Category: Statewide Efforts

Statewide Fatal Crashes In MA, July 2021

Statewide Fatal Crashes In MA, July 2021

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Each month in 2021, we plan to post about the fatal crashes in Massachusetts from the previous month, and share any trends that we see. Last month, we took a look at the 4 fatal crashes listed in the MassDOT Crash Portal in June. In this post, we’ll look at crashes in MA in July 2021. The information in the chart below is compiled from news reports, and was checked against the MassDOT Crash Portal Dashboard “Fatal Information by Year.” The Google Street View images included below use the address listed in the crash portal.

  • Of the 27 fatal crashes in Massachusetts in July in the MassDOT Crash portal, 6 were identified as people walking. There was at least 1 additional fatal incident during July, announced in a press release by the MA State Police (MSP):
    • On July 12th, an unidentified 50 year old man was found deceased on the I-90 Exit 135 ramp. (Editor’s note: Since this crash is not listed in the crash portal, it is possible that MSP investigators ruled the person died prior to the crash or that it was a suicide, either of which would mean it would not appear in the FARS data.)
  • The crash portal does not include names. The names of 3 of the people walking who died have not been made public yet.
  • The average age of pedestrians hit & killed in July was 53.3.
  • At least 1 of the crashes were hit & runs (as referenced in news articles).
  • The name of the person driving was not identified in any of the crashes in news articles that we found.
Date 7/3/2021, 6:56 AM
Location Weld St.
Town West Roxbury
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 63
Sex F

A 63-year-old woman was struck & killed by a driver on Weld St near West Roxbury Parkway. The driver had just turned right off the parkway onto Weld. We could not find news articles about this crash.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, this street is under local jurisdiction. This stretch of road is two-way, with a travel lane in each direction. The road is 37 feet wide. Boston has a citywide 25mph default speed limit.

Date 7/10/2021, 11:52 AM
Location 80 Bellingham St.
Town Chelsea
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 1
Sex M

A 19-month-old boy was struck and killed in Chelsea by a 45-year-old woman driving an SUV that had just picked up a rider.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, this street is under local jurisdiction. This stretch of road is one-way, with a travel lane and a parking lane. The road is 24 feet wide. Chelsea has a citywide 25mph default speed limit.

WBZ-TV reported that speeding is a problem on Bellingham Street:

Neighbors tell us Bellingham Street is notorious for speeding and with two playgrounds nearby, they hope this tragedy will spark change.

“All these houses here, they all have little kids in them. Like I said, this street is like a racetrack and something needs to happen,” said [neighbor Paul] Ford. “People see things happen firsthand today – hopefully it sends a message.”

Date 7/13/2021, 8:54 AM
Location Wilbraham Rd. + Massachusetts Ave.
Town Springfield
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 65
Sex F

Margaret “Lani” Kretschmar, age 65, was hit and killed while crossing Wilbraham Road in a crosswalk. Margaret was an employee at American International College in Springfield. Western Mass News reports that the City of Springfield promises to make the intersection safer.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, this street is under local jurisdiction. This stretch of road is one lane in each direction. The road is 40 feet wide. The speed limit is 30mph.

WalkBoston and Way Finders conducted a walk audit that included a section of Wilbraham Road earlier this summer (summary, full report). While the crosswalk where this crash occurred was not part of the walk audit route, Wilbraham Road was called out in the first key recommendation:

Improve pedestrian safety and comfort on Wilbraham Road Wilbraham Road is a 2-lane collector street with parallel parking on both sides. The area is primarily single and multi-family residences with several restaurants and churches along the road. Vehicular traffic volumes are relatively high with drivers frequently hitting high speeds for such a dense neighborhood district. While there are wide sidewalks for pedestrians, additional infrastructure is needed to provide a safer and healthier walking environment.

Date 7/17/2021, 2:45 AM
Location 187 Pleasant St. Ralph Talbot St.
Town Weymouth
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 61
Sex F

Xuan “Sue” Vo, age 61, was struck and killed in a hit and run crash. She had stopped by a neighbor’s house to use the internet on Friday night and indicated she would take a walk before bed. She was found on the sidewalk at 2:45AM by a patrol officer. The person driving has not yet been found.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, this street is under local jurisdiction. This stretch of road is one lane in each direction with shoulders on each side. The road is 44 feet wide. The speed limit is unclear based on incomplete info in the Road Inventory database for this street.

A Wicked Local Weymouth/Weymouth News article from 2019 indicated efforts to regulate speeding drivers on nearby Park Avenue due to dangerous behavior.

Similarly, NBC Boston reports that speeding is a problem on Pleasant Street:

Patrick Barfield says the road where the fatal crash occurred is already an area of focus for police because of excessive speeding.

“This road unfortunately, we have a lot of people coming down here with a high speed,” Barfield said, “and actually the police have already been staking it out giving people tickets for it.”

Date 7/27/2021, 5:58 PM
Location 832 East St.
Town Walpole
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 81
Sex F

The Boston Globe reports that an unidentified 81-year-old woman was hit and killed by a driver on East Street in Walpole.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, this street is under local jurisdiction. This stretch of road is one lane in each direction with shoulders on each side. The speed limit is 35 mph and there are sidewalks.

Date 7/27/2021, 11:52 PM
Location 947 Providence Hwy. + Elm St.
Town Dedham
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 49
Sex M

WHDH reported that 49-year-old Stephen P. Hogan was hit and killed while crossing Providence Highway (Rt 1) at Elm Street by an unidentified driver of a Nissan Altima.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, this street is under MassDOT jurisdiction. This stretch of road is 3-4 lanes in each direction with sidewalks on each side. The speed limit is 40 mph.

In 2014, MAPC collaborated with the Towns of Dedham and Westwood to create a Dedham and Westwood Bicycle and Pedestrian Network Plan. Page 9 of this plan reads: 

“Rt 1 at Elm St (Dedham) Adjacent to Legacy Place, this intersection experiences high pedestrian volumes accessing bus routes on the opposite side of Rt 1. The wide street crossing plus high turning speeds creates unnecessary barriers primarily in terms of the length of the crossing. This intersection has relatively new sidewalks and crosswalks, but does not diminish the scale of the crossing. Responsibility – MassDOT.”

In 2019, the Town of Dedham established the Active Transportation Working Group to improve safety for non-vehicular travel in Dedham. The charter of this working group charges it with the responsibility to advocate for safe transportation connections between Route 1 and Route 1A in the Dedham corridor; this group is actively working to have MassDOT address this intersection (see letter). 

Updates

If you have an update about a community member who was killed in one of these crashes, please contact Brendan so we can update our . WalkBoston has maintained a list each year since 2016, pulling the information from news reports, social media, and from people like you that share the information with us.

Yearly trackers:  |||||

Reminder about the data from the MassDOT portal

MassDOT makes no representation as to the accuracy, adequacy, reliability, availability or completeness of the crash records or the data collected from them and is not responsible for any errors or omissions in such records or data. Under no circumstance will MassDOT have any liability for any loss or damage incurred by any party as a result of the use of the crash records or the data collected from them. Furthermore, the data contained in the web-based crash report tool are not an official record of what transpired in a particular crash or for a particular crash type. If a user is interested in an official copy of a crash report, contact the Registry (http://www.mass.gov/rmv/). The City of Boston Police Department may be contacted directly for official copies of crash reports and for crash data pertaining to the City of Boston. In addition, any crash records or data provided for the years after 2018 are subject to change at any time and are not to be considered up-to-date or complete. As such, open years’ of crash data are for informational purposes only and should not be used for analysis. The data posted on this website, including crash records and other reports, are collected for the purpose of identifying, evaluating or planning the safety enhancement of potential crash sites, hazardous roadway conditions or railway-highway crossings. Under federal law, this information is not subject to discovery and cannot be admitted into evidence in any federal or state court proceeding or considered for other purposes in any action for damages that involves the sites mentioned in these records (see 23 USC, Section 409).

Updates to MassDOT’s Complete Streets Program Funding Guidance

Updates to MassDOT’s Complete Streets Program Funding Guidance

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In March 2021, MassDOT released the new Complete Streets Program Funding Guidance for cities and towns interested in participating in the program. Launched in 2016, the MassDOT Complete Streets Funding Program is the first state program in the United States devoted to funding complete streets – streets that are designed to make travel safe, comfortable, and accessible for all users. Five years later, more than 50% of all Massachusetts communities are involved in the Complete Streets program.

Major changes to the Guidance Document include: 

  • Update to the Tier 2 Prioritization Plan 
  • Revision of the Tier 3 Project Application Template
  • Update to the funding eligibility criteria for Tier 3 grant recipients
  • New chapter on public engagement
  1. Update to the Tier 2 Prioritization Plan 
  • Tier 2 no longer has three entry options as previously indicated. The municipality must develop a Complete Streets Prioritization Plan and can still provide a commitment letter to MassDOT to pass the Complete Streets policy within one year. (This would be completing Tier 1 and 2 simultaneously).
  • Municipalities can request up to $38,000 in technical assistance funding (it is no longer $50,000). 
  1. Revision of the Tier 3 Project Application Template 
  • Revised template is available on the MassDOT website
  1. Update to the funding eligibility criteria for Tier 3 grant recipients 
  • Effective Fiscal Year 2022, municipalities can receive a maximum award of $400,000 in Tier 3 funding within any four-fiscal year timeframe. Municipalities can receive several smaller grants within the four-year window or one full grant of $400,000. It is important to note that Tier 2 grants do not count toward Tier 3 grants. Municipalities can check to see if they are eligible for additional funding here. 
  • If the municipality is applying for a project that costs more than the funding they are eligible for, they must include the amount of money they will need covered by external funding sources. 
  • A municipality can apply for a 2nd (or 3rd, 4th…) construction project only after the prior awarded project has been completed. 
  1. New chapter on public engagement
  • The 2021 Guidance document includes for the first time a section on “Public Engagement and Complete Streets.” MassDOT strongly recommends municipalities engage with community members– especially marginalized groups– on identifying issues and areas for improvement in the community. 
  • In order to engage with a community, MassDOT suggests: 
    • establishing working groups or planning committees with a diverse set of individuals, representative of the municipality;
    • engaging and listening to community members’ experiences and feedback; 
    • speaking with the public during all three tiers of the Complete Streets Funding process and providing updates on any changes and final decisions; and
    • removing barriers to participation, such as language, time, and access. To do this, MassDOT recommends:
      • Partnering with trusted community leaders and organizations to reach members of the community. Potentially compensate individuals for their time and involvement
      • Requesting time at a community/neighborhood meeting or hosting a pop-up at a public place like a grocery store or public library
      • Providing multiple options for individuals to provide in-person and online feedback at meetings and events 
      • Translating materials and having appropriate translators at events and meetings 
      • Ensuring accessibility for individuals with differing visual and physical abilities 
      • Providing incentives for participation, such as food, childcare, or stipends 

WalkBoston and the Complete Streets Program

WalkBoston has had a measurable impact on the success of MassDOT’s Complete Streets Funding program. We have worked on walking with 122 of the 267 municipalities that have participated in the funding program, with targeted assistance for the funding program provided to 25 cities and towns.

WalkBoston has assisted communities at each major program milestone: passage of a policy (Tier 1); development of a prioritization plan (Tier 2); and acquisition of capital funding (Tier 3). Specifically, WalkBoston provided technical assistance to:

  • 25 different communities in at least one Tier
  • 3 municipalities during Tier 1, 2, and 3
  • 10 municipalities in both Tier 2 and Tier 3
  • 19 municipalities that received Tier 3 funding, 11 of whom received funding for projects identified in walk audit recommendations

New Complete Streets Funding Announced 

On July 20, 2021, MassDOT announced that $6.05 million have been awarded to 18 communities for Complete Streets Funding Program Awards. For the full press release and information on communities awarded, visit the website here.

Statewide Fatal Crashes in MA, June 2021

Statewide Fatal Crashes in MA, June 2021

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Each month in 2021, we plan to post about the fatal crashes in Massachusetts from the previous month, and share any trends that we see. Last month, we took a look at the 8 fatal crashes listed in the MassDOT Crash Portal in May. In this post, we’ll look at crashes in MA in June 2021. The information in the chart below is compiled from news reports, and was checked against the MassDOT Crash Portal Dashboard “Fatal Information by Year.” The Google Street View images included below use the address listed in the crash portal.

  • Of the 38 fatal crashes in Massachusetts in June in the MassDOT Crash portal, 4 were identified as people walking.
  • The crash portal does not include names. The names of 2 of the people walking who died have not been made public yet.
  • The average age of pedestrians hit & killed in June was 63.5.
  • At least 2 of the crashes were hit & runs (as referenced in news articles).
  • The name of the person driving was not identified in 3 of the crashes in news articles that we found.
Date 6/8/2021, 6:34 AM
Location SR-2 EAST, MM 38.4
Town Shelburne
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 45
Sex F

45 year old Rhonda Thompson was out on a morning walk along the breakdown lane of Mohawk Trail / Rt 2 in Shelburne Falls when she was struck and killed by Peter Toomey. The Hampshire Franklin Daily Voice reports that he has pleaded not guilty to charges of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death; negligent motor vehicle homicide; and failure to stay in marked lanes. The district attorney said the defendant told police his truck had struck a deer the previous evening; once placed under arrest, he said he did not stop since the woman he with was with someone whom he assumed would summon help.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, this street is under MassDOT jurisdiction. This stretch of road is one lane in each direction with shoulders on each side. The speed limit is 50 mph and there are no sidewalks.

Date 6/17/2021, 3:31 PM
Location 46 Daggett Dr.
Town West Springfield
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 34
Sex F

An unidentified 34 year old woman was hit and killed in West Springfield on Daggett Drive. The West Springfield Police Department were asking witnesses to come forward to help their investigation.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, this street is under local jurisdiction. The speed limit is 30 mph, and there is a sidewalk on one side of the street. Streetview on Google Maps shows two lanes in each direction, and that the sidewalks, curb ramps, and street were repaved in October 2019. There is one crosswalk to cross over Daggett Drive at the major intersection of Rt 5 / Riverdale Street. There are no crosswalks to cross over Daggett Drive throughout the rest of the shopping plaza.

Date 6/20/2021, 8:00 PM
Location Columbia Rd. + Kosciuszko Cir.
Town Boston
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 84
Sex M

An unidentified 84 year old man was hit and killed at Columbia Rd + Kosciuszko Circle in Boston. We have not been able to find any news articles related to this crash.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, this section of the street and circle adjacent to Moakley Park is under MassDCR jurisdiction. According to a Road Safety Audit conducted in March 2019, this area includes Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) high crash clusters for people walking, driving, and biking. A HSIP-eligible location is a crash cluster that ranks within the top 5% of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) based on crash incidence and severity. In March 2021, City and state agencies announced a Kosciuszko Circle /Morrissey Boulevard planning study to improve mobility and climate resiliency.

Date 6/23/2021, 6:59 PM
Location Normandy Rd. WEST + Rose Kennedy Ln.
Town Framingham
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 91
Sex M

91 year old Huiman Ping was struck and killed by an unidentified 62 year old driver of a Honda Civic on Normandy Road in Framingham. The MetroWest Daily News reported that the Framingham Police said the driver from Holliston remained at the scene after the crash. According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, this street is under local jurisdiction. Framingham has a default speed limit of 25 mph.

Updates

If you have an update about a community member who was killed in one of these crashes, please contact Brendan so we can update our . WalkBoston has maintained a list each year since 2016, pulling the information from news reports, social media, and from people like you that share the information with us.

Yearly trackers:  |||||

Reminder about the data from the MassDOT portal

MassDOT makes no representation as to the accuracy, adequacy, reliability, availability or completeness of the crash records or the data collected from them and is not responsible for any errors or omissions in such records or data. Under no circumstance will MassDOT have any liability for any loss or damage incurred by any party as a result of the use of the crash records or the data collected from them. Furthermore, the data contained in the web-based crash report tool are not an official record of what transpired in a particular crash or for a particular crash type. If a user is interested in an official copy of a crash report, contact the Registry (http://www.mass.gov/rmv/). The City of Boston Police Department may be contacted directly for official copies of crash reports and for crash data pertaining to the City of Boston. In addition, any crash records or data provided for the years after 2018 are subject to change at any time and are not to be considered up-to-date or complete. As such, open years’ of crash data are for informational purposes only and should not be used for analysis. The data posted on this website, including crash records and other reports, are collected for the purpose of identifying, evaluating or planning the safety enhancement of potential crash sites, hazardous roadway conditions or railway-highway crossings. Under federal law, this information is not subject to discovery and cannot be admitted into evidence in any federal or state court proceeding or considered for other purposes in any action for damages that involves the sites mentioned in these records (see 23 USC, Section 409).

making connections to make Stoneham safer for people walking

making connections to make Stoneham safer for people walking

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Earlier this week, WalkBoston staff facilitated a conversation between Stoneham’s Director of Planning & Community Development and a town resident who had read a recent Boston Globe story (“Together, neighbors can thwart speed demons. Here’s how“). She had reached out to WalkBoston with concerns regarding the lack of pedestrian crossings on the stretch of Main Street between North Border Road and Marble/Summer Streets, which is under MassDOT jurisdiction and signed as part of Massachusetts Route 28. South Elementary School is located on the east side of Main Street near the intersection with Summer Street, and she was concerned about her daughter and her friends being able to safely walk to and from school along this high-speed road. The town’s only public bus route, MBTA Route 132, also serves this section of Main Street and requires passengers to cross the wide stretch of road in order to access their origins and destinations.

The director of planning affirmed the resident’s concerns about pedestrian safety on Main Street, and shared a wish list for safe travel to and from school that had been compiled by parents and staff of the South School. She also discussed the potential for a road diet to be implemented on Main Street, which could tie into current planning efforts for a complete streets strategy in downtown Stoneham. She also informed us that approximately $4.2 million in Federal and State transportation funding has been allocated in the Boston MPO’s FY21-25 Transportation Improvement Plan to upgrade the intersection of Main Street, North Border Road, and Pond Street. For next steps, Stoneham will be reaching out to MassDOT District Four to discuss potential methods to improve pedestrian safety on Main Street in the short term.

Comments on Re-Imagining Massachusetts’ Post-Pandemic Transportation System

Comments on Re-Imagining Massachusetts’ Post-Pandemic Transportation System

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Comments to Senate Committee on Re-Imagining Massachusetts Post-Pandemic Resiliency

Dear Senator Hinds and Committee Members:

WalkBoston is Massachusetts’ primary pedestrian advocacy organization, working across the Commonwealth to make it safer and easier for people to walk for all activities of daily living such as access to transit, school and jobs. The COVID-19 pandemic gave stark evidence that walkable neighborhoods and communities are critical to physical and mental health, to reducing isolation and to the resilience of all Massachusetts residents and their neighborhoods.

In light of the pandemic, we have learned that key components of the transportation system to support walking should include:

  • Speed management. We need measures to control, and often reduce, speeds on Commonwealth roadways so that they are safe for all roadway users. During the initial months of the pandemic, there was dangerous speeding on roadways across Massachusetts. MassDOT’s ongoing initiative to create tools and measures to set and manage safe speeds on all MassDOT roadways (other than limited access highways) needs the support and encouragement of the legislature to ensure its success, and then to bring those same measures to municipal roads as well.
  • Safe connections to transit. As we learned during the pandemic, essential workers are more dependent on transit than many others. We need fully accessible transit and bus stops throughout Massachusetts, including safe street crossings and sidewalk connections to adjacent neighborhoods. These are crucial to a transit system that works for everyone.
  • More local funding to repurpose public space. The overwhelmingly popular MassDOT Shared Streets and Spaces program that was introduced in response to the pandemic has demonstrated that municipalities are interested and ready to rethink how they use their streets to enable more and safer outdoor recreation,
    commerce, community activities, and mobility.
  • Chapter 90 and Complete Streets. Chapter 90 funds have been traditionally used to build and maintain municipal roads without requirements that sidewalks and crosswalks be included. We suggest that the Committee review this standard and consider including Complete Streets measures within Chapter 90, similar to those requirements set by the legislature for MassDOT roadways.
  • DCR Parkways. DCR’s recently released (and long delayed) Parkway Master Plan clearly demonstrates that immediate action is needed to vastly improve safety for people bicycling and walking. Parkways are cultural and historic landmarks and should remain fully integrated components of parks and open spaces, used and enjoyed by people for walking, rolling, and riding as originally intended. With a commitment to accelerated improvement in partnership with MassDOT, parkways should remain under DCR’s purview. We urge the legislature to set funding and regulatory standards for DCR as follows:
    • Adopt MassDOT’s Complete Streets guidelines as their default design standard for all parkways;
    • Utilize MassDOT crash portal data to implement quick-build improvements on the most dangerous parkway roads and intersections within the next 12 months;
    • Align its parkway speed limits with local speed limits, especially in municipalities where the default speed has been reduced to 25 miles/hour or less;
    • Provide DCR with the budget needed to complete the recommendations in the DCR Parkway Master Plan;
    • Require DCR to set measurable goals to reduce the number of serious and fatal crashes on DCR roadways and report publicly and annually on progress toward these goals; and
    • Require DCR to add analysis and recommendations for several key parkways currently missing from the plan.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Stacey Beuttell
Executive Director, WalkBoston
405 Waltham Street, Suite 309
Lexington, MA 02421
617-367-9255