More than 20 pedestrians have died on Springfield streets since 2020. What’s being done to make roads safer?
More than 20 pedestrians have died on Springfield streets since 2020. What’s being done to make roads safer?
- Published: Oct. 02, 2023, 5:38 a.m.
Signs on State Street across from the Springfield Central Library urge drivers to slow down. (Don Treeger / The Republican)
SPRINGFIELD — When the walk signal flashed on Roosevelt Avenue, Rebecca Willoughby started to cross the four-lane street with the help of her walker, Myrtle.
About halfway over, the light started to flash a warning — and before Willoughby could make it to the other side, it turned red: Don’t walk.
Willoughby, 76, often crosses the street to get to the Raymond A. Jordan Senior Center on the other side, about a third of a mile walk. The pedestrian signal across Roosevelt Avenue gives walkers about 20 seconds, but it needs to be longer, she said.
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“Running for most of us is not in the equation,” she said, sitting with her walker not far from Independence House, the senior housing complex where she lives.
The brief amount of time she and Myrtle get to cross the avenue one issue Willoughby flagged on her survey with WalkBikeSpringfield, an advocacy group working to make the city safer for walking and biking. On a recent morning, organizers and Willoughby walked with clipboards, taking notes and logging issues along her route, from home to the senior center. WalkBikeSpringfield is conducting “walk audits” in different parts of a roughly three-mile stretch of Roosevelt Avenue as part of a project to make the street safer.
In September alone, multiple pedestrians were struck and killed in the city. One woman was killed on Hancock Street and another person died after she was was hit on Dickinson Street.
Rebecca Willoughby, a resident of Independence House in Springfield, joins members of Walk/Bike Springfield and Walk Massachusetts on a walking audit to check on pedestrian safety in the area of the Jordan Senior Center and Putnam High. From left are Betsy Johnson of Walk/Bike Springfield, Willoughby, Deborah Hunter of Walk/Bike Springfield and Brendan Kearney, co-executive director of Walk Massachusetts. They are crossing Roosevelt Avenue. (Don Treeger / The Republican)
In 2021, the city tied with Boston for the most pedestrian fatalities in the state, according to an analysis from WalkMassachusetts. That year, nine people died in both cities. So far this year, five pedestrians have been struck and killed in Springfield, according to Ryan Walsh, a spokesperson for the Police Department.
The city is working on a federally funded project to make the streets safer, while activists advocate for changes in areas where they see problems.
Across the street from the city’s Central Library on State Street, lawn signs greet walkers and drivers. “No more deaths, slow down,” one says. “We miss Gayle,” another reads. “Build the promised crosswalk,” a third says.
Gayle Ball was crossing the street from the library to the staff parking lot in November 2021 when she was killed by a car. Ball, 56, was a library supervisor of technical services and collections. The driver has been charged with motor vehicular homicide; a jury trial is scheduled for November, according to the Hampden District Attorney’s office.
Springfield Central Library employee Gayle Ball was struck by a car and killed while walked across State Street on Nov. 10, 2021. The driver was charged with motor vehicular homicide (Photo courtesy of George Miller)
It was not the first time someone was struck and killed there. In 2014, Destiny A. Gonzalez, 7, was hit while crossing the street with her mother and cousin. The driver later pleaded guilty to motor vehicular homicide.
“Why did it have to happen again?” asked Chelsea Bell, president of the union that represents city librarians, a group that’s pushed for a crosswalk outside the city’s Central Library.
A crosswalk exists down the street, but it’s not close and many people cross midblock on State Street, from the parking lot on one side and the library on the other. There was a crosswalk in the spot in the 1980s, but it was removed after several pedestrians were hit in it.
In search of a fix
In late 2021, about six weeks after Ball was killed, the city announced plans to build a raised crosswalk outside the library and narrow the road to one lane in each direction, rather than two, to slow cars. Then in August 2022, the city said the project was delayed while the Department of Public Works looked at its potential effect on traffic.
This summer, after more project delays, the union representing librarians rallied for the crosswalk to be built.
“I understand they are frustrated, but we wanted to make sure we got it right,” DPW Director Christopher Cignoli said.
A raised crosswalk and narrowed traffic lane is designed and on its way, but the city is waiting on federal funding arrive for construction, Cignoli said. Early this year, the city got a $15 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to make its streets safer. By looking at crash data, the project selected 15 intersections and 10 corridors to focus on.
State Street, for example, will be narrowed to two lanes from four, with a raised crosswalk near the library. “You will have no choice to slow down in that area,” Cignoli said. The city put out barrels in the street last year to simulate narrowing the road. “It went a lot better than I thought it would,” Cignoli said. “I thought we’d be picking up barrels all over western Massachusetts.”
The city expects to hire a consultant to design improvements that could begin next spring, Cignoli said. At intersections, the city will improve lighting, upgrade handicap ramps and adjust crosswalk lights to make sure pedestrians have enough time.
The project, Safe Streets and Roads for All, aims to improve safety for pedestrians and drivers alike. Between 2015 and 2019, 56 people died in crashes on Springfield roads, while 428 people had a serious injury, according to a city safety action plan drafted last year by consultants.
Greta Jochem, investigations editor for The Republican newspaper, records the speed of cars on State Street in front of the Springfield Library in mid-September. (Don Treeger / The Republican)
The federal funding is significant, Cignoli said. “These are projects targeting a specific location that ... wouldn’t get done at a local level,” Cignoli said, “because it’s too expensive for a municipality to spend $15 million.” The project application listed 25 sites in need of attention.
From Cignoli’s perspective, one of the challenges of making the streets safer is looking at data and analyzing potential solutions when people want quick action after a tragedy.
“We kind of have to stay away from the emotion of, ‘Hey, somebody got seriously hurt here. Just do something.’ … We want to make sure it’s going to work. Not just put up a traffic light because we think it will work. There is a lot of background work we have to do from an engineering standpoint.”
Streets can be made safer, but also people’s behavior has to change. “If people are going to break rules, there’s only so much we can do,” Cignoli said. One strategy: slowing cars, he said. Then if there is a crash, a car going slower has a smaller chance of injuring someone.
On parts of streets like Page Boulevard, Sumner Avenue and Main Street, Cignoli said, “we still have a big, big problem with speeding.”
Checking speeds
The speed limit on the westbound 200 block of State Street, for example, is posted at 25 miles per hour, but people speed there. In testing done by The Republican, 25% of westbound cars on State Street were found to be going 10 miles or more over the speed limit. One car rushed by at 45 mph. Every car in one lane of traffic was tested in a 30-minute period one morning in September.
The Republican borrowed a Bushnell speed radar gun from the University of Massachusetts Transportation Center. With that in hand, a reporter measured and recorded each car’s speed as it drove by. When possible, the reporter stood behind a tree or bush so cars would not see the radar gun and purposefully slow down.
Greta Jochem, investigations editor for The Republican newspaper, records the speed of cars on State Street in front of the Springfield Library. (Don Treeger / The Republican)
Traffic on State Street needs to be slowed, said Betsy Johnson, one of the founders of WalkBikeSpringfield. “It’s a two-way racetrack,” she said.
Using the same testing process, The Republican found that about 14% of southbound cars were speeding by 10 mph or more over the 35 mph limit on Roosevelt Avenue near Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy, near where Willoughby uses a crosswalk.
When asked about that data, Walsh, the police department spokesperson, said officers are out on key city arteries like State Street and Roosevelt Avenue issuing tickets and citations daily. While Walsh said it’s not possible to isolate speeding ticket figures, this year, the department has issued more than 9,000 traffic citations, after issuing 14,600 last year.
WalkBikeSpringfield sees speeding in the city as a crisis.
The group has been meeting for eight years to shape ways to make streets safer for walkers and bikers.
Decades ago, major arterial roads were built to cut through neighborhoods. “So people could get in and out of our communities as quickly as possible,” Johnson said.
“We’re now speaking up and saying people live here. We’re the priority. You don’t need to have four lane — two lanes in each direction — roadways through residential neighborhoods with football-length distances between crossings in the city.”
Betsy Johnson of Walk/Bike Springfield checks the speed of vehicles along Roosevelt Avenue near the Jordan Senior Center. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 9/19/2023
She’s also pushing the city to create a Complete Streets Council, a group of residents and city officials that evaluates the city’s implementation of its Complete Streets policy.
In 2016, the City Council passed a Complete Streets policy resolution, one requirement for eligibility for a state Department of Transportation funding program. Mayor Domenic J. Sarno approved it.
The seven-page resolution, which includes specific best practices, also suggests creating a Complete Streets Council. Johnson has written letters to Sarno’s office asking him to establish the group — and is still waiting.
“It is alarming for Springfield to have among the highest pedestrian and cyclist fatalities in all of Massachusetts,” she wrote in a July letter.
Sarno thanked Johnson and WalkBikeSpringfield for the letter, and pointed to projects like the $15 million federal grant for improvements, according to Bill Baker, the mayor’s communications director.
WalkBikeSpringfield also wants the city to engage the community more in its planning for the Safe Streets and Roads for All project, Johnson said. Cignoli said he plans to present plans to neighborhood groups, likely this winter.
Through walk audits like the one Willoughby did, WalkBikeSpringfield is looking at a stretch of Roosevelt Avenue between Island Pond Road and East Street.
The group plans a community forum Oct. 26 about its Roosevelt Avenue project, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Springfield Prep Charter School at 2071 Roosevelt Ave., and is running a survey about the street on its website.
