SEATTLE — After some North Seattle neighbors blocked streets with barricades to prevent gunfire, city officials are working on legislation that could help other neighborhoods do the same.

Residents blocked three side streets just west of Aurora Avenue North on Saturday with soil-filled steel planters in response to shootings in the area this month, including one that blasted a hole through the wall of an infant’s bedroom.

Mayor Katie Wilson directed the city’s Transportation Department on Wednesday to replace the planters with “temporary traffic calming measures” while her office looks into permanent solutions. Meanwhile, two City Council members are working on a bill that would allow transportation officials to close streets, if the police chief recommends doing so to prevent gun violence and other crime.

The leaders took action within days of the makeshift barricades appearing on North 97th, 98th and 102nd streets. The large silver planters were intended to prevent shootings on the Aurora corridor from spilling into residential neighborhoods — a problem neighbors and police have said is tied to the area’s longtime sex trade.

An unsigned letter that appeared with the planters said city officials never carried out a plan to close off two side streets after a shooting there last summer. Faced with ongoing gunfire, neighbors were left “with no other option” but to close the roads themselves, the letter states.

Not everyone agreed with the strategy, and by Thursday, some of the planters had been destroyed and dragged off the street. But their appearance left city officials with a question: How should they respond when residents faced with gun violence take public safety measures into their own hands — even if it breaks city rules?

Wilson’s answer came in a statement Wednesday, when her office announced she had directed the Transportation Department to replace the planters with temporary traffic calming measures. The statement did not describe the measures, but said they would be in place by Friday afternoon.

“The current situation along the Aurora corridor is unacceptable,” Wilson’s office said. “We share neighbors’ desire for immediate action.”

Meanwhile, two City Council members are working on a bill that would authorize the city’s transportation director to close a street if the police chief recommends doing so to prevent criminal activity from happening there. Under Seattle’s municipal code, the director is only authorized to close alleys — not streets — after receiving such a recommendation.

If the ordinance passes, Councilmember Debora Juarez said residents concerned about gun violence could contact police or their district representative about closing certain streets in their neighborhood. This “mechanism” would deter people from blocking streets without permission, which risks impeding police vehicles, ambulances and firetrucks en route to emergencies, said Juarez, who represents North Seattle.

The idea for the legislation came from a council bill then-Mayor Bruce Harrell drafted in October, but was never presented to a committee, Juarez said. At the time, residents across Seattle had been partially blocking roads with steel planters, often to prevent RVs from parking there, she said.

Saturday was the first time Juarez had ever seen residents block entire streets. The neighbors’ desperation to solve the gun violence “state of emergency” along Aurora prompted her and Councilmember Eddie Lin to bring Harrell’s bill “back to life,” she said.

“This community was put in a position to put up their own barricades. That speaks volumes,” she said. “At the end of the day, I don’t blame them.”

Juarez, the future ordinance’s sponsor, does not know when it will be read in the City Council’s public safety committee, but her office is “working with urgency,” according to Juarez’s chief of staff, Kelly Brown.

Lin’s spokesperson, Garrett Moore, said the council member is supportive of the legislation, including to help residents he represents in South Seattle who have requested a similar approach to battling gun violence. A representative for Councilmember Bob Kettle, chair of the public safety committee, did not respond to inquiries.

The moves by Wilson and Juarez are their latest efforts to respond to what Aurora residents have described as a surge in shootings this month.

Bullets struck one home near Aurora and 98th four times on May 16 and gunfire erupted again about 4 a.m. Saturday, when people reported hearing more than 30 gunshots in the same area, according to a police statement.

Seattle police data shows a spike in reports of shots fired this month in the area of those shootings. By the end of April, there were seven such reports between North 85th and 115th streets and between Fremont Avenue North and Interstate 5. There have been eight such reports so far in May, according to the data.

Wilson’s staff met Saturday with Aurora residents to talk about the “deeply unsettling” gun violence, her office said that day in a statement. Meanwhile, Seattle police would increase overnight “emphasis patrols” near Aurora and send their gun violence-reduction team to the area, Wilson’s office said.

Juarez also released a statement on May 21, announcing she and her staff were working with Wilson to reduce shootings and sex trafficking along Aurora, and that police were “intensifying” efforts to disrupt violent crime, trafficking and drug use in the area.

Jake, the young father whose house was struck by bullets on May 16, was not satisfied.

In a phone call Thursday, Jake said Juarez and Lin’s ordinance could be helpful. But the mayor’s decision to remove the planters and leave the roads open was a “totally inadequate solution to gun violence,” he said.

Only fully closing the streets — not slowing traffic — will prevent future drive-by shootings in their neighborhood, said Jake, who requested to use his first name only.

In the days since the shooting, Jake said he only recently started feeling more comfortable at home thanks to the planters. There have been no shootings in his neighborhood since they were installed, he said.

The mayor’s decision on Wednesday left Jake “feeling really nervous about what’s next.”

“I feel scared that this will allow the next shooting to happen to my house or my neighbors’,” he said.

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