How many deaths will it take to make Stamford roads safer?
At the time I had just moved to Stamford, near the intersection of Washington Boulevard (CT-137) and Tresser Boulevard (US-1), within walking distance of my new job.
That Thursday night in 2022, I was playing video games when I looked out of my window. Across the street by the Government Center I saw a man lying face down on Tresser. He was lying near the drain in the outer lane heading west, about 10 yards or so from the crosswalk. The next thing I noticed were flashing red and blue lights that came and took him away. It wasn’t until my dad reached out the next morning that I learned the story. On April 13 just before 8 p.m., a driver in a gray Acura headed west struck and killed the pedestrian, 52-yearold Ronald Molina, in a hit-andrun.
Around 2 a.m.on Dec. 3 it happened again. A block north of my apartment, a man in a black Mercedes headed south on Washington Boulevard killed two 25-year-old pedestrians, Giovanni Vega Benis and Yuliana Arias Lozano. The memorials left by friends and family can still be seen from Columbus Park.
On May 16, after the fourth death in three years, the City of Stamford and the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) held a community meeting about Washington Boulevard. When I had the courage to raise my hand, I shared my story and outrage at the reckless driving that took the lives of Ronald, Giovanni, and Yuliana. Unfortunately, one elderly gentleman had the audacity to suggest we continue to prioritize cars over pedestrians and cyclists because only a few people walk and bike, but everyone has a car.
Well, I don’t own a car. I walk to work. I walk to Target for groceries. I walk to visit my friends. I walk to Scalzi Park for the town kickball league. I walk downtown to eat and drink. I walk all the time. I can’t avoid it. Pedestrians came before the combustion engine and so should they on our hierarchy of street users. Streets are home to
people; cars are visitors.
Two months after the community meeting, a Stamford policeman in an SUV killed a pedestrian, 69year-old Tommie Jackson on Wire Mill Road in North Stamford. On Nov. 21, only a mile from my apartment, around 6:15 a.m., a driver in a red sedan headed east on Route 1 killed a pedestrian, 74-year-old Marie Jean-Charles, in a hit-and-run while she was walking to work at ShopRite.
Speed is the issue, but no amount of enforcement or education will slow down drivers. PSAs and red light cameras will treat the symptom, not the cause. People drive fast because the streets are engineered for speed. When a child raids the cookie jar, we could educate them on the adverse health effects of a high-sugar diet or set up a live video feed of the jar. A better solution is to put the cookie jar out of reach on the top shelf. It is the same with drivers.
Infrastructure must change to decrease vehicle speeds with raised crosswalks, bumpouts, fewer and thinner lanes. Better than lecturing or threatening drivers is building an environment where driving fast isn’t an option. Cities are built for people, and people walk places. Operating
a vehicle is a privilege that cannot come at the cost of human lives.
Recently, CTDOT released the results of its Road Safety Audit for Washington Boulevard. The report is insightful and proposes some significant safety improvements for all users of Washington Boulevard, from simple to complex changes. While I’m grateful for the work they’ve done, it’s unfortunate that the scope is limited to that one stretch, because pedestrian safety is an issue in every part of Stamford.
This isn’t the last time that someone driving a car kill a pedestrian in Stamford. It may not be the last time this year. The proposed changes to Washington Boulevard are long overdue, but were only sparked by the recent loss of four lives. Route 1 has claimed three lives in the past four years. How many more lives will it take to start a safety audit for Route 1? Do people have to die on every street corner before we start making sweeping changes to the way we let cars bully us? When are we going to reshape our environment for what matters the most: people.