As of March 3, 2024, drivers have killed 11 pedestrians in Connecticut.
Five of those preventable deaths happened in February.

On the first day of the month, the driver of a Nissan Rogue SUV slammed into 36-year old jogger Felicia Yetke who was using Route 229 at the intersection with Lake Avenue in Bristol.

This happened a quarter mile from her home. What this means, for those who have never put much thought to it, is that her husband and children very likely have to pass by the scene of the crime frequently. If nobody else is willing to call it a crime, I will. The criminal, in this case, is the State of Connecticut and City of Bristol, who think that 5-lane stroads are acceptable. The criminal is the automotive industry for hard pitching to every American the idea that an SUV is not just a status symbol but a necessity.

Route 229 has no physical median. There is crosswalk painted only on two of the intersection’s four legs. Drivers are permitted to turn right on red at this intersection, which means that pedestrians never truly have the right of way. According to the CT Crash Data Repository the speed limit at this intersection was 35 in 2015 and part of 2016, but each entry after has speed limit listed as 30 MPH, as is the case with this one. Changing the speed without redesigning the road is only going to do so much. In this case, not enough. This preventable crash happened at 11:45 PM when those five lanes would not have been congested and a person would have easily been able to drive faster than the posted speed limit.

Since 2015, drivers have killed three other pedestrians on Bristol’s Route 229.

Tell decision makers that the slaughter stops now and that they have the power to prevent children from becoming motherless.

Contact Bristol’s Mayor:
mayorsoffice@bristolct.gov
860.584.6250

Contact Bristol’s Dept. of Public Works:
publicworks@bristolct.gov
(860) 584-6125

Contact the CT DOT:
(860) 594-3000

On February 9, 2024, Erick Irizarry, 29, was hit by an Asplundh Tree Service vehicle while he was working for this company in Shelton. It remains unclear if there was someone operating the vehicle, if it rolled.

Workplace injuries and deaths, even when involving vehicles, are still not accidents. Several of these not accidents occurred last year, including two in Fairfield alone — one was a pedestrian doing surveying work and the other a pedestrian doing waste collection work. Erick was killed on School Street at/near Monroe Road in Shelton. This happened at 1 PM.

Two pedestrians were killed on February 29, 2024.

The first of those was Katelyn Burke, 27, who died after a driver hit her on Route 5/15 in Newington. She lived in neighboring Wethersfield and grew up in Vernon. According to her obituary, In high school she was “an active student and competed on their cheerleading squad, which she enjoyed very much. During her senior year at the high school, Kate was a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Scholar Award, which is one of the nation’s highest honors for high school students. Following high school, she continued her education enrolling in UConn, as well as Central Connecticut State University where she studied computer science and web design. With her knowledge of the field, as well as her artistic mind, Kate had great potential when it came to web design and graphics. She was also quite the artist, creating beautiful pieces that some say represented the work of famous artist, Jackson Pollock. Kate also had a great passion for learning different languages spoken around the globe. She could speak six or seven languages fluently, and continued learning about some she wasn’t familiar with. Although our time with Kate has come to an end, her smile, personality and artistic mind will be cherished in the hearts of all who knew her for years to come.”

This is who the State of Connecticut has decided is expendable.

Kate was killed in Newington on Route 5/15 (“Berlin Turnpike”) at 6:15 PM.

This area of Route 5/15 has:

  • No sidewalks
  • No crosswalks
  • A 50 MPH speed limit
  • 4 or 5 lanes
  • A median that is not designed for pedestrian use
  • Many stores, restaurants, and motels on both sides of the road that a person may want/need to travel between
  • Absolutely shoddy bus service

There are other buses coming to the area from other places, but it doesn’t have local service like you see on Farmington Avenue in Hartford or Route 99 in Wethersfield, or really name a place. Service assumes someone is coming to the area from afar to only use one plaza. Because this was designed as a racetrack, buses have to pull into the plazas.

Between Route 9 and I-91 — true highways without strip malls — Route 5/15 could be converted into something more human scale if people at all valued human life. It would not be a major inconvenience to those who are encased in cars. They could convert a lane in both directions to a bus only lane, allowing easier travel up and down the Berlin Turnpike; of course, they’d have to design the route and have frequency of buses. Putting that in place but then asking someone to wait an hour for the next bus will not stop people from walking a quarter mile and then trying to cross the road. Basically, what I’m not humbly suggesting, is that someone who actually uses public transportation as their regular commute and errand mode be the person in charge of making bus routes.

It’s less than 0.4 mile between the site of Kate’s preventable death and the headquarters of those who had the power to prevent her death — the  Connecticut Department of Transportation. While there are (no doubt half-baked) plans to remediate portions of the Berlin Turnpike’s aggression toward anyone outside of a vehicle, it is coming so, so late. Adding sidewalks and crosswalks is a start, but unless they are removing multiple lanes in both directions, having those crosswalks with pedestrian lights at short intervals, banning right turn on red from every driveway, dropping the speed limit as well, they aren’t actually serious.

Since 2015, there have been 10 fatal crashes on the Berlin and Newington segments of Route 5/15 — near DOT headquarters. Five of those killed were drivers; four were pedestrians and one was a teenage cyclist. Half of those using the roadway are not pedestrians/cyclists, yet that’s who has been killed by the DOT’s negligent design.

If you live in Newington or frequently use Route 5/15, contact the Town of Newington‘s engineering department and ask them why the Berlin Turnpike is allowed to exist in this form. If they aren’t on the phone every day with the DOT, as them why not. Additionally, Contact the CT DOT: (860) 594-3000.

Later on the same day as Kate was needlessly killed, a driver in Cromwell struck and killed a still publicly unidentified pedestrian who was using Route 372 at 8:30 PM. The pedestrian was pronounced dead at the scene of the crime.

Route 372 is a stroad. It is 40 MPH, and 4-to-6 lanes in this area. There is no physical median. There is sidewalk only on one side of the road even though there are potentially bus stops on both sides — the bus service in this area operates by flagging down and by stop request, without necessarily signed or set bus stops.

Drivers have the opportunity to exit businesses via many driveways, but pedestrians are shunted longer distances if they want to cross the same road with the assistance of marked crosswalks and pedestrians signals.

This is yet another case of a town allowing outsized development without even requiring basics like adequate sidewalks near motels (where people stay/live and work), or bus stops, or larger employers like big box hardware stores.

If you live in Cromwell or frequently use Route 372, contact the Town’s engineering department and ask them (1) why they aren’t improving Route 372 for pedestrians, and (2) why they aren’t on the phone with the DOT every single day.

There was a fifth pedestrian killed last month. This happened on February 10, 2024. The details of this seem sketchy. Alexandra Standish, 37, was killed by a motor vehicle and driven in a private vehicle to the hospital, when she was already deceased. Those are the details that seem to be true facts.

The person who drove her body was described by reporters as a man with whom she shared her home. A Bristol hospital contacted police around 2:45 AM. The time of the collision has not been reported. It seems to be believed that this happened in the driveway of her home. No other parties were mentioned; it’s implied that the person who drove her to the hospital was also the person who hit her. There is an investigation to determine if the strike was intentional or unintentional, and I’ll add another possibility: an intentional strike without the intent to kill. Several times in recent years we have seen fatalities resulting from this — impaired motorists trying to drive away from a fight while still angry, impaired motorists wanting to hurt someone and somehow not recognizing that heavy machinery kills. I have no extra information but am adding this because it’s not a binary, and in any case, the word “accidental” does not apply.

Nothing has been said about size of vehicle, lighting, visual obstructions, mechanical failures, or why Alexandra was struck.

So, that was February: three deaths clearly — at least to me — resulting from substandard road design, one possibly connected to workplace protocols, and one that’s a giant question mark.

The pedestrian fatalities in February that happened in Bristol, Newington, and Cromwell all happened on state routes. Contact the CTDOT Commissioner’s Office and demand that they follow their own Complete Streets directive: (860) 594-3000 as those three crashes happened on State of Connecticut DOT maintained routes.

The CT DOT just launched a microgrant program allocating $500,000 that will be doled out to non-profits and schools. This money does not fix roads or provide more robust driver education. It goes toward “safety vests.” Fine, but remind them that none of this safety theater can compete for efficacy with installing protected bike lanes and sidewalks, removing excess vehicle lanes, and adding street lighting.

The two photos of cones in the middle of a crosswalk are at the Burns School in Hartford where this driveway was added for no necessary reason in 2023. The cones were placed right where people would want to cross, and partially block the curb ramp. The City of Hartford (whether DPW or Hartford Public Schools) did not clear the crosswalk at all following a snow storm. Since then, neigborhood residents moved the cones out of the crosswalk; in a subsequent snow storm, the crosswalk was cleared because the cones weren’t blocking it. I’ve included these photos to show yet another example of how pedestrian access is considered an afterthought, if considered at all.