Residents say city needs to make Montana Avenue safer for pedestrians
A woman was seriously injured Saturday night after she was struck by a car on Montana Avenue.
Witnesses said the woman was hit by a westbound car while she was crossing the busy street northbound in a crosswalk at its intersection with 10th Street. They estimated the woman was in her 30s while the driver, also a woman, was in her 60s.
Police in Santa Monica haven’t released any names, or the hospital the victim was taken to, as well as what her condition is.
Chris Jenkins, a waiter at the Rosti II restaurant at that corner, said the pedestrian was hit on the side, which caused her to roll onto the hood of the car, smashing its windshield. She then flew about 15 feet before landing in the middle of the road. When Jenkins ran to the woman, he said she was unconscious and bleeding from the head. After about five minutes, she came to and tried to get up but Jenkins and other witnesses urged her to stay down until rescuers arrived.
“I was trying to talk to her,” Jenkins said. “We just held her down because we thought maybe she had a broken neck.”
The irony is that the crosswalk at 10th and Montana is scheduled to be repainted in the near future, area residents say. Sidewalk and street improvements are currently being done along the heavily traveled road. Montana Avenue is the first phase of a multi-million dollar pedestrian safety enhancement project the city is embarking on, said city councilman Kevin McKeown. Improving pedestrian safety is an issue that he used in his platform to get elected.
“This underscores the need,” he said, adding his regret that the improvements hadn’t been done sooner. “This was originally supposed to be done in September. It might have made a difference, but we don’t know that, of course.”
But area residents say the improvements won’t be enough. Several people on the scene Saturday night recalled many episodes in which people attempting to cross Montana have been killed in recent years.
Judy Osterday, who lives just off the busy road said her son was hit while trying to cross the street eight years ago. She said traffic on Montana Avenue has worsened since then and City Hall needs to take a new look at safety there.
“They need more medians and more stop signs,” she said. “This is a shopping and walking area. It’s just ridiculous to have all these cars... Something has to be done because I get so angry about how fast people drive around here.
“We need to do more,” she added.
Todd and Tatiana James feel the same way. They walk along Montana Avenue almost every day with their young child. Montana is unsafe to cross anywhere except at crosswalks which have traffic lights, they said. Todd James raised the issue of cell phone use on the road.
“We always joke about how bad traffic is on this street,” he said. “It is all around atrocious driving on Montana. A lot of people are on their phones, there’s a lot of people parallel parking and a lot of pedestrians. It’s a main thoroughfare.”
Another witness, who asked not to be identified, said he thinks the biggest problem with Montana is a lack of traffic lights to slow drivers down so they can see pedestrians. He also took the unusual view that vehicles, not pedestrians, should have the legal right of way.
“It’s just a bad law. Pedestrians have the right of way but it’s easier for a pedestrian to see a car and a pedestrian can react faster than a car,” he said.
Montana Avenue was closed to traffic between seventh and 10th streets for more than two hours while police investigated the mishap and took measurements around the car involved, which remained where it had stopped. The driver, a Los Angeles resident, hasn’t been charged.
As part of the improvements being made on city streets include installing curve extensions, which hopefully will narrow the street and deter cars from exceeding the speed limit; making the striping at crosswalks brighter and more noticeable, as well as building traffic islands at various locations, McKeown said. Cab companies competitive in Yellow Pages
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 19, 2001. Read the original PDF.