Another Pedestrian Struck at Rt. 273 and Brownleaf Road

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Just thirteen months after 16 year old Michael Gropp was hit and killed while trying to walk his girlfriend home at 10PM at Rt. 273 and Brownleaf Road in Newark, 40 year old Kelly Tracey was struck and seriously injured in the same intersection at nearly the same time in the evening on Wednesday.

After Michael Gropp was killed, Bike Delaware submitted a report to DelDOT and other state officials about how such tragedies could be averted in the future. But the Report’s recommendations:

1) lighting

2) pedestrian median refuges and

3) hot reponse signaling

were for all arterial road intersections suffering from the same infrastructure deficits as Rt. 273 and Brownleaf Road. We didn’t actually think there would be another serious pedestrian crash at the same intersection and at the same time of day (late evening) and, even, in the same (eastbound) lanes only a little more than a year later.

Roadside Memorial to Michael Gropp just a few feet from

where Kelly Tracey was struck and seriously injured on Wednesday.

But Wednesday that’s what happened. Will there again be the same ignorant comments questioning what Kelly Tracey was doing crossing a busy road late at night as there were directed at Michael Gropp? Or will there be the same useless demands for stepped up police enforcement?

Bike Delaware’s recommendations for Rt. 273 and Brownleaf Road are not rocket science. They are based on careful and quantitative studies that have shown that these interventions save lives. But we have to ask: Is there some threshold – some body count – that we have to meet at Rt. 273 and Brownleaf Road before these proven engineering solutions are implemented?

Read Bike Delaware’s report on “Improving Nonmortorized Safety and Mobility With Infrastructure at Arterial Road Signalized Intersections” HERE.

• 16 year old killed while crossing Rt.273 on Bike Rt.1

• Remembering Michael Gropp

• Who Will We Blame This Time?

By James in ARSI, Casualties, Complete Streets on May 27, 2011