PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — Dozens gathered Thursday evening to demand change on North Main Street six months after the capital city committed to making safety improvements .

The goal of the “Vision Zero” agreement is to end traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2030 by redesigning city streets to ensure the safety of everyone who walks, bikes, rides and drives through Providence.

The Providence Streets Coalition said that, between 2010 and 2022, there were 84 crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists on North Main Street.

Within the past year, four pedestrians have died, including Zachary Richardson .

“I just loved him so much,” his girlfriend Lisa Pope said. “I still love him.”

Richardson had just finishing cleaning his mother’s apartment and was on his way to Pope’s home when he was hit by a driver and left for dead.

Pope has been calling for change ever since.

“I don’t want his death to be in vain,” Pope said.

Though the city has verbally committed to making safety improvements, Pope claims nothing has been done.

Providence City Councilor Sue Anderbois, who’s responsible for North Main Street, said some progress has been made, but not nearly enough.

“The fact that four people have died on this street in the last 18 months is a failure,” Anderbois said. “It’s a failure of policy. It’s a failure of design.”

But Anderbois said the changes aren’t easy to make, since the road is state-owned.

That’s why Anderbois created the North Main Street Task Force to ensure the agreement is acted upon.

Anderbois said that, over the past six months, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation has completed a road safety assessment to determine what long-term changes need to be made.

The task force is still awaiting the final plan, but Anderbois said they’ve taken smaller steps to make North Main Street safer in the meantime by adding signs, extending crosswalks and improving lighting .

“We’re trying to make some progress while we are still also planning for a larger, longer term changes,” Anderbois explained.

The North Main Street Task Force is expected to meet again in September.

Josh Estrella, a spokesperson for Providence Mayor Brett Smiley’s office, told 12 News work is also being done across the city.

“We’re focusing on the many ways we can improve, including restriping pedestrian crosswalks, investing in sidewalks and reassessing traffic-calming measures,” Estrella explained.

Estrella said the city is also updating its plan to achieve Vision Zero, which he expects to be finalized early next year.

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