YAKIMA, Wash. — Yakama Nation leaders and engineers told the Washington State Senate Transportation Committee on Sept. 30 that they are expanding a data‑driven traffic‑safety program focused on the US‑97 corridor and other travel routes used by tribal members.

The Yakama Nation engineering program described sensor pilots, roundabout construction and coordinated grants designed to reduce crashes and pedestrian strikes on reservation roads and in the surrounding ceded territory.

The work matters because Yakima County has had some of the highest motor‑vehicle and pedestrian fatality rates in Washington, presenters said, and the nation and its partners are using new tools to identify hazards before crashes occur.

Vice Chairman Christopher Wallahi, vice chairman of the Yakama Nation, opened the presentation by stressing safety: “Safety comes first.” He described support for US‑97 corridor improvements and urged patience from community members while construction proceeds.

Grayson Squiox, the Yakama Nation engineering program manager, told the committee the program administers many projects under self‑determination contracts and grants and oversees roughly 1,200 miles of public roads on the reservation. He said the nation formed a Tribal Traffic Safety Committee by tribal resolution in 2017 to coordinate engineering, enforcement and policy responses to recurring hazards.

Dr. Wei Sung, co‑founder and CEO of AI Vision, described a pilot deployment of a MUSS device — the Mobile Unit for Sensing Traffic — developed from University of Washington research and commercialized by the startup. He said the compact, AI‑powered unit runs onboard video analytics and transmits counts, speeds, surface‑condition indicators and trajectory data over cellular networks to a web dashboard. Dr. Sung said the system is designed to detect “near misses” by predicting whether vehicles are likely to collide in the next one or two seconds and to mark those events for analysis. “This way is actually the devices analyze all the trajectories and predict in the next 1 or 2 seconds are those vehicles gonna collide,” he said.

Dr. Sung and Yakama Nation staff said the units can run on solar power where permanent power is too costly and can trigger real‑time warnings on roadside message signs. The project team told the committee that Stage 1 of the USDOT‑funded pilot will be completed early next year and that they plan to seek additional federal funding for an expansion.

Portia Shields, assistant manager in the Yakama Nation engineering program, reviewed the program’s outreach history with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). She said WSDOT initially proposed eight roundabouts on US‑97 in 2015, a plan the tribal council rejected pending public outreach. After three years of community meetings and crash‑history review, tribal leaders approved construction of three roundabouts; the program reported the first roundabout at McDonald Road is completed and a third is under construction as part of a longer program that at one point envisioned up to seven roundabouts along the corridor.

Mark McKechnie of the Washington Traffic Safety Commission reviewed statewide and tribal data for the committee, saying the commission recorded an almost 10 percent statewide decrease in traffic fatalities in 2024 but that recent years remain among the highest in three decades. McKechnie emphasized limits in available data: race and tribal membership are recorded on death certificates, so detailed demographic information is available only for fatalities, not for other crash participants.

Committee members asked about the balance among engineering, enforcement and education. Squiox and Shields said the MUSS near‑miss counts allow a proactive, risk‑based approach: rather than reacting to historical crashes alone, the nation can target engineering countermeasures, enforcement or outreach where trajectories and near‑misses indicate elevated risk.

The presenters listed frequent partners on the effort: the University of Washington (STAR Lab), AI Vision, WSDOT’s South Central Region, the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, Yakama Power and USDOT grant programs (including a SMART grant and SBIR‑funded work). They said the program coordinates with Yakima County on issues that overlap water, fisheries and roadway planning.

Members of the committee praised the coordination and said they will look for opportunities to fund or scale successful elements. Presenters said the MUSS pilot’s first phase will wrap up early next year and the nation will continue outreach and seek additional federal funding for Stage 2.

For follow‑up, the Yakama Nation engineering program asked legislators and agency staff to continue partnering on safety projects and on funding applications for additional sensor deployments and corridor countermeasures.