Year starts with two pedestrian deaths
Hartford already has had half as many deadly collisions as last year despite safety measures
With two pedestrian traffic deaths since the start of the new year, Hartford already has the same number of deadly collisions with walkers, joggers and bicyclists it had in all of 2017.
It’s too early to tell if this will be a year like 2018, when city streets claimed 10 lives — the most in decades. City leaders, who have made traffic safety a priority in recent years, hope that’s not the case.
“Nationwide, we have an epidemic of traffic deaths,” said Nat Gale, Hartford’s director of Capital Projects and Operations. “Forty thousand people a year die in traffic crashes, so there’s a lot of work to be done to reverse those trends.”
“Our vehicles are getting bigger, and our roads are designed for higher speeds,” he said. “We know that speed is the No. 1 predictor of death in a traffic crash.”
Speed and reckless operation are believed to be factors in the hit-andrun death of Michael Brown, 51, only minutes into the new year, police said. Brown, from Windsor, was struck on the 2000 block of Main Street, near Battles Street. He was rushed to St. Francis Hospital, were he later died.
Police learned the driver who left the scene was in a black Infiniti G35. They later found the car, but not the driver. Officers seized the vehicle and are combing it for evidence, police said.
A week later, Jan. 8, about 11:30 p.m., a woman was hit by a car at Franklin Avenue and Bliss Street on the other side of the city. Yarillis Esteras, 43, who lived nearby on Adelaide Street, was taken to Hartford Hospital, where she also later died, police said.
The driver stayed at the scene. Early indications are that Esteras may have tried to cross the street in an unsafe manner, according to police. They continue to investigate.
The number of fatal pedestrian collisions in Hartford soared from two in 2017 to 10 in 2018 — a year one city staffer called “horrendous.” Police said they don’t know why there were so many deaths that year.
Hartford wasn’t alone. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, there were 208 more pedestrian deaths (a 3.4% increase) and 51 more bicyclist fatalities (a 6.4% increase) nationally from 2017 to 2018, for a total of 259 more than the previous year.
Since then, the number of deadly pedestrian collisions in Hartford
has been much lower and has held steady, with four deaths each year, three years in a row, from 20192021.
Safety efforts
Regardless, Hartford has been working hard to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety.
“Here in the city, we’re involved in a multi-department effort to reduce traffic crashes,” Gale said.
In June, the city council adopted a Complete Streets Plan, which lays out ways to make Hartford’s streets more walkable. The plan notes the shortcomings of roads designed for car travel but not for bikes or pedestrians. A third of Hartford households don’t have access to a car, so many walk or bike.
The plan points to things Hartford is doing right as well as what it lacks. For example, the city already has more than 50 fluorescent
yellow pedestrian
crossing signs that stand in the street to warn drivers to slow down.
Gale ticked off a list of things Hartford is doing to make the capital city safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. The city:
Installed 70 speed humps (which are shorter than speed bumps) on residential streets last year;
Reduced Wethersfield
Avenue, where a bicyclist died in a hit-and-run collision in 2020, to one lane in each direction. The city also added center turn lanes and “physically protected” bike lanes with flexible posts along the busy travel lanes. Such traffic-calming measures are planned in places all over the city;
Plans to set a citywide speed limit of 25 mph. A recent vote by the state legislature that allows towns and cities to set their own speed limits makes this possible.
The city also is working toward getting state approval to install red light traffic cameras at intersections, which would lead to warnings for drivers who blow
through red lights. And officials are considering building curb extensions, which bump curbs out into travel lanes, in spots to get drivers to slow down, Gale said.
The state, too, addressed pedestrian safety when the legislature passed laws that went into effect in October. One was the law giving local control over speed limits and another requires drivers to stop for pedestrians who raise their hands at crosswalks.
As Kafi Rouse, director of communications for the
state Department of Transportation, said in September, “Often, pedestrians think a driver sees them
when they actually don’t.”