On June 20th, 87-year-old Luis Chin was struck by a car while crossing Dalton Avenue. After being transported to Berkshire Medical Center, he died later that day. On Sunday, a group committed to making city streets safer for all users is heading to the scene of the collision to assess what factors could have contributed to Chin’s death.
“It was a Friday, it was daylight. We know that both people involved in the incident were elderly, in their 80s and 90s, which is very unfortunate, but also a larger demographic of Berkshire County than other parts of the state. And so, we want to go out and see actually what that site looks like," said Nicholas Russo of the Pittsfield Community Design Center. “It's intended to bring about discussions and just participation from anyone in Pittsfield about our urban design. How do we make the public realm of Pittsfield more inviting, more pedestrian friendly, more bike friendly?”
By day a Senior Transportation Planner with the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, Russo says the goal of Sunday’s walk-through is to understand the accident site from the pedestrian’s standpoint.
“What are the conditions? What are the sidewalks like? What are the crosswalks like, if there are any?" Russo explained. "What's the visibility like? What are the traffic speeds, the noise? How comfortable is it to walk? Is there shade? Are there places to sit, to wait for the bus? Where are the places people want to get to? There's small businesses around here, there's housing, there's recreational opportunities up the street at the park- This is a neighborhood, not just a cut through for people.”
At noon, attendees will gather at the Dunkin Donuts on Dalton Ave, receive their clipboard and observation forms from Russo, and begin the examination.
“I hope folks will come out of all ages and abilities to walk with us, see what it's like to try crossing the street there," he told WAMC. "Every intersection that has a sidewalk is a crosswalk. Even if there's no markings, it's an unmarked crosswalk. What's it like to try and cross the street there of you live on one side and want to go to the laundromat on the other side? How do people react? Will they yield? Will how long is a wait to get across the street?”
Findings will be plugged into a formula created by the nonprofit Strong Towns. The group focuses on bolstering communities through urban planning that embraces concepts like walkability and mixed-use zoning.
“In the past couple years, they've come up with this model called the Crash Analysis Studio to look at the objective factors of why a crash took place, not just assign blame for, oh, the driver was distracted or the pedestrian just jumped out, but what are actually the reasons that led to something like this happening," said Russo. "Either, speeds are too high for what the design was, visibility issues, deviation from the original intent of the street design.”
After gathering the data, analysis will ensue, Russo said.
Pittsfield officials say they share the objectives of Russo and the Pittsfield Community Design Center.
“The goal we have is to make our streets safer by reducing the speed at which vehicles travel in our most densely populated areas," said Commissioner of Public Works Ricardo Morales. “Dalton Ave is, specifically in that section right there, is a point where you transition quickly from a boulevard two lane in each direction style of street into a more densely populated area where it's one lane in each direction.”
Morales says it’s clear Pittsfield needs more effective traffic calming measures at that crucial point in the road.
“We don't want to accomplish that with a sign that says that, we want to accomplish it with the built environment, with the built street," he told WAMC. "And there's a few things you can do with that. You can have narrowed streets, kind of creating a bottleneck. Right now, there is a bottleneck in the sense that there's two lanes down to one, but the street remains as wide, so we want to accommodate that. It's sending to the subconscious mind of a driver the message of, slow down, this is different.”
The commissioner says that while Pittsfield at this time has no specific plans for Dalton Avenue following the pedestrian fatality, he plans on accompanying Sunday’s walk-through and welcomes feedback from the public.
