Thomas Breen photo
At the scene of Wednesday morning's crash at Cold Spring-Livingston.
A 29-year-old Yale student was struck and injured by a car that reportedly ran a stop sign at an East Rock intersection — raising neighbor concerns about a park-adjacent problem spot replete with reckless motorists.
That crash took place on Wednesday morning at around 10 a.m. at the intersection of Cold Spring and Livingston streets near the southwest corner of College Woods park.
Assistant Police Chief David Zannelli said that police have cited the driver for a “stop sign violation,” and that the pedestrian “was not at fault.”
He said the pedestrian was transported to the hospital by an ambulance, and suffered “minor” injuries. Asked for a clarification as to what he meant when he said that the pedestrian was “not at fault,” Zannelli replied, “Whatever she was doing, wherever she was in the roadway, she was lawfully there.”
Ben Berkowitz: Too many close calls at this intersection.
The driver stayed on scene and cooperated with police. He declined to comment when asked by this reporter what happened.
Anstress Farwell and Ben Berkowitz happened to be in the area around the time that Wednesday morning’s car crash took place, though neither saw the crash itself take place.
Farwell described medics lifting a young woman, who was sitting up and who had splints on both of her forearms, into the back of the ambulance.
Berkowitz, who lives in the area, said he was driving, saw the ambulance, and immediately knew what had happened. He said he saw a woman just barely miss getting hit by a box truck at that same Cold Spring-Livingston intersection the week before.
“It was so close. She shifted her hips” and that was the only way she dodged the car that continued through the intersection, even though she was already in the crosswalk.
New street-crossing flags at Whitney and Huntington.
Berkowitz noted that St. Ronan-Edgehill area neighbors recently pooled together some money to buy black plastic bins and orange handheld flags that are now stationed at several intersections throughout the neighborhood, including at Whitney and Huntington near Worthington Hooker School. Those flags are meant to make it easier for school children to be visible to cars when they’re crossing the street.
He said that he and some friends had been talking just last night over dinner about where to put the next batch of pedestrian-crossing flags. They thought Cold Spring and Livingston might be a good fit. Sure enough, the next morning, a pedestrian was hit at that very spot.
A city-designed map of new speed humps coming to East Rock-Prospect Hill.
An Oct. 14 email thread on a St. Ronan-Edgehill email group shows that traffic calming measures may soon be coming to the area.
That email thread includes a map provided by City Engineer Giovanni Zinn showing the proposed sites of new speed humps in the neighborhood. See above for a copy of that map.
“We are naturally concerned about any crash, particularly involving a vulnerable user, and are grateful that the individual as you stated does not appear to have sustained serious injuries,” Zinn told the Independent in an email comment on Wednesday.
As far as the St. Ronan-Edgehill area speed humps, he continued, his office worked with alders and neighbors “over a lengthy period of time to assess and address traffic concerns.” He said the map pictured above is generally current, and that there will be a “markout” meeting this week.
The raised intersection at Cold Spring and Livingston was installed in the fall of 2022, he said. “From 2019 to installation, we had 15 reported crashes” that he could find, “which would lead to an average incidence of one per 3 – 4 months. Since the installation, today’s crash was this first reported crash to my knowledge. While this would show an early trend towards decreased crashes, the time period may be too short to be statistically significant.”
Zinn added that the raised table at this location “helps provide more visibility to the pedestrian, and particularly discourages traversing the intersection at speed ignoring the stop sign, which is one of the most dangerous behaviors. Rolling stops, failing to yield to pedestrians, and other unlawful and dangerous behaviors are still physically possible with this (or any) traffic calming measure. This highlights the importance of our increased enforcement, possible future red light cameras, and better driver education to curb these behaviors (the 3 E’s of traffic calming).
“Of course, this is only one part of a citywide effort to calm traffic and protect vulnerable users. We are currently partway through a series of speed hump installations (approximately 30) in Fair Haven. Citywide, there are installations dedicated to improving safety of all roadway users.”
At Cold Spring-Livingston Wednesday morning.
In a Wednesday afternoon phone interview, Clare Flannery, who lives right next to the Cold Spring-Livingston intersection, said that more and better traffic-safety measures can’t come quickly enough to an intersection where cars continue to drive like mad.
“I just was stunned that the behavior was that aggressive,” she said about her close observation of Livingston and Cold Spring, where cars zip in front of and behind pedestrians as well as school children from a nearby preschool. “People literally fly through [that intersection] early morning, late night, accelerating through it.”
She said she and other neighbors had high hopes when the city raised the intersection in the fall of 2022. But, she said, the table the city added is “very broad, very wide,” and in her experience has not done the best of jobs at slowing dangerously fast and reckless driving.
Flannery pointed to the intersection of Edwards and Livingston — with its raised speed table and landscaped medians — as an example of effective traffic calming measures that should be replicated at Livingston and Cold Spring.
“It’s just very broad,” she said about what’s there today. “There’s a big space for pedestrians to cross, and the cars don’t stop.”