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FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) - For a radical of seniors, mornings astatine Cafe Van Ness are much than conscionable java but besides a spot for friendship. However, speeding and distracted drivers are making it much and much unsafe for them to spell astir their regular routine.
84-year-old Pat Reeves says she’s been walking to Cafe Van Ness, cane successful hand, for a decade. She inactive looks guardant to her regular visits.
“This is astir similar a 2nd location here,” Reeves said.
But crossing adjacent intersections has turned into a risk. Seniors accidental speeding cars and distracted drivers marque it harder and harder to get crossed safely.
Reeves described a adjacent telephone of her own.
“As I’m crossing Shields, a car is coming and she’s going mode excessively fast, for 1 thing," Reeves said. "Luckily, she slammed connected the brakes successful clip earlier hitting me.”
Her person Harry Bryden wasn’t arsenic lucky. Last November, portion walking crossed the thoroughfare with the close of way, helium says helium was struck by a U-Haul truck.
“The locomotion motion came on. I stepped into the intersection and took astir 4 steps, and I was struck,” Bryden said. “I had a breached wrist, aggregate contusions, and lacerations. My full near broadside was a achromatic and bluish mess.”
Fresno City Councilmember Nelson Esparza, who represents District 7, says helium and chap Councilmember Annalisa Perea, who represents District 1, person been moving for years to measure the occupation intersections and marque imperishable fixes.
"I partnered with my workfellow implicit successful District 1. We were capable to get a postulation survey conducted to measure what immoderate of the improvements are that we tin make," Esparza said. "At Van Ness and Clinton specifically, we've seen high-visibility crosswalks beryllium installed. Additionally, we were capable to unafraid astir $1.7 cardinal to instrumentality near crook phasing astatine Van Ness and Clinton."
Esparza says plans are successful question to adhd high-visibility crosswalks to Van Ness and Shields arsenic well.
While metropolis officials enactment to marque changes they anticipation volition support drivers and pedestrians, Esparza says drivers and pedestrians tin marque a quality by exercising caution astatine intersections.
"We're going to spot immoderate changes successful the agelong term," Esparza said. "Meanwhile, we request folks to dial in. Pay attention. Be cautious retired there."
Harry Bryden has since made a adjacent afloat recovery, but helium and the remainder of the Cafe Van Ness regulars echo Esparza's message: look doubly and prevention a life.
“Something has to beryllium done,” Bryden said. “God forbid that anybody gets deed and killed there. And that’s astir apt what it would instrumentality to person immoderate action. But we conscionable don’t privation that to happen.”
