Continued community walk by the Roanoke Police Department promotes pedestrian safety

Roanoke, Virginia – The Roanoke Police Department conducted another Community Walk to make Roanoke City a safer place.

The Roanoke Police Department has returned to walking the streets and interacting with the locals.

“We want to hear what their concerns are, what we can do better what they enjoy that we’ve done so far, and how we can better serve the community,” said Traffic Supervisor, Ray Shanks. He said conversing with businesses will help spread the word about pedestrian safety.

“By speaking with some of the businesses, they can talk to some of the people who are coming in and going into businesses and speak to them about crossing the streets and being a little bit safer,” added Shanks.

Compared to 45 collisions last year, Roanoke City has seen 24 pedestrian crashes this year.

“There’s been several accidents and several involving pedestrians. And we want to bring a closer look to people not only the pedestrians in the area that we’d like to speak and talk to but the drivers. And we’ll tell them, just a little bit more careful and take time,” said Shanks.

Four pedestrian collisions on Hershberger Road since the beginning of the year have resulted in one fatality, which happened in early April. Seven events occurred on Hershberger Road last year.
According to Valerie Brown, executive director of the Greater Williamson Road Area Business Association, walkers and automobiles alike must exercise greater caution and awareness of their surroundings.

“These walks are great, we trying to identify pedestrian safety because it really brings alive what we don’t have,” said Brown. “We don’t have crosswalks, we don’t have necessarily the lights. We don’t have sidewalks, we don’t have curbs. So it brings alive what it really is. And hopefully, well cause and help others come to the conclusion we need to do something about it.”