Safe streets advocates are remembering those killed by motorists in Albany County.
Holding a vigil in Academy Park in Albany Friday ahead of Sunday’s World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, members of advocacy groups including the Albany Bicycle Coalition, Walkable Albany, and Capitol Streets joined with local officials and relatives of pedestrians and bicyclists hit and killed in the county in recent years.
Patty Sawyer’s son Roger was struck and killed by an SUV in October 2017 while crossing Washington Avenue on his bike ride to work. She says more needs to be done to hold motorists accountable, adding she wouldn’t wish the pain of losing a loved one in that way on anyone.
“It's the worst thing that you ever can do to anybody, it affects your family, it affects your marriage, it affects everything. It just everything seems to go downhill afterwards,” Sawyer said.
According to the Institute for Traffic Safety Management & Research, 10 pedestrians were struck and killed in the county last year.
Family, friends, advocates, and neighbors remembered those lost, ranging from a young woman killed in 2021, to cyclists, senior citizens, and more.
Ed Brennan is President of the Albany Bicycle Coalition.
“We act like trick shooters with two- and three-ton ordinance, not looking at the road, talking on phones, speeding, drinking, texting, smoking whatever, and playing with our infotainment systems. It is no accident that all these people are dead, and we need to stop following these killings accidents, we need to treat motor vehicles as the deadly weapons that they are,” Brennan said.
Brennan adds the city needs to support its bicycle and pedestrian master plan, which he says would have created a safe network for people who cannot or choose not to drive. It’s especially important, he says, with New York Route 5 — which runs through Albany as Central Ave and continues into Schenectady as State Street — being the deadliest road in the region.
Alyson Baker, Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s deputy chief of staff, says the city is hard at work toward reducing traffic fatalities. Baker adds lowering city speed limits to 25 miles per hour, effective with the new year, as well as placing speed cameras in school zones throughout the city, have been good first steps.
“You will get where you need to go, but it is not worth taking the risk of another person's life into your hands to get there in an extra two minutes. There's also been significant traffic calming measures happening throughout the city in the last decade, speed bumps, bump outs at pedestrian walkways,” Baker said.
Sandra Leiva is the mother of Anaisabel Crespo-Leiva, who was killed when she was hit by a truck while biking across Interstate 787 at 23rd Street in Watervliet on October 3rd. Leiva says she believes poor signage played a role in her daughter’s death.
“When you come off 787, it doesn't indicate that there's a bicycle trail there. When you're on the way to the trail, it breaks off to a crosswalk. When you're on the other side, it doesn't tell you that there's a bicycle trail there. The signs are wrong,” Leiva said.
Bruce Mastorovich is a recent transplant from Boise. He says New York’s capital city can take lessons from Idaho.
“You treat red lights like a stop sign, and you treat stop signs like a yield sign. Basically it means that if there's no one at the intersection, the safest time for you to cross is right then,” Mastorovich said.
A measure to make that the law in New York was originally introduced by Assemblywoman and state senator-elect Pat Fahy in February 2023. The Democrat from the 109th District says the Idaho stop, also known as “stop as yield,” makes economic sense as well.
“We know when we slow down traffic, we know when we get more pedestrians on the streets and more cyclists on the streets, we know it's good for business,” Fahy said.
