We’ve talked about how a snowfall allows us to see how heavy foot traffic is in parts of our community, and what a great thing that can be to demonstrate use. But we’ve also seen evidence of some alarming driver behavior in the snow this winter.
Drivers going up on the sidewalk
On State St at Schoen Pl, a vehicle drove up on the sidewalk, brushed the guardrail, and drove back into the street about 50 ft onwards. This incident happened in broad daylight–sometime between about 2:30pm and 6:15pm, not in the middle of the night. Often at this location, a driver will be stopped to turn left onto Schoen Pl. Drivers sometimes try to pass–often at speed–in a small shoulder on the right side of the road. Because we didn’t see it happen, we don’t know exactly what happened here. But we did check with the Village to see if there were any accident reports by the Sheriff (no) or DPW work here (no) that could possibly explain it.
We walk with our dog and bike with our kids on this stretch of the bridge 6 to 8 times a day, and this does–not to be too dramatic–strike fear in my heart. While walking here, traffic often goes by at or above 30mph directly next to us, with nothing but a small curb between us. We often have to hustle across the bridge quickly because of this sense of vulnerability, and seeing evidence of someone actually driving up onto the sidewalk is my worst fear here realized. Someone walking along this stretch of State St would have been wiped out–no exit strategy possible.
On Monroe Ave in December, we saw similar tracks in the snow where a driver went up on the curb on the opposite side of the road and into oncoming traffic. The lawn and tree box area here helped prevent the vehicle from coming all the way onto the sidewalk. Another reason for street trees and wide tree box areas!
Drivers in Oncoming Traffic to Avoid Waiting
One of the more alarming driver behaviors we see is driving into oncoming traffic to turn left in order to bypass waiting in a queue of cars. It often happens so quickly that we stand there slack-jawed and have never been able to capture the behavior on our phones. But in a snowfall, we watched a driver do it and then saw the tracks and snapped a photo after the fact. Drivers routinely drive from the midpoint of State St Bridge into oncoming traffic–across a double yellow–to turn left onto Boughton. This is terrifying when you are crossing Boughton on foot because the drivers cannot see you when they start this maneuver and they are racing to beat any oncoming traffic. One day we saw this happen from over the crest of the bridge–the person driving in oncoming traffic could not even see down State St when they started driving on the other side of the road because of the hill on the bridge, and cars were approaching from the South St intersection.
We try to stay pretty positive about walking and biking in Pittsford–after all there is so much to love! But these images show the vulnerability of people walking and biking next to traffic and why we are committed to advocating for safe streets for all. Slower speeds, driver attentiveness, and patience are crucial to keeping our streets safe.