After two pedestrian fatalities in October, safety for Charlottesville-area walkers and cyclists has been top of mind for local leaders and community members. While city officials are putting forward proposals and taking emergent action, some activists are frustrated with the long timelines and dismissive attitudes.
The first fatality occurred on October 3, when 64-year-old Charlottesville resident Mamawa Simai was hit by a motorist at the marked crosswalk on South First Street and Elliott Avenue. Simai was transported to the University of Virginia Medical Center, where she died. She was on her way to work at the same facility when she was hit by 19-year-old driver Matthew Kozub. An investigation of the crash determined that poor lighting and a lack of signage or signals for the crossing were factors in the accident.
Just outside the city, a second fatality occurred around 7pm on October 28, when four pedestrians, a 38-year-old woman and three children, were struck while crossing Stony Point Road near Riverside Shops Way. All four were seriously injured, and one of the children, a 4-month-old, died at the hospital on October 30. The driver remained at the scene, and the incident remains under investigation by Albemarle County Police.
Following the death of Simai, the City of Charlottesville installed plastic bollards at the intersection of South First Street and Elliott Avenue. The emergency improvement is the first of many to come, according to city leaders, but timeline and funding details remain unknown.
City Manager Sam Sanders laid out a series of traffic safety improvement options for councilors at the October 21 City Council meeting. Proposed solutions include reducing the speed limit city-wide, with the exception of the 250 bypass, to 25 miles per hour; consideration of speed bumps and similar measures; and the creation of a tiered sidewalk priority list. All of these proposals are still in their initial stages, though multiple councilors expressed excitement about the efforts.
“I think lowering the speed limit across the city to 25, if that’s something we could do by waving a wand, I would do that tomorrow,” said Vice Mayor Brian Pinkston at the meeting. Other members also voiced support, including Natalie Oschrin, who campaigned on pedestrian safety in her 2023 run for council.
“Bike ped[estrian] infrastructure is kind of my whole deal,” said Oschrin at a November 7 meeting of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. The councilor and committee members focused heavily on rapid and long-term safety improvements, though several attendees voiced frustration with the city’s history of inaction, namely the cancellation of millions of dollars of Virginia Department of Transportation projects announced at the November 4 council meeting.
“This is a group that has spent hundreds of hours on projects that we just saw got canceled,” said one committee member. “We’re not seeing projects rolling out.”
While Oschrin has expressed appreciation for community feedback and support for pedestrian safety improvements, local activists say other city officials have been decidedly more dismissive.
A frequent walker, Charlottesville resident Renee Byrd started a petition calling for the installation of a marked crosswalk at the intersection of South Second Street and Elliott Avenue by IX Art Park, just one block from the crossing where Simai was killed. After gathering more than 900 signatures, Byrd sent her petition to the city’s traffic engineer and presented it to City Council. When the city failed to give a clear response, long-time local pedestrian safety advocate Kevin Cox joined Byrd’s effort to get a marked crossing installed.
C-VILLE obtained the email thread between Mayor Juandiego Wade, Councilor Lloyd Snook, Byrd, and Cox.
In a November 4 email, Wade outlined a statement from city staff, who are working to identify and develop actions that can be implemented within a year through the use of the Urgent Infrastructure Fund. When Cox asked for comment on the petition calling for a crossing at South Second Street and Elliott Avenue, Snook wrote on November 5: “As I understand the debate internal to the City staff, it comes down to ‘There is no good way to make a Second Street crossing safe, because the Second Street crossing isn’t even visible to folks coming from Avon Street, so maybe the better bet is to try to induce pedestrians to use the First Street crossing and then focus on getting people to slow down enough to make the First Street crossing safe.’”
“I don’t understand why you and your friends have used the tragedy at First Street as a reason for seeking a crossing at Second Street” he continued. “If the reason were that Second Street is inherently safer than First Street—which it does not seem to be—I could understand the public push for constructing a safer crossing at Second Street. But that doesn’t appear to be the situation.”
While the request for the crossing at South Second Street and Elliott Avenue is related to the safety concerns that contributed to Simai’s death, Byrd says the lack of understanding between officials and community activists boils down to a misunderstanding of how pedestrians actually use sidewalks and crossings in Charlottesville.
At press time, the city has not responded to a request for comment.