattle police purchased 24 barriers, trailers to haul them, and the ability to borrow extra barriers for large events, Meridian CEO Peter Whitford said Friday. They’ve been used for Pride and Torchlight parades, he said. The Seahawks also own a set, he said.
More people in the Puget Sound area are likely to see them as they return to public gatherings after pandemic restrictions.
Meridian has sold units in all 50 states, and to clients in Canada, Australia and elsewhere, Whitford said. The small city of San Luis Obispo, California, owns 56 units in every color of the rainbow, to blend in with farmers markets, parades and political rallies.
The company says it originally supplied barriers to hot zones such as the U.S. base at Kandahar, Afghanistan.
The catalyst for civilian uses was the 2016 attack in Nice, France, said Whitford. On Bastille Day, an extremist drove a truck into groups of revelers, killing 86 people and injuring hundreds.
“People realized it’s very, very easy for someone to do enormous harm by renting a vehicle and plowing that into an unprotected crowd of people,” Whitford said.ADVERTISINGSkip Ad
Closer to home, a driver in New York City killed eight and injured 11 people, including overseas tourists, in a crowded bicycle lane in 2017. That same year, an Ohio man killed one person and injured others by driving into a crowd of counterprotesters, near a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Then in 2018, a young man associated with the misogynistic “incel” movement killed 10 people and hurt 16 others when he drove a white rental van into sidewalks in Toronto. Just a year ago, a man killed six people while driving an SUV into a Christmas parade crowd in Wisconsin.
Seattle has witnessed some dangers when vehicles mix with people on foot.
This spring at Pike Place Market, a driver struck two people during a chaotic road-rage incident, that revived calls to ban general traffic there.
A Shuttle Express van hit four pedestrians at the corner of Fifth and Pine when the driver suffered what police called a medical emergency in 2017.
Mark Ostrow, a safe-streets activist from the Queen Anne neighborhood, said people on these corners at Westlake deserve permanent vertical barriers, known as bollards. They are commonplace in Europe and South America, outside U.S. government buildings, and even Seattle Center, which maintains movable posts that allow delivery and maintenance trucks inside.
“I like the idea of being able to close streets for community events and celebrations,” Ostrow said. “It would be wonderful if we had a more permanent infrastructure that doesn’t look like the aftermath of a terrorist event.”
