Nonprofit intends to honor pedestrian victims

With pedestrian safety a growing concern heading into the new year, one prominent Oahu bicycle advocacy group plans to organize "memorial walks" for pedestrians killed in the island’s traffic accidents.

The nonprofit Hawaii Bicycling League looks to lead such walks, where supporters would retrace the victim’s route before they were killed. Friends and family would share memories of the victim, and then community members might meet with police and city officials to discuss ways to prevent accidents at that specific site.

HBL Executive Director Chad Tani­gu­chi said Monday he got the idea during a recent conference from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, a group that advocates for safer streets in Washington state. The group has already started organizing walks there.

The idea, he said, would be to "think more about how we drive and how we walk."

"If it was a friend or family member of mine, I would take it so much closer to heart," Tani­gu­chi added of Oahu’s pedestrian deaths.

There were 25 such deaths across Oahu in 2014, and the median age for those victims was 70. That was six more deaths than the island saw in 2013.

The island already saw its first pedestrian death of 2015 last week: A 45-year-old woman was struck while jaywalking across Nimitz Highway in Kalihi on Friday, and she later died at the Queen’s Medical Center. She hasn’t yet been identified, pending notification of next of kin.

"I was hoping there wasn’t going to be one for a while," Tani­gu­chi said Monday of the first victim coming so early in the year. Nonetheless, the league will try to hold a memorial walk for the victim and to get in touch with the family once her name is known, he said.

The point of such walks, he added, would be to remember the victims regardless of who was at fault for the accident. No one should die in these types of crashes, and the city’s streets should be safer, he said.

The league hasn’t yet reached out to city transportation officials and police about meeting during memorial walks, Tani­gu­chi said. However, officials have willingly met with league members to discuss specific, dangerous intersections — and how to make them safer — in the past.