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John Daley ReportingA dangerous intersection where an East High school student was struck by a car is getting a makeover. The student later died. The incident helped galvanize neighborhood support for some new safety measures.
A first step was made today as UTA moved a pair of problematic bus stops. The intersection is 1300 East and 700 South. It's seen a number of auto-pedestrian accidents over the years, but the concern of neighbors reached an all-time high last month when East High sophomore Sebastian Osman was hit there.
He was crossing in front of a stopped UTA bus, where there is no stop walk, stepped in front of the bus and was hit by a car. He died later.
Today, UTA crews were out making changes, moving two bus stops across the intersection so that pedestrians will now cross behind buses. As for other changes, neighbors say they'd like UDOT to consider making the area a school zone, adding a crosswalk, a raised crosswalk, or pedestrian activated traffic signal.
Mark Maxfield, Douglas Neighborhood Association: "We're very, very excited. We made the request last year after one of our neighbors was hit a little over a year ago. With the recent accident, we pressed a little harder and we're very, very excited they decided to move this bus stop."
Justin Jones, UTA Spokesman: "Whenever a tragic accident like this happens we want to make sure we respond to increase the safety. We decided to move the bus stop a half a block down to make people go back to cross the crosswalk."
Bethany Eller, UDOT Spokesperson: "Now that the bus stop has been moved, we're going to spend the next several weeks to do a traffic pedestrian study to determine what modifications need to be made in this area."
UDOT says after their study is done they'll take a look at the options. They do say it's possible that no other changes will be made.
There are roughly 4000 students attending four schools in a three block radius of the intersection and neighbors say they think more safety measures are better. UDOT says its study will be done in about a month.
