The family of Shawn Jordan has demanded that Sacramento County build a sidewalk after the 18-year-old was fatally struck in a hit-and-run crash while walking home from the bus stop June 15.
His relatives believe the deadly North Highlands collision could have been prevented if the county had provided basic pedestrian infrastructure.
In a petition, Jordan’s parents called for a sidewalk, improved lighting, signage alerting drivers to people on foot and traffic cameras. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 300 people had signed .
Aubrey Fong, Jordan’s stepmother, started the petition with the support of the teen’s father and mother: her fiance, Seth Jordan Sr., and Marie Martinez. The Walerga Road overpass where their son was fatally struck has no sidewalk, save for a small disconnected patch that begins and ends in the middle of the viaduct’s west side. On most of the overpass, pedestrians must walk in the unprotected bike lanes.
Drivers on the overpass, built in 1968, have four lanes and can legally travel at 40 mph — a speed research shows is often lethal to people on foot.
A spokesman for the Sacramento County Department of Transportation, Matt Robinson, said Tuesday that traffic engineers were waiting for the California Highway Patrol to finish the criminal investigation before they conducted a safety-oriented investigation. In the interim, he said, there were no plans to improve pedestrian safety on the road.
Robinson added that the department would review any petition submitted by the public.
Martinez said she wanted to ensure that her son’s death wasn’t “brushed off” by the county. She said that since the overpass is so wide, she thought officials could install temporary barriers such as those used for construction sites as an emergency measure, “ just something that takes the people off of walking in the street.”
Fong wrote in the petition that Jordan’s life “was tragically cut short by something that could have been prevented. His loss unveiled grave issues with overpass safety in our neighborhood that demand our immediate attention.”
Overpass has histories of pedestrian injuries, deaths
Fong also noted that the route “is the only way in and out of our neighborhood for those on foot or bike, without having to go miles out of your way.” She previously told The Sacramento Bee that Jordan usually took a different bus route or got off the bus at an earlier stop to walk the long way home so that he could avoid walking on the road right next to speeding traffic.
Walerga Road has seen multiple severe crashes. Shortly after Jordan’s death on June 20 , Randii Hunter wrote to The Bee from her current home in Tennessee and said that her sister, Megan Smith, was killed 17 years ago on the same street. She was struck in a hit-and-run while crossing Walerga just north of the overpass where Jordan was hit. She was 16.
In an interview, Hunter said that when she read about Jordan’s death, “I just was like, ‘Oh my god. That’s the same road. That’s crazy. There’s still no sidewalks.’” She said she found it “hurtful.”
“A sidewalk,” Hunter said, “doesn’t take that much effort.”
In addition to the collisions that killed Jordan and Smith, several crashes have left people seriously hurt. UC Berkeley’s Transportation Injury Mapping System shows that a crash severely injured pedestrians at Walerga and Kirkby Way in both 2015 and 2017, north of the overpass. In 2018, 2021 and 2023, vehicle-only crashes severely injured people in cars on either side of the overpass.
Martinez said that safety measures implemented now “wouldn’t bring Shawn back. But it would help with other families so that they don’t lose loved ones.”
Fong referenced Smith’s collision and the other serious crashes in her petition. “My stepson’s accident was not an unfortunate outlier; there have been other deaths and injuries in the area,” she said.
“Nobody else should have to die.”
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