Police have identified the 83-year-old man killed in a pedestrian accident Wednesday as Jose S. Dionisio, and the driver as Carmella Visinho, 92, both of Warwick.
Dionisio was crossing Main Avenue around 9:30 a.m., near the intersection with Greenwich Avenue, when he was struck by Visinho, who was driving in the right lane, eastbound. Dionisio was not in a crosswalk, according to the initial investigation.
Crosswalk or no crosswalk, how do we expect an elderly person to ever cross that street? How do we expect anyone to ever be able to cross that street? A traffic engineer designed that.
As our population continues to age, and more elderly people are no longer able to drive, we’re going to have a lot more elderly people in suburbs trying to cross the streets we engineered for cars.
Also, from WPRI:
Several neighbors in the area told Eyewitness News they don’t believe there are enough crosswalks over Main Avenue, which is also Route 113.
“It’s dangerous,” said Sue Mello, who owns a salon in front of where the crash happened. She says many residents resort to jaywalking to get to businesses that don’t have a nearby crosswalk.
“I have clients who live across the street, and they will walk across the street,” she said. “There’s also a Dunkin Donuts…and I know they walk across the street to get their coffee. I’ve done it,” she added.
It is good that neighbors recognize the problem, but we all know that just laying some paint on a four lane highway is not going to make pedestrians safe.
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