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Date: 6/14/2023
WEST SPRINGFIELD — Half a year after their neighbor and her dog were killed crossing the street, residents of Piper Road asked why nothing seems to have changed.
“I don’t understand why the safety of this particular road isn’t a priority,” Tracy McGrath said to the Town Council on June 5. “The speeding is an obvious problem. We need enforcement.”
McGrath lives at the corner of Piper and Monastery Avenue, where 25-year-old Neely Murray was struck by a car while walking the family dog on Dec. 20, 2022. She said she’s seen countless accidents and near-accidents, and constant speeding, at the intersection in front of her house. A high schooler was struck by a car in the same crosswalk, a year before Murray’s death, and an elderly woman was hit and seriously injured a few years before.
“When will we see that this isn’t the drivers or the pedestrians, but the road that’s a problem?” McGrath asked. “The accident that killed Neely wasn’t her fault. She walked into a deathtrap. This accident was our fault for not fixing the road sooner.”
Donald Goyette, who attended West Springfield High School with Murray and was her ex-boyfriend, said he was “absolutely disgusted” that the town’s response so far has been “a big fat nothing.”
“I’m honestly ashamed to be a citizen in a town whose local government seems to care so little about its own people,” Goyette said. “And this is the same road as the high school, where we send our kids. This could have been any one of us. … There’s blood on the hands of everyone in charge who saw the writing on the wall and did nothing to prevent this.”
After Murray’s death, the town placed orange construction cones beside several of the crosswalks along Piper Road. McGrath said drivers would often strike the cones near her house, and members of her family would have to put them back in place.
Avery McGrath, Tracy’s daughter, said she’s seen 20-30 car accidents in front of her house, and the images haunted her when she started driving.
“Every time I got behind the wheel, I’d picture another accident I’d seen just at the end of my driveway,” she said. “The worst part was knowing every single one was entirely preventable, had safety measures been implemented years ago.”
Town Council President Edward Sullivan told the Piper Road neighbors that town officials take their concerns seriously, and that several initiatives to improve pedestrian safety around town are in the works, such as building more sidewalks and lowering speed limits to 25 mph unless posted otherwise. He also said “bump-outs” — narrowing the roadway at certain locations on Piper Road — are on the way.
“We’re keenly aware of all the issues you’re bringing forward,” he said.
He also suggested that neighbors bring their concerns to the council’s Traffic and Safety Committee, which is now “the most active in the history of West Springfield.”
Joyce Corbett, a Piper Road resident, said she feels that town officials are finally listening to speeding complaints after years of “blatant negligence.” She said neighbors had asked for changes in 2007-2009 and were ignored. She said the town’s “speedways” — Birnie Avenue, Dewey Street, Piper Road — need new ideas like the raised crosswalks installed last year on Amostown Road.
Andrew Murray, Neely’s father, said physical changes are what Piper Road needs.
“The signs, the lights, anything else on that street isn’t going to do any good,” he said. “The only thing that’s going to do any good to slow people down is bumps in between the crosswalks, from the high school on up. Or you’re going to have other fatalities.”
Also at their June 5 meeting, the Town Council voted 7-0, with Councilor Jaime Smith abstaining and Councilor Anthony DiStefano absent, to approve the $120,126,222.44 town budget for fiscal year 2024 as presented by the mayor, with no changes.