I know exactly what the intersection looks like without consulting anything beyond my memory of having crossed through the area countless times on my way to the grocery store. Vehicles speed up and down Hamilton Street, using it as a highway.
I wish I were exaggerating about the speed.
It’s not just dangerous, but visually unpleasant in stretches, with old industrial buildings in various stages of decay and neglect. It’s not necessarily obvious which ones are actively being rehabbed. The disappearance of the Futuramik sign was one of the small signs anything was beginning to happen.
There’s the at-grade railroad and CTfastrak crossing to make the trip even dicier. In one direction, the pedestrian light is mostly obstructed by other equipment, and while I trust bus drivers, I know that it’s not just bus drivers who use the busway — there are supervisors, construction crews, police, and then randoms who are definitely not supposed to be there. There’s a small business on Hamilton between the tracks and Francis Avenue. They’re usually good at leaving the sidewalk open, but sometimes drivers beach their delivery trucks and private vehicles over parts of the sidewalk, even though there’s free on-street parking available.
There is no stoplight at Hamilton and Francis; there’s a stop sign only on Francis Avenue, where it is a two-way street. It’s as if no thought was given to the fact that people would be walking or cycling from that section of Francis to the other. And why would there be? Car-centric traffic engineers of yore would not have conceived of someone walking two blocks to go to the city’s only full service supermarket.
Every time I make the trip, I’m passed by a few cyclists who are headed there with bags of cans for redemption. Others take their cans on the buses. Depends on where they’re coming from and if they want the hassle of trying to fit on the bus with huge bags or cans. There are others just biking there are to places beyond. We have all these initiatives to get people active, because a sedentary lifestyle is unhealthy, and yet we don’t really commit to it by ensuring safety for those who are being practical in their exercise. The insurance industry and sprawling medical complexes could throw their financial support behind building separated and barrier-protected bike lanes.
Francis Avenue between Hamilton Street and Stop & Shop is one-way with speed humps. That road is quieter and calmer. It’s preferable to New Park Avenue, the other route to the supermarket, which has paint-only bike lanes but is far busier, faster, louder than Francis Avenue. The paint on New Park Avenue is faded, anyway.
Without consulting anything else, I know how the intersection of Francis Avenue and Hamilton Street looks, smells, feels. I know that it should feel safer than it does. Most of this neighborhood is densely populated. Parkville, Frog Hollow, and Behind the Rocks are all places where people walk and bike a lot. And, I keep coming back to this: Hartford’s one supermarket that suburbanites would recognize as a legitimate supermarket is one block from this intersection. It’s not the only game in town, but it does offer a few things that other grocery stores don’t. The Kane Street CTfastrak Station basically is there to serve this store, though there’s no good pedestrian infrastructure between the station and the supermarket. I used the bus to get here once and decided there’s less parking lot for me to traverse if I simply just walk the whole way like usual, or rather, as usual when I go here instead of out-of-town. That’s right: usually, I ride the bus to shop out of town almost entirely because the trip ends up being safer. There are fewer dicey intersections for me to cross. I’m happy to have other options, but I should not be choosing the store three miles away over the one that is just over one mile from my home. I’d prefer to spend my money in Hartford.
It was late on May 2 when I saw the media’s “breaking news” report about a man in his 50s being killed at this intersection. Because I have seen enough misinformation put out by the news, instead of going to sleep, I ended up texting local cyclist friends who may plausibly have been in this area and who could perhaps be mistaken for being in their 50s. These are strange texts to send, and not the first time. It looks like sending a screenshot of the news article, saying “I know you’re not this old yet, but please let me know this wasn’t you,” and waiting. When they confirm, there’s a wave of relief, but not entirely because someone still died. Someone’s family and friends are receiving that shitty news.
The next morning, I would learn his name — Gilberto Davila — and be able to confirm this was not someone I knew, but that does not mean all is well. I have likely passed this person on the street a dozen times. They were still part of this community. Loss ripples.
The news, predictably, positioned this as a “hit and run” with full drama and then the follow up to announce arrest and provide a mugshot . . . as if any of that means this is resolved. They typically have two notes: whether it was a hit-and-run in which they demonize the driver or if it was an oops unfortunate fatal mistake, categorized that way simply by the driver remaining on the scene of the crime.
It was not a hit-and-run that killed Gilberto. It was the poor road design, poor vehicle design, and the deadly policies we have that do not require people to hold special driver’s licenses for operating land yachts like the Ford F-150.
Mere days after the fatal crash, I passed this truck — the same type that was involved in Gilberto’s preventable death. It was senselessly beached across the sidewalk on Hamilton Street. The combination of its height and dark tinted windows made it impossible for me to see if someone was even inside until I was directly next to it. Then, I was able to see someone in the driver’s seat, appearing to be half-slumped over. Sleeping? Playing on cell phone? Praying? Impaired? Hard to know.
There were two pedestrians walking on the sidewalk on the other side of this truck — something you’d never know by the visual and physical obstruction.
Six months ago, in October 2023, a pedestrian was killed at Hamilton Street and Hillside Avenue. You can see how the intersection appeared in May 2024, still not improved since the fatal crash.
At the end of April, there was an open house to explain the traffic calming pilot about to start on Hillside Avenue.
The fact that Hartford finally has a responsive Bicycle & Pedestrian Coordinator is the one thing that keeps me from literally screaming.
This does not guarantee that Hamilton Street will automatically receive the same attention; people need to express desire for the change to happen. It’s easier to make that case on a road like Hillside where there are multiple schools and elderly housing. Most of Hamilton Street feels forgotten, as if it is on the outskirts of town rather than a block from Parkville Market, Stop & Shop, the CTfastrak Parkville Station.
The photograph below shows the corner of Hamilton and Pope Park Highway #4. Nothing in this design encourages drivers in any direction to drive slowly, responsibly, to think about looking for pedestrians trying to cross, which they basically have to do since the road that Pope Park West is on is mostly without sidewalks. You’d think that the folks doing major cleanups every year at that park might want to advocate for sidewalks to encourage more foot traffic on this road. Illegal dumping has been an ongoing issue there, along with other places — like nearby Wellington Street — that don’t have so many eyes on the street. Pedestrian safety aside, it makes sense for those who want nicer looking public spaces to push for the changes that enable them.
Why I’m showing this intersection, though, is because it’s where on Christmas morning in 2015, the driver of a Honda Accord attempted to make a turn out of Pope Park Hwy #4 onto Hamilton Street. There are no stop signs on Hamilton Street. The driver of a pickup truck struck the Accord, and two parked vehicles were somehow damaged in this collision. The Honda driver died from his injuries about three hours later.
The other end of Pope Park Hwy #4 at Park Street has the same stupidly wide mouth, and there are no stop signs on Park Street. If you’re trying to walking down Hamilton or Park Street in this area, you have to contend with drivers pulling in and out, rapidly, and without having the benefit of a plastic and metal shell that offers more protection, but as we know, does not guarantee survival in a collision.
Days after the F-150’s admittedly tired driver made a speeding left turn and struck Gilberto head on, killing him, I watched as drivers boxed in a cyclist who was following all the rules and “rules” of the road: riding in the same direction as traffic, wearing a helmet, wearing clothing in a color that can be viewed from outer space. He was wedged between moving and parked vehicles on Hamilton Street, and it was several drivers who passed before someone let him maneuver in. I didn’t expect it to end well.
If I were more naive, this is where I would say either that (1) drivers need to slow down and be more attentive, and/or (2) we need enforcement. People have been saying both for so long and neither approach works.
As I walked on down the road, right near the recent fatal crash site, I encountered this scene:
This might not seem like a huge deal, but the sidewalk is narrow, made all the more narrower by people parking their crap on the sidewalk and leaving a business fence needlessly open. I don’t know what their specific trash collection day is, but all of the residential units nearby have collection on Wednesdays, rather than on Saturdays like when I walked through.
You couldn’t fit a wheelchair or other mobility device through there. I could barely fit, just walking. Someone on a bike would have trouble maneuvering through, and considering how substandard this street is for cyclists, you have to expect that they’re going to want to be on the sidewalk — especially right after a cyclist was killed in this area.
That little bit of crosswalk right beyond the recycling bins? That’s where Gilberto was killed. That’s where he was killed being a tired driver was allowed to make a left turn without coming to a full stop first, and what allowed this was poor street design.
I walked around the corner, onto Francis Avenue, to turn around and look back. A car (in photo below) was parked close to the intersection, obstructing the view of any pedestrians who might try to cross over Hamilton Street.
At the corner itself, a pile of pallets was turned into a shrine for Gilberto. Not much was on it. A few empty liquor bottles. A message scrawled across the boards.
The Hartford Livable Coalition is recommending that the City of Hartford revise this area by adding “a hardened centerline which consists of a plastic linear bumper and some vertical plastic bollards prevent/discourage highspeed wide radius turning of speeding vehicles. By tightening the turning radius without having to move curbs, the city can quickly and cheaply enhance safety for all road users.”
If you stand down here and watch the way many motorists drive — not just those who are easy to demonize because they hightailed it after killing someone — you’ll find it hard to argue against these recommendations. In a matter of seconds I took these two photos showing operators of heavy machinery unwilling to keep their vehicles on the correct side of the yellow lines:
It was one after another.
In its newsletter, the Hartford Livable Coalition accurately points out that there is strength in numbers.
Please, send an email to safestreets@hartford.gov to let it be known that you support improvements to Hartford’s Hamilton Street that would make the roadway safer for cyclists, pedestrians, and those inside of vehicles. Asking for hardened centerlines for the length of Hamilton Street, plastic bollards at intersections, and bollards in key locations to prevent drivers from parking on sidewalks is not asking for too much if it helps keep people alive and able to return to their families at the end of the day.
Safe Streets Connecticut: May 2024 – Real Hartford
[…] first pedestrian killed in May was cyclist Gilberto Davila, 55 of Hartford. I wrote a long piece about that crash already, but the recap: the driver of a Ford F-150 pickup truck made a left turn without so much as pausing […]