Pedestrian Safety meeting - Marilyn Elaine Wentworth killed on Centre St

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Feb 26, 2019, 5:01:37 PM2/26/19

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Wed, February 27, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Elks Lodge, 248 Spring St, West Roxbury

Marilyn Elaine (Lotfy) Wentworth
December 6, 1952 ~ February 5, 2019 (age 66)

In Remembrance
On behalf of the team and Board of West Roxbury Main Streets, our heartfelt condolences go out to the friends and family of Marilyn Wentworth, a lifelong West Roxbury resident who died on February 5th when hit by a car at the intersection of Centre Street and Hastings Street.
Many of the businesses in West Roxbury knew Marilyn as a regular customer who loved our community. The tragic accident is a sobering reminder to the importance of safe streets, and WRMS will continue its proactive advocacy for safe passage of pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicles in the district. We encourage our businesses and residents to participate in the conversations ahead on this in incredibly important issue to our community.

Community Meeting
Pedestrian Safety and Traffic in West Roxbury
Wed, February 27, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Elks Lodge, 248 Spring St, Boston, MA 02132

Please join a community discussion on ways to improve safety of streets for pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers in West Roxbury.

City Councilor Matt O'Malley, Senator Mike Rush, Representative Ed Coppinger,
Chief of Streets, Transportation and Sanitation Chris Osgood,
Boston Police Department, and the Office of Mayor Martin J. Walsh

===

https://www.kfouryfuneral.com/notices/Marilyn-Wentworth

Marilyn Elaine (Lotfy) Wentworth
December 6, 1952 ~ February 5, 2019 (age 66)

Marilyn E. (Lotfy) Wentworth, a life-long resident of West Roxbury, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on February 5, 2019. She was 66 years old.

Marilyn was the dear and devoted wife of Alton Wentworth. Loving mother of Matthew and Jennifer Wentworth, both of West Roxbury.

Her Funeral will be
from the Kfoury Keefe Funeral Home, 8 Spring St. (at the corner of Centre St.) WEST ROXBURY, Monday at 9 a.m. Marilyn's Funeral Mass will be celebrated at St. John Chrysostom Church at 10 a.m. Visiting hours Sunday 3-6 p.m. Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in Marilyn’s memory may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105, or to Rosie’s Place, 889 Harrison Ave. Boston, MA 02118.

Interment will be private.
Donations may be made to:
* St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis TN 38105
Web: http://www.stjude.org
* Rosie's Place
889 Harrison Ave., Boston MA 02118

===

Centre Street

https://www.universalhub.com/2019/memorial-woman-killed-while-walking-across-centre
Remembering what's important at West Roxbury intersection where woman died
By adamg - 2/13/19
Somebody's created this memorial for Marilyn Wentworth, a lifelong West Roxbury resident who died Feb. 5 when hit by a car on Feb. 5 at Centre and Hastings streets in West Roxbury.
Read more.
25 comments

https://www.universalhub.com/2019/pedestrian-hit-seriously-injured-west-roxbury
Pedestrian hit, seriously injured in West Roxbury
By adamg - 2/5/19
UPDATE, 1:45 p.m., 2/6: City Councilor Matt O'Malley reports the woman died.
WFXT reports a pedestrian suffered potentially life-threatening injuries in a crash around 4 p.m. at Centre and Hastings streets. The driver remained on scene and tried to render aid.
16 comments

===

https://www.universalhub.com/2019/memorial-woman-killed-while-walking-across-centre

Remembering what's important at West Roxbury intersection where woman died
By adamg on Wed, 02/13/2019
Somebody's created this memorial for Marilyn Wentworth, a lifelong West Roxbury resident who died Feb. 5 when hit by a car on Feb. 5 at Centre and Hastings streets in West Roxbury.
City officials have scheduled a community meeting on Feb. 27 to discuss ways to make Centre Street safer. The session starts at 7 p.m. at the Elks Club, 248 Spring St.
Read more.
25 comments

https://www.universalhub.com/2019/expect-see-more-cops-signs-centre-street-west
Expect to see more cops, signs on Centre Street in West Roxbury; meeting planned on complete road redesign
By adamg - 2/7/19
City and state elected officials are vowing an immediate increase in traffic enforcement along Centre Street to try to reduce the odds of pedestrians getting run down, following a fatal crash involving a pedestrian on Tuesday, City Councilor Matt O'Malley says.
But along with added police presence and new signs along the street, officials - who included state Rep. Ed Coppinger and state Sen. Mike Rush - agreed today to hold a community meeting by month's end to begin looking at redesigning the road altogether, as well as other steps the city could take to reduce crashes and fatalities along West Roxbury's main shopping street, O'Malley said.
Two years ago, Northeastern University civil-engineering researchers proposed reducing the number of travel lanes on Centre from four to two and to take other steps to make pedestrian crossings safer. They said the move would not lead to any extra congestion because Centre Street does not really carry as much traffic as people might think.
Read more.
28 comments

https://www.universalhub.com/2019/northeastern-researchers-proposed-steps-make
Northeastern researchers proposed steps two years ago to make Centre Street in West Roxbury safer for pedestrians
By adamg on Wed, 02/06/2019
In 2015, a West Roxbury man suffered a traumatic brain injury at Center and Hastings streets when one driver stopped for him to let him walk across but another did not and slammed into him. Yesterday, a woman who was hit by a car at the same intersection died of her injuries.
   In 2017, a Northeastern civil-engineering professor and one of his students wrote a detailed study on how to curb such crashes along Centre Street between the Holy Name rotary and Lagrange Street, by converting what is now a four-lane road into two lanes, with pedestrian islands at intersections and dedicated turn lanes at key intersections, steps they said would both slow drivers down and reduce the odds of them flooring it at intersections - and the odds of pedestrians getting hit by motorists not realizing why other motorists were stopping.
   Prof. Peter Furth said today that BTD engineers looked at the study and its accompanying data and basically said that it was interesting, but that they had more pressing concerns.
   That could change. City Councilor Matt O'Malley (West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain), who asked fellow councilors to observe a moment of silence for the woman at their meeting today, said it's time to figure out how to make Centre Street safer.
   Furth and master's student Huijie Gao said the answer would be to return the road to its state before the 1960s, when it had a single traffic lane in each direction - which would allow not just for pedestrian islands and turn lanes but dedicated bicycle lanes as well.
   Currently, with a four-lane road, motorists at red lights see open road ahead and zoom away when the light turns green. But forced into a narrower road, they would no longer do that, and a two-lane configuration would eliminate what he called a "double threat" to pedestrians, where, as in the 2016 crash, one motorist stops for a pedestrian but another headed in the same direction then plows into him.
   Furth continued that eliminating a lane in each direction wouldn't reduce the capacity of Centre Street much. It sounds counter-intuitive, but he said most through traffic in the area already goes down the nearby VFW Parkway. A day spent by Gao and fellow students collecting traffic data at the intersections between the Holy Name rotary and Lagrange Street revealed that Centre Street actually has long periods where sections of the road are clear, followed by a burst of traffic as the lights change at one of the intersections that have them, he said, adding congestion comes when drivers try to make left turns.
   By installing islands at intersections, and slowing traffic speeds from 30 to 25, the city could even save money by removing traffic lights altogether at several of the intersections that now have them, he said.
   Furth and Gao decided to study Centre Street because Gao is from West Roxbury and told Furth how dangerous the road is for pedestrians.

In a letter to city councilors in 2016, the man described his crash:
           I left Ace Hardware on Centre Street, bags in hand, went to the pedestrian crosswalk on Hastings Street towards Sugar Bakery, looked up and down the road, saw one car slowdown in the first lane, and began to walk. Within five steps, and in no more than five seconds, I saw from the corner of my eye that I was about to be hit by an incoming car. A split second later, I felt the impact, lost consciousness briefly, and was certain that if I didn’t die, I would be very badly injured. I regained awareness after I had hit the ground, and the first thing I could think to do was try to wiggle my toes, since I could not feel my legs and was not sure if I perhaps had a spinal injury.
   Firefighters braced me and put me on a stretcher, medics evaluated me and rushed me off to Faulkner Hospital, and officers got my information so they could go inform my wife, who at the time was home with our toddler and pregnant with our second daughter. In a daze, I tried thinking to myself how what had just happened actually happened. Did I not look? Did I miss the car? Why would I walk in front of a moving vehicle? I couldn’t figure it out. I was evaluated by the physicians in the Emergency Department, and told how lucky I was to have survived the hit. I did not break any bones. My MRI was clear. My neck seemed okay. My relative youth and fitness had helped save me. But what was not evaluated was the damage done to my brain. I had suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI), which wasn’t diagnosed until a month later, when I was still unable to stay awake, see straight, or return to work in a functional capacity.
   When I put the pieces together with the help of a paramedic, it made more sense. Based on how I was hit, the damage done to the car, the crater my head left on the windshield during impact, where the car had come to a stop, and where my body had ended up, the driver was going somewhere in the range of 35-40 miles per hour. The reason I had never seen the car coming was because, as I went to take that first step off the sidewalk, the car wasn’t even in my line of sight.
[comments]

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https://bulletinnewspapers.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/4/8/114832579/wr_ros_bulletin_pages_1_to_16__14feb2019.pdf
BULLETIN
Volume 19, Issue 7 FEBRUARY 14, 2019

Page One
WRCIA once again
talks pedestrian safety
after death on Centre
...

Pedestrian Safety continued from page 1

Elaine was 66 years old.
Resident Janice Hamilton said
she knows the driver who she
said is a registered nurse. She,
as well as witness reports, said
the driver tried to revive Elaine
after the collision.
“It was the sun glare, she
wasn’t speeding, she wasn’t
using a phone, and she got out
of the car when she hit and
gave her CPR,” Hamilton said.
“That whole street is bad.”
District 6 City Councilor
Matt O’Malley’s representative
at the meeting Shannon
Murphy said the councilor,
state representatives, city officials
and members of the
Boston Transportation Department
have confirmed a
meeting at the West Roxbury
Elks on Spring Street from 7
p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 27
to discuss the issue. The
meeting comes almost two
months after another transportation
meeting that the
WRCIA held with the Greater
Belgrade Neighborhood Association
and the Bellevue Hill

Neighborhood Association in
January after a man was
struck and killed by a car at
the corner of Stimson and
Washington Streets.
According to O’Malley’s
Twitter page, he is calling for
more traffic enforcement,
signage and delineatpts along
Centre Street for the short
term. He said he may also be
in favor of a total redesign of
Centre Street according to a
study from Northeastern University
from 2015, which
stated that the road could be
reduced to two lanes with
turning lanes instead of the
current four-lane system.
Enforcement is already
pretty high in West Roxbury
in terms of speeding citations
at least. In 2016, West
Roxbury had 350 speeding
tickets issued. In 2017, that
number went down to 248 but
stabilized at 255 in 2018, making
it the neighborhood with the
most amount of traffic enforcement
by the Boston Police
Department for that year.

Those numbers do not include
tickets issued by State Police
on state roads.
Another resident pointed
out three was also a serious
crash at the Real Deal Deli
three years ago when a friend
of hers was struck. She said
he was not killed, but still suffers
from severe head trauma.
“Did somebody have to die
for some action to be taken?”
she said. “Ultimately, it’s a design
issue where we have to
advocate with the city.”
Roach said the best thing
to do is stay cautious.
“When we’re pedestrians,
just take that extra bit of caution,”
he said. “I know people
have very busy lives, just keep
in the back of your head to reinforce
to each that that one
thing that pedestrian safety
can go a long way.”
The next meeting of the
WRCIA will be at the St.
Stephen’s Church in West
Roxbury at 7 p.m. on March
11.

===

https://bulletinnewspapers.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/4/8/114832579/wr_ros_bulletin_pages_1_to_16__21feb2019.pdf

BULLETIN
Volume 19, Issue 8 FEBRUARY 21, 2019

Page One
West Roxbury Bicycle
Committee discusses
Centre St. safety

Ariane Komyati
Staff Reporter

The West Roxbury Bicycle
Committee (WRBC) held its
first organizational meeting at
the Roche Center on Feb. 13.
Ben Weatherill, chairman of
the WRBC, led the discussion.
Weatherill is an avid cyclist and

has attended other bike groups
around the city, such as Rozzie
Bikes.
Those who attended the
meeting heard about the new
committee through flyers,
Facebook, West Roxbury Main
Streets, and the Boston Cyclists
Safety
Continued on page 7

Safety continued from page 1
The meeting, despite being the first held by the organization, was very well attended, apparently due to
recent deaths on the road in the neighborhood.

Union. Almost all of the attendees
live in West Roxbury, and
many of them are members of
the Parkway Cycling Club. “I
want to make West Roxbury
safer for my children and
grandchildren, who like to
bike,” one attendee remarked.
The hot topic of the meeting
was how to make Centre
Street safer for cyclists and pedestrians.
This conversation is
in wake of the car accident that
killed a pedestrian on Centre St.
earlier this month. “This discussion
is long overdue, and
Centre Street is in need of a redesign,”
stated Weatherill...

...Weatherill also passed
around a petition at the WRBC
meeting, which urged Mayor
Walsh and District 6 City Councilor
Matt O’Malley to fix Centre
Street immediately.

“Last week a pedestrian was
killed while crossing Centre
Street in West Roxbury. This is
the second pedestrian that was
killed by a car in West Roxbury
in the past four months. This is
a crisis that needs to be fixed
urgently. West Roxbury is a
neighborhood with a strong
sense of local community.
There are many residents who
like to walk, jog, or bike to get
around, and there are many
children who walk the streets
to school and to community
centers. West Roxbury needs
safer streets now for pedestrians
and bicycles and all vulnerable
modes of
transportation...Please don’t
allow this situation to continue
any longer. How long will it be
until the next pedestrian or bicyclist
is injured in West
Roxbury? Fix Centre Street
now and make it a beautiful
destination at the same time.”
O’Malley, who was present
at the meeting, encouraged
people to attend the “Pedestrian
Safety and Traffic in West
Roxbury” meeting on Wednesday,
Feb. 27 from 7pm-8:30pm
at the Elks Lodge on Spring
Street.
Despite this being the
WRBC’s very first meeting,
there was a great turnout. “I
know there are more people out
there who would love to join,
so we need to make sure to
spread the word,” remarked
Weatherill.
The WRBC is planning on
having another meeting in
March. For more information,
visit the WRBC Facebook page
(https://www.facebook.com/
groups/westroxbikecommittee/)
or email Ben Weatherill at
bweat...@fastmail.com.

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