New York state is promoting National Pedestrian Safety Month.
New York's See! Be Seen! initiative runs statewide from Sunday through October 19th.
The campaign seeks to educate drivers and pedestrians in hopes of reducing fatal collisions.
State Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Mark Schroeder appeared alongside local officials in Cohoes Thursday. In Albany County alone, deaths rose from two in 2019 to 10 last year.
“National data shows that more than 7,500 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes nationally in 2022, the highest number since 1981. On average, a pedestrian was killed almost every hour,” Schroeder said.
A separate road safety campaign is directed at elementary school students.
State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald says pedestrian collisions forever change the lives of everyone involved.
“The time to take driving seriously to prevent an injury, is now… before there's a problem,” McDonald said.
McDonald adds the ubiquity of cellphones has compounded the issue.
“If we're driving, we have no business looking at this phone ever — we just don’t. If we're walking to school, which I love people walking to school, it's great way to get exercise — you need your phone to be somewhere secure in a little fanny pack, backpack, your pocket, but you shouldn't be looking at your phone when you're walking to school,” McDonald said.
Cohoes Police Chief Todd Walden says his department has been hard at work trying to keep children safe, especially in a district where so many students walk to school.
“We go into the schools, and we do assemblies with the children going over pedestrian safety. But we also took it a step further and decided we would want to take the children on the tour of the routes that they'll be taking when they go from one school to the next. So we go out with the students, and we actually walk those routes with them, so that they're more comfortable and more knowledgeable about how to cross the street,” Walden said.
Jack Abdul is a sophomore at Cohoes High School. He says, while most of the sidewalks he and his brother take on their 10-minute trip to school are in good shape, they could be better.
“Around Simmons Ave, there's definitely some. I think there's a blind spot over there that even my dad's talked about, or he's driving down there, and there's just a gravel path that it gets super muddy, so we have to end up walking on the road,” Abdul said.
Cohoes Mayor Bill Keeler, a former New York State Police troop commander, says sidewalk improvements are coming.
“The city is going to replace three linear miles of sidewalks next year, up and down Columbia Street on both sides,” Keeler said.
The Democrat notes he’s also pushing for the city to lower its speed limit from 30 to 25.
Middle school principal Kyle McFarland says the initiatives under way are a good start, but more needs to be done.
“I don't want traffic lights because those are only so good. I see that they now have the solar panels, the crosswalks, the lights blink, just more notices of that there are students here at these times and to slow down because this is the main road through here,” McFarland said.
The district has more than 1,800 students.
