GObike: Time has come to improve road infrastructure

Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - After an eighth-grader in Grand Island died after being struck by a car, those fighting for road improvements say those improvements are long overdue.

"The best time was 10, 15, years ago, but the second best time is now to invest in better infrastructure," said Kevin Heffernan of GObike Buffalo.

A lot of the road design in Grand Island is built for the speed of cars primarily, and not for pedestrians, according to Heffernan.

"If you've seen those slip turns that are all over the Island, you can hit those at a pretty high speed, and hopefully there's no one in your way as you come around the corner. This deadly summer has been happening all over the place, as a Western New York community. We need to rethink how we're designing our roads," Heffernan said.

Eighth-grader Leah Mayer died after being struck by a car Wednesday evening.

Heffernan prefers a complete streets policy, which takes into account all users - people walking, biking, using wheelchairs and driving.

"A lot of our current design principles are built on a little bit of pseudo science, and they really just prioritize vehicle level of service," Heffernan noted.

Heffernan believes lighting would certainly help.

"I would imagine that would be one of the cheaper options to make these streets safer from the get go. But you can re-design these fast turns into ones that do require drivers to slow down, and you can re-design intersections into ones where a tight turn actually puts those people walking across the intersection into the front windshield view of a driver, as opposed to sort of keeping them hidden in that left or right corner of the windshield," Heffernan said.

One longtime concern in the region has been Niagara Falls Boulevard. Heffernan says there's a complication in the matter.

"It is a state road, but it's added complications in that the East side of it is Amherst, the West side of it is Tonawanda. And each town has different ideas for how to improve the adjacent safety, sidewalk, access, things like that," Heffernan explained.

Heffernan adds it is also considered, what folks pushing for better design would call a "stroad" between a street and a road, where you do have dense residential population immediately adjacent, and then you have a ton of commercial which creates a lot of traffic. He says that is why it's tough to say if there have been improvements on the Boulevard as a result of lighting.