Tag: Malden

Statewide Fatal Crashes In MA, October 2023

Statewide Fatal Crashes In MA, October 2023

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Each month, we post about the fatal crashes in Massachusetts from the previous month, and share any trends that we see. For the full list of monthly posts, head here.

Last month, we took a look at crashes listed in the MassDOT Crash Portal in September; four were identified as people walking. In this post, we’ll look at crashes in MA in October 2023. The information in the chart below is compiled from news reports, and was checked against the MassDOT Crash Portal Dashboard “Fatal Crash Information.” Any Google Street View images included below use the address listed in the crash portal.

  • Of the 31 fatal crashes in Massachusetts in October in the MassDOT Crash portal, 6 were identified as people walking.
  • 5 of the 6 pedestrian crashes had the ‘speed limit’ field blank in the Road Inventory Viewer.
  • The average age of pedestrians hit & killed in October was 63.3
Date 10/8/2023, 7:50 PM
Location Summit St. + Christina Dr.
Town Peabody
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 61
Sex M

MassLive reports 61-year old Robert King was crossing the road on Summit Street near Christina Drive when they were hit by a car around 7:40 p.m. on Oct. 7. King died at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, Summit St is under local jurisdiction. It is a two-way road with one travel lane in each direction. There is a sidewalk on one side of the street. There is a crosswalk at Christina Drive in Google Street View from 2020. The speed limit is unclear, as it is not listed in the database, and there are no nearby speed limit signs on Google Street View.

Date 10/12/2023, 7:52 AM
Location 777 West St.
Town Pittsfield
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 49
Sex M

The Berkshire Eagle reports 49-year old Shane Cassavant was struck by a 2015 Chevrolet Colorado truck driven by 87-year-old Edward Ladouceur. The Pittsfield Police said Ladouceur did not go around the construction zone, and instead drove into it, striking Cassavant with his truck as Cassavant worked in the road.

From the Berkshire Eagle article:

West Street has been the focus of community conversations around making roadways safer for pedestrians after a local mother, Shaloon Milord, was killed after she was struck in a crosswalk on West Street in January while walking her young child to the bus stop.

The city has proposed a series of road changes designed to slow traffic over a mile stretch of the road, including the area where Milord was fatally injured, near Dorothy Amos Park. But that project would end at Valentine Road approximately a half a mile to the east from the apparent site of Thursday’s crash.

The fatal pedestrian crash on West Street in Pittsfield in January also involved a driver in their 80s.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, West Street is under local jurisdiction. It is a two-way road with one travel lane in each direction. There are no sidewalks. The speed limit is unclear, as it is not listed in the database; however, an image in the Berkshire Eagle article shows a 40mph speed limit sign.

Date 10/19/2023, 12:56 PM
Location Main St. + Mountain Ave.
Town Malden
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 63
Sex F

WCVB reports 63-year old Mary McTaggart, pushing groceries on the sidewalk, was struck and killed after a multi-car crash in Malden. Investigators say the driver of a BMW SUV slammed into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement SUV that was stopped at this light before the BMW careened off the road, hitting several poles and striking the woman on the sidewalk.

Boston 25 News spoke to someone who had recently seen the victim:

Madina Adolph fought back tears after finishing her first day volunteering in the food pantry of a nearby YMCA. She tells Boston 25 she had just served the woman.

“I cannot believe I just help her get food it just a sad thing you know life is too short,” said Adolph.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, Main Street is under local jurisdiction. It is a two-way road with one travel lane in each direction and sidewalks on both sides of the street. The intersection of Main Street and Mountain Avenue has a traffic signal. The speed limit is unclear, as it is not listed in the database.

Date 10/26/2023, 7:35 PM
Location 19 City Hall Ave.
Town Gardner
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 59
Sex M

We could not find any additional news coverage of this crash. If you have any information, please let us know.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, City Hall Avenue is under local jurisdiction. It is a two-way road with one travel lane in each direction and a sidewalk on both sides. There is diagonal parking on one side and parallel parking on the other side of the street. The speed limit is unclear, as it is not listed in the database.

Date 10/27/2023, 6:01 PM
Location 265 Pleasant St.
Town Marblehead
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 80
Sex M

The Marblehead Current reports 80-year old Karl Johnson was struck and killed while crossing Pleasant between Smith Street and Mohawk Road.

From the Current article:

Resident Dan Albert, a local safe streets advocate who has researched Pleasant Street, called for more action.

“Speeding continues to be a problem along the 25 mph roadway, despite the recent fatalities and ongoing concerns,” said Albert. “We have lots of data to show us the danger points. And those are not crash data.”

He added, “I would like to know, ‘How are the police using the data that they have from the new speed advisory signs?’”

Albert argues that the busy corridor should be evaluated for a “road diet,” reducing lanes and lane widths to slow cars.

“Pleasant Street may be wide enough to accommodate more and current traffic volumes, including bicycle lanes,” he said. “Narrower lanes themselves can slow speeds. So there are two benefits — slower traffic and more space for other uses.”

Town officials note traffic and street changes should occur as incremental steps to improve safety through traffic calming and enhanced visibility of crosswalks.

In 2022, the town installed bump-outs at three crosswalks along Pleasant Street near Mohawk Road, Smith Street, and on West Shore Drive. The curb extensions narrow the roadway width at crossing points to reduce pedestrian exposure and slow approaching traffic.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, Pleasant St/MA-114 is under local jurisdiction. It is a two-way road with one travel lane in each direction and a sidewalk on each side. The speed limit is unclear, as it is not listed in the database; the Marblehead Current articles states it is 25mph.

Date 10/27/2023, 6:24 PM
Location 235 State St.
Town Springfield
Type PEDESTRIAN
Age 68
Sex M

A MassLive obituary shares that Michael Cooley, a lifelong resident of Springfield, died at the age of 68 after being struck by a motorist while crossing the street in front of his apartment at the Classical Condominiums on State Street. State Street was the deadliest street in Springfield for pedestrians in 2021.

From his obituary:

An indominable optimist with an irrepressible sense of humor and a love of his own jokes, Michael was an active member of Rotary and Sinai Temple, a Board Member of Pathlight, a past Grand Master of his Masonic Lodge, and an enthusiastic participant and volunteer at Grey House, the Salvation Army, the Golden Age Club, and Just Faith. He never missed a Sunday making sandwiches for Springfield’s homeless population or the chance to volunteer to help someone in need.

Springfield has never had a more loyal sports fan that Michael. In good times and bad, he was there as a jersey-wearing season ticket holder to cheer on the Falcons, the Thunderbirds, UMass basketball and football teams. Although he had physical challenges and special needs his whole life, Michael was oblivious to his own limitations or those of others. Age, race, religion, and “disability” were distinctions without differences to him except when they called forth a chance to help.

According to the MassDOT Road Inventory, State Street is under local jurisdiction. It is a two-way road with two travel lanes in each direction. There are sidewalks on both sides of the street. The speed limit is 30mph.

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 2023 list. 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:  |  ||||| 2022 | 2023

Report: Fatal Pedestrian Crashes in MA (2021)
Report: Fatal Pedestrian Crashes in MA (2022)

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).

Comments on Width of Northern Strand Community Trail

Comments on Width of Northern Strand Community Trail

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February 6, 2019

To Kurt Gaertner
Land Policy and Planning Director
MA Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs

Mr. Gaertner,

Thank you for your continued efforts to develop the Northern Strand Community Trail from the Mystic River to Lynn. We are inspired by the leadership and dedication demonstrated by your team and Governor Baker, and we appreciate your extensive community outreach as the pathway is developed over this coming year.

We would like to comment on the inadequate width of the pathway, as it has been presented by the project team, as a contiguous 10’ width for the entire length. The standards set forth in AASHTO and MassDOT’s own separated path design guidelines recommend 10’ only on low-volume pathways, with a recommendation of 12’-14’ for paths with high pedestrian volumes. Based on current and projected usage of the pathway, we believe the Northern Strand Community Trail should adhere to the standard of 12’-14’, or even potentially exceed that, wherever possible. It is important also to note that these path standards do not take into account the emerging technologies of micro-mobility devices and electric bicycles, which will invariably be used for transportation purposes on the Northern Strand. This goal of widening the pathway is to mitigate conflicts between users, and to plan for the area’s expected growth and development that will bring more people out onto the path in the coming years. We believe that the pathway’s intention is to serve the community and provide safe recreation and transportation options, and thus we implore the EOEEA and the project team to widen the pathway.

The communities served by this pathway are dense residential and commercial areas. The communities of Everett, Malden, Revere, Saugus, and Lynn are cities and towns that are developing at an expected growth of more than 12% by 2040 (see: MAPC Population Growth Projections). By comparison, many other regional pathways are already strained in capacity due to their narrow designs, and we see issues of narrowness contributing to user conflicts on the Minuteman Bikeway, the Paul Dudley White Bike Path, and the Southwest Corridor. This pathway is also a crucial corridor for the East Coast Greenway, a contiguous route that connects 15 states with 3,000 miles of trails. We can assume the Northern Strand will receive heavy usage, and we must design and build accordingly to ourprojections.

(Population and Housing Demand Projections for Metro Boston:

http://www.mapc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/MAPC-MetroBoston-Projections_ExecSumm-1_16_14.pdf)

Further, as you have heard at every public meeting, the worry about conflicts between bicyclists and pedestrians/joggers is a widely held concern. A wider pathway means a safer pathway, with more room for more people at varying speeds to maneuver and pass safely. We feel that a 10’ pathway is not sufficient to provide space for two-way walkers, joggers, strollers, and bicyclists to co-exist without conflict. Since safety is of paramount concern, especially as this pathway serves users young and old, we recommend widening the pathway to 12’-14’, or alternatively providing separate spaces for bicyclists and pedestrians/joggers where right-of-way allows.

We appreciate how the design and construction of the Northern Strand has a funding limitation set by the Commonwealth’s budget, and this may impact the width of the path by requiring less pavement as a cost issue. However, the cost of additional 2’-4’ of pavement at the onset of construction is considerably less than having to go back and widen the pathway after construction and landscaping has completed. Widening the pathway where possible on Day One only makes financial sense.

Lastly, we should expect the Northern Strand to be used as a commuter route, and thus will have users after dark during the months of October – March (since we live in the Northern Latitudes and the sun sets early in the evening). We ask the project team take into account lighting wherever feasible to provide safe passage for pathway users. Along this argument, we also acknowledge that lighting elements will eventually be installed along certain sections of the pathway, once enough people are using the pathway to provide a safe environment. Thus, we ask that the EOEEA and the project team install conduits for lighting during this initial construction of the pathway where lighting is expected to be installed in the future, to more easily facilitate and lower the cost of installing lighting later on.

We appreciate your consideration of these issues of wider pathway and lighting elements for the Northern Strand. We applaud your team and the leadership for supporting this impactful project, and we look forward to the benefits it will bring the region for better health and wellness, smart growth development, and sustainable transportation connecting these cities and towns.

Sincerely,

Galen Mook, Executive Director, MassBike

Wendy Landman, Executive Director, WalkBoston

Kristine Keeney, New England Coordinator, East Coast Greenway Alliance

Neighborhood View – “Frank Stella: An iconic artist returns home”

Neighborhood View – “Frank Stella: An iconic artist returns home”

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Neighborhood View: “Frank Stella: An iconic artist returns home”

In 2012, local artist and Malden resident Sharon Santillo reached out to Stella to reconnect with his hometown. As the chairperson on the newly formed Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Walkability, Santillo came up with the idea of  incorporating Stella’s artwork into wayfinding signs throughout the city; these signs tell how long a walk it is to key city destinations.

“I contacted his office requesting copyright permission and at first his office was unclear on what I was asking,” said Santillo. “So I sent him a mock-up of the idea using downloaded images of his artwork. I know the copyright rules, so I was holding my breath that they would understand it was just for them to get a visual!” She was thrilled that her efforts over many months resulted in a resounding “yes” from the artist, granting permission, free of charge.

At the WalkBoston “Golden Shoe” ceremony. From left: Sharon Santillo, artist/Malden activist; Frank Stella; Wendy Landman, WalkBoston Executive Director; and Gary Christenson, Mayor of Malden. (Photo by Paul Hammersley, 3MG)

When the signs received recognition from WalkBoston for being the first to combine fine art with wayfinding, Santillo again reached out to the artist to invite him to the “Golden Shoe Award” ceremony at MIT. (The New England Resource and Development Center at MIT holds several of Stella’s works in its gallery collection.) To her great surprise and delight, he accepted the invitation and attended the ceremony where he was presented with his own Golden Shoe. A cadre of Malden arts enthusiasts came out for the event and met with Stella, including Dora St. Martin, the Executive Director of the Malden Public Library.

Posted November 9, 2018

Malden Walking Map

Malden Walking Map

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Walking in Malden is easy and fun; the more you walk, the more beneficial it is to your heart and soul. One hour of brisk walking can add two hours to your life [American Heart Association]. Malden has many opportunities to walk. Neighborhoods are close together, retail areas are easy to find, safe sidewalks are abundant, and there’s a great deal to see. The map shows 4, 5, and 8-minute incremental walks within Malden. This will help you to plan your twenty-minute daily walk.

Click for “Malden Walking Map” PDF
Report Snow/Ice Issues

Report Snow/Ice Issues

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Snow and ice can present challenges to walkers and runners, which is why many Massachusetts cities and towns hold property owners responsible for clearing sidewalks on or next to their property. Still, sidewalks sometimes remain uncleared and potentially hazardous days – or even weeks – after a storm.

WalkBoston has basic recommendations to improve sidewalk snow and ice clearance, and “Keep It Clear: Recommendations for Sidewalk Snow and Ice Removal in MA” (PDF), but listed below are ways that you can report problems today to help prioritize clearance. Please tweet us @walkboston or email us – info@walkboston.org – to add more communities and agencies to this list.

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Want to help your neighbors? Have shovel, will travel? Need some help or know someone that does? Join WalkBoston on Snowcrew, BECOME A YETI! Snowcrew matches neighbors to neighbors to help shovel out in the next storm.

Many runners are also training for the Boston Marathon along the course that stretches through 8 Massachusetts towns. Help clear intersections or identify spots that need clearing to make it safer for all users – and brag a little bit about how you helped them out in April when you are cheering the runners on!
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Cities/Towns

Commonwealth Connect – This award-winning app links cities and towns throughout Massachusetts. You can report problems to local governments, even if you don’t know who to contact. While there are specific ways to report below, Commonwealth Connect ties into many of those 311 systems. Learn more and download Commonwealth Connect for Android or iPhone.

Specific to communities
Arlington: 
To report snow/ice violations to Town bylaws call APD dispatch at 781-316-1212 or submit a Snow/Ice Violation Request in the Request/Answer Center. Select “Make A Request” then select “Snow/Ice Violation” request. Login required.

Boston: 
The BOS:311 app helps residents and visitors improve City neighborhoods.
You can download it for Android or iPhone. You can also call 617-635-4500 or use http://www.cityofboston.gov/311/ – or tweet to Bos311
For emergencies, call 911. More info at boston.gov/winter

Cambridge:
Cambridge now uses Commonwealth Connect – or tweet to @CambridgeDPW

Malden:
Malden uses SeeClickFix or call 311

Newton:
Visit www.newtonma.gov and click on the 311 icon (direct link here). You can also download the 311 app to your smartphone from the homepage.

Salem:
Contact the DPW at 978-744-3302 or through seeclickfix.com with snow removal and plowing concerns.

Somerville:
http://www.somervillema.gov/snow – can also call 311 or tweet to @SomervilleCity or @311Somerville

Agencies

DCR Winter Storm Plan and Priority Map

Feedback for all areas cleared by DCR and MassDOT

should be routed as follows:
Emergencies during business hours:
Community Relations Group line 617-626-4973
After business hours: MEMA 508-820-1428

All Non-Emergencies:
Community Relations Group line 617-626-4973

You can also tweet to @MassDCR and @MassDOT

MBTA:
What the MBTA Clears
The MBTA will clear snow from all MBTA-owned bus shelters and stops along the following key routes: 1, 15, 22, 23, 28, 32, 39, 57, 66, 71, 73, 77, 111, 116, 117. For a full list of MBTA-owned bus shelters cleared by the MBTA, please click here.

Snow accumulations continue to make it difficult for customers to maneuver their vehicles around MBTA parking lots. Customers are strongly encouraged to consider these factors if using MBTA parking lots. As always, the latest service information can be found at the MBTA’s winter resource hub: mbta.com/winter

Many areas around bus stops are responsibility of the community or property owner. If you tweet at the MBTA, make sure to also get in touch with the town.

Other Resources

SeeClickFix (standalone site & app, the engine for Commonwealth Connect)

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