Pedestrian killed sheds light on dangerous intersection
Reporter: Jessica Chapin
TUCSON (KGUN9- TV) - A pedestrian killed near Broadway Blvd and Rosemont leaves behind six children, and a realization. Residents near the intersection like Peggy Bartlett say it's a dangerous place to try to cross. She's afraid to walk across with her grandchildren.
"When we would get into the intersection the hand to stop would go up," she said, "We would have to wait in the median I would have one child in a stroller and one walking. That was just very frightening."
An employee at Melt, a nearby sandwich shop, says he sees it every day.
"I see people having to run every day just to make it across and people are in a hurry to get by because there's no arrow and there's a lot of close calls here," he said, "I think they need a turning arrow in to turn off of Rosemont. If they have a turning arrow it would give pedestrians more time to cross the street."
Bartlett agrees.
"It would be nice if there was a turn light there and also I think there needs to be more timing for the pedestrian walking on Rosemont," she said.
The intersection is in Tucson city council member Steve Kozachik's ward. He says he doesn't think a green arrow would help.
"I know that a green arrow is not going to solve it," he said, "Because you can still turn before the arrow turns green."
However, Kozachik says as soon as he found out about the fatal accident, he called Tucson transportation officials.
"Perhaps we look at things such as elongating the light, perhaps we look at things such as putting a leading left instead of a lag left," he suggested, "There are some traffic engineering solutions that could be looked at but just putting a green arrow in isn't going to solve somebody who's just going to try and beat the pedestrian going across the intersection."
Kozachik says he encourages residents to contact the traffic engineers about dangerous intersections.
Thirty-six year old Tina Rieger was struck by a pick-up truck and killed while crossing the intersection in the crosswalk Tuesday morning. A donation fund has been set up at Wells Fargo under her name to support her six children.
The driver of the truck, 60-year-old Frances Laurelez was charged with a misdemeanor for causing death during a moving violation, because there was no evidence of alcohol or excessive speed.
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