Take it as a warning to look twice before crossing the street −− with October just beginning, Tufts Emergency Medical Services (TEMS) has just wrapped the busiest month in recent history for pedestrian accidents. Over the course of September, TEMS responded to six pedestrian or cyclist accidents −− five of which involved Tufts students being hit by a car.
On Sept. 20, junior Sara Honickman was biking home after class in the middle of a rainy day. She was traveling away from campus, down Packard Avenue toward her house on Ossipee Road. Honickman came to the intersection of Packard and Powderhouse Boulevard and, after waiting for a break in the traffic, began to cross the street. Before she got across however, a car that had been waiting on Packard to make a left onto Powderhouse made its turn and hit Honickman.
"I think the scariest part was I saw this car in my peripheral vision, and she was turning and not going straight," Honickman said. She added that when she noticed the car was not stopping, the sudden realization that she was going to be hit was unnerving.
TEMS responded to the call and transported Honickman to the hospital, where she was treated in the emergency room.
"In the ER, I got a couple of X−rays and was released with bruises and scrapes," she said.
However, Honickman's was neither the first nor the most severe pedestrian accident that TEMS responded to over the course of September. Cars hit five students: three on bicycles and two walking. Two of those accidents took place at the same Packard and Powderhouse intersection where Honickman was hit, and both incidents put students in the hospital −− one in Boston and one in Cambridge.
Being called to this many pedestrian accidents in the course of a month −− or even in a year −− is unheard of, according to the TEMS Executive Director Kevin McKay.
"We are concerned about the number there have been, because it definitely is abnormal," McKay, a senior, said. Director of Emergency Management Geoffrey Bartlett added that TEMS has not had to respond to any calls of this nature within the past two− and−a−half years.
"TEMS did not respond to a pedestrian accident in that timeframe," Bartlett said.
Director of Public and Environmental Safety Kevin Maguire said that his department considers the high number of accidents an anomaly.
"We think it's a coincidence," he said. He stressed, however, that this does not mean the issue is being ignored.
"All of these accidents remain under investigation," Maguire said, and he added that they will continue to be investigated so as "to address behaviors so that folks stay as safe as they can be."
As for possible explanations for the cause of the high number of pedestrian accidents, Bartlett attributes its location between two cities as a possible contributing factor.
"It's important to remember that the Tufts University campus is in some places intersected by city streets," he said, emphasizing that both motorists and pedestrians need to be mindful of that. As a student, Honickman has the sense that many passing cars are unaware of the high amounts of foot traffic these streets receive due to their proximity to a largely pedestrian campus.
"I think that's probably the issue with this intersection," she said. "Cars treat it like a main road and aren't cognizant of how many pedestrians there are."
The flip side of driver ignorance, Honickman said, is that students don't do their part either. They don't think too much about the amount of traffic these streets receive because they feel as though they're still on campus where they feel safe and insulated, she said.
McKay agreed that students often don't pay attention to where they're going as they walk around campus.
"When you drive on campus, it's funny watching people walk −− they don't look," he said. Students' habits of listening to music and texting as they walk contribute to the danger, he said, as does the fact that Powderhouse Boulevard is in fact a major Somerville thoroughfare that merits a heightened sense of awareness.
McKay cautioned that both of the accidents at the intersection of Powderhouse and Packard Avenue, while severe, could have been much worse. Given the speed at which drivers take on the major streets around Tufts, a fatal collision is not out of the question.
"[With] one of these accidents, I was surprised we weren't dealing with something more serious," he said.
"That's the quickest way in under five seconds we can lose a student," McKay added.
Honickman does a double take when venturing off the sidewalk these days, she said.
"It still makes me pretty nervous to cross that intersection…[and] hearing about other accidents has made me more cautious," Honickman said. While pedestrians can do their part by keeping their heads up, Maguire said that his department, along with the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD), is taking steps toward a safer campus in the wake of September's accidents.
"The three E's of [pedestrian] safety are education, engineering and enforcement," he said. On the education front, Maguire is making an effort to raise awareness of the dangers present on campus. In this vein, TUPD Officer Linda D'Andrea has compiled a PowerPoint on pedestrian and motor safety that TUPD will distribute online. To "engineer" a safer campus, Maguire said, TUPD will also place traffic cones along the campus' busiest intersections.
Maguire added that enforcement is occasionally a necessary part of pedestrian safety −− TUPD officers are currently positioned at key intersections in order to observe and report on traffic patterns, and they have asked the Somerville Police Department to do the same.
"They've said they will ask their traffic vehicles to spend time observing intersections," Maguire said.
Although the Department of Public and Environmental Safety and TUPD are making a concerted effort to address the safety issues that have arisen after September's accidents, Maguire pointed out that achieving a safer campus also relies a good deal on personal responsibility.
"Not only do motorists need to be careful, but pedestrians as well," he said. "Although motorists have more responsibility, pedestrians have more at stake."
