Desert Hot Springs officials share details of $1 million pedestrian safety project
The Desert Hot Springs City Council is under fire after the death of a teenager on a city street.
Desert Hot Springs High School senior Pamela Carrillo, 17, was hit and killed while trying to cross Palm Drive last Saturday night. Carillo was not in a crosswalk.
Read: Teenager identified after deadly collision in Desert Hot Springs
“That’s the problem with the corridor of Palm Drive. It’s one main corridor in and out of town and people can start their speed,” said Desert Hot Springs Mayor Scott Matas.
According to Matas, the city ranks second in the Coachella Valley for fatalities involving pedestrians.
Residents have been complaining, asking why city officials, knowing how dangerous the area is, didn’t add more crosswalks and lighting earlier.
New enhancements are planned for a roughly half-mile stretch from Camino Aventura to Two Bunch Palms.
“We really focused on what was important was the areas that we saw the most fatalities in and the most casualties,” Matas said.
He says the construction is not a reaction to the recent tragedy, but rather the work of proactive measures the city began to take two years ago.
“It takes a long time for a lot of things when it comes to grants and engineering and making it safe,” Matas said. “It’s not something where you can throw up a stop light or stop sign tomorrow without engineering it correctly and warrantying the reason for it being there.”
The city told KESQ & CBS Local 2’s Katie Widner that students who are trying to get to school in the area often have to walk through dangerous areas where there’s no pedestrian path or even through the dirt sometimes. This new project will fix that.
Matas said the project will add sidewalks on the west side of the street, 23 new street lights, new crosswalks, smaller vehicle lanes and bus beacons that will flashlights to make sure people know there could be pedestrians in the area.
“I think it’s just heartwrenching knowing that somebody else had to pass away before this took place. We hopefully will save a life in the future,” Matas said.
It’s something some residents are excited about.
“I think that’s a great idea because safety’s an important issue. So, we need to start doing better things in this community and I think that that will be a start to help us out,” said Elizabeth Storer, a regular driver on Palm Drive.
While others feel it’s not enough.
“No. Stop lights. They should put stoplights,” said Dyanira Echeverria, a Desert Hot Springs resident. “It’s hard walking. I always have to be waiting until it’s like clear and that’s hard because there’s always like cars everywhere.”
The city said a second phase will begin from Palm Drive to Pierson Drive. Matas said that is the city’s deadliest area and it will include a number of new traffic signals. The city is also working on adding a new motorcop, to help crack down on speed.
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