TEMPE, AZ — ABC15’s Operation Safe Roads team is listening to you, and your concerns about Arizona roadways. Now people in Tempe are asking for safety upgrades, after a woman hit by a car has died.
Signs at the intersection of 10th Street and Maple Avenue urge drivers to slow down and promise intersection changes are on the way. They were put up by the city after Melody Mason died. She was hit by a car while riding a bike.
Neighbors keep flames burning, lighting candles by 1:30 every afternoon. They say they rushed out of their homes last Tuesday to find Mason hit by a car.
“I watched it,” Jonathan Partelow, a who lives nearby said. “The neighbors are the ones that are the angels. They were out with a woman… It was very difficult week.”
Tempe police say Mason was riding a bike when she pulled out in front of a car at 10th Street and Maple Avenue. The car did not have a stop sign and hit Mason. She died at the hospital.
The driver is not facing charges or citations at this time.
“She loved two wheels,” Travis Furnald, Mason’s partner of eight years, said.
Funald says the loss of the 35-year-old singer is felt deeply by more than 250 people who attended her Celebration of Life at a Tempe coffee shop Saturday.
“I would like to see us take a look at our neighborhoods, take a look at our intersections,” he said.
Now Furnald joins others calling for traffic safeguards.
The crash that killed Mason is the fifth collision to take place at that same intersection since 2016, according to Tempe police.
The police department’s data, which spans from 2011 to the present, shows that there were collisions in 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2020, prior to the accident involving Mason. One was a hit-and-run of a parked car. The other three previous collisions came after failure to yield at a stop sign; one of those involved minor injury.
“The reality of walking through these neighborhoods is that a lot of the time cars are going rather fast. You have to pay attention,” Antony Airdo, who lives in the neighborhood, said.
Some people who live nearby say they have previously asked the city to slow traffic by making the intersection a four-way stop or installing a roundabout or speed bumps.
“I mostly have internalized that I didn't make enough noise, because I had these thoughts,” Partelow said. “I have an 11-year-old, I have an indoor-outdoor cat, these dogs…”
Tempe leaders say after residents previously turned down their traffic recommendations for the intersection in a survey, the city is now expediting a study to determine how to best calm traffic there.
“The City of Tempe wants to assure residents that we hear your concerns and are actively working to improve traffic safety throughout the city,” a statement reads in part.
“As a result of Tempe’s Vision Zero program, a new policy was put into place a few months ago to expedite safety when City of Tempe Transportation experts feel it’s critical. When data shows there is higher risk, the City will prioritize traffic calming measures,” the statement continues.
Leaders say work is underway citywide to reduce speed, and increase bicycle visibility and pedestrian safety. A new photo enforcement program is set to launch this spring.
They are efforts that Furnald sees as crucial to protecting the community as growth booms around them.
“The more intersections that pop up, and the construction, and the grand development happens, we have these people cutting through our neighborhoods, going a million miles an hour, as we have animals and families and bikes,” Furnald said. “We don't want to be forgotten in this process. And Mel won't ever be forgotten, but we don't want to lose anybody else.”