Kelley Square is Not on Worcester’s Radar for Reconstruction
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Photo Cropped: From Flickr- Chris Markman
“It’s not high on the radar screen. It’s such an unusual collection of streets. It’s not a simple thing to try to make substantial improvements,” said Worcester DPW Commissioner Paul Moosey. “Kelley Square would be eligible for federal highway money - which is what the state uses when they do highway projects. Could the state do it? Yes. But the city could probably do it too. There isn’t any plan right now to do anything major there right now.”
Moosey told GoLocalWorcester that once a project at Harding Street is completed in the next year or two, then the city probably focus on Kelley Square and resurface it, rearrange some of the islands, and make the crosswalks better. However, there are no plans for a complete redesign.
Not the Worst Intersection in the City
“Over the last thirty years, the accident rate has continually gone down in Kelley Square,” said Moosey. “The square doesn’t jump out as a prime target to do safety improvements that would really trigger federal or state dollars. Accidents with injuries are really low there because the speeds of the vehicles is slow. It’s most fender benders and scrapes.”
As GoLocalWorcester reported on Tuesday, from 2010 to 2012 Kelley Square was ranked the 13th worst intersection in the city based on Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) crash data.
From 2002 to 2012, there were zero pedestrian or traffic fatalities at Kelley Square. However, there have been two deaths and at least one serious accident where a pedestrian was hit in the Square in the past two years, including Thursday night's awful accident. On June 1, 2013, a motorcyclist driving down Green Street and attempting to pass another vehicle and take a right turn onto Madison Street crashed into the vehicle and slid underneath it. He died at the scene. Exactly two months later, on August 1, a 43-year-old woman was struck by a vehicle and suffered lacerations and a leg injury.
“It’s been looked at a lot. In my opinion, all of the different designs and ideas we’ve looked at over the years, really result in making more streets than we have now one-way. There’s quite a lot to it. You have to look at the other streets that may be affected and what kind of congestion they will have to deal with,” said Moosey.
From Top Crash Locatons Courtesy of MassDOT - Red Area Indicates Top 200 crash location at Kelley Square
Tragedy Shouldn't Have Happened
Thursday evening, 24-year-old Sarah Ewing was killed when she was pinned down by a tractor trailer on a sidewalk outside of Hotel Vernon. The truck pulled up on the sidewalk to avoid a firetruck coming down the street behind it. When the truck pulled back out, it hit a light pole. In an attempt to avoid the light pole, the truck ran over Ewing and a 25-year-old male she was with.
As GoLocal reported on Monday, the tractor trailer driver in the accident has been cited for vehicular manslaughter.
“If you look at the freak accident that happened last week, we could put signals in there, we could put roundabouts in there, but when you have a truck towing a trailer trying to make a turn like that - and I understand what happened - but, how can we change that?” Moosey said. “If you have a big trailer, and you’re too far to the right, how can you make that turn? That guy has to be smart enough to know that he can’t make that turn and needs to go straight and go around the block.”
Related Articles
- Is it Finally Time to Fix Kelley Square?
- Truck Driver in Fatal Kelley Square Accident Cited for Vehicular Homicide
- 24-Year-Old Woman Killed in Tragic Accident at Kelley Square Identified
- Augustus Releases Statement on Kelley Square Protesters
- Protesters Gather in Kelly Square, Chant “I Can’t Breathe”
Follow us on Pinterest Google + Facebook Twitter See It Read It