DENVER — Matt Pierce witnesses near-tragedy weekly.
Sitting at his dining room table working for the day, he’ll hear engines rev, then tires squeal all at the intersection outside.
“I hear near misses all the time,” Pierce said. “People will run the light and someone will very nearly pull out and get hit.”
Pierce lives on Syracuse Street between 13th and 14th in Denver’s East Colfax neighborhood. On Easter Sunday afternoon, Pierce was in his backyard having a few beers with friends when they all heard what sounded like an explosion. They ran to the intersection of 14th and Syracuse to find a two-car crash with one car flipped over. Pierce said his wife, a trained nurse, ran to the flipped over vehicle to see if anyone inside needed help. He says his wife realized right away that the passenger in the car that had flipped was dead.
Denver Police said the driver of an SUV ran a red light and slammed into the other car which was driving across the intersection with the right of way. The driver who ran the red light was hospitalized for his injuries, police said. A passenger in the car that was hit died. The driver who ran the red light could be cited for careless driving, according to police.
“We see a lot of traumatic accidents that on a residential street like this should not happen,” Pierce said.
Pierce said he and his neighbors have been talking to the city for years about how dangerous their stretch of road has been. In his camera roll, Pierce has photos of serious crashes that happened at each of the intersections on his block. Some cars flip on impact, others fly into neighbor’s yards nearly missing homes.
Neighbors say area where fatal crash happened is notoriously unsafe
Pierce couldn’t count how many serious crashes he’d personally witnessed. But according to Denver Police crash data analyzed by 9NEWS, 72 crashes have happened at the intersections of 13th and Syracuse and 14th and Syracuse since 2013. Five people were seriously hurt in those crashes. Sunday’s death appears to be the first in the 9 years of data 9News reviewed for those two intersections.
He said he and his neighbors have become de facto first responders as they’re often first to witness the wrecks.
“We’ve pulled unconscious people out of cars, we’ve had a lot of cars flipped upside down,” Pierce said. “A lot of the fences around here and the light poles and the traffic poles have all been destroyed and replaced multiple times… yesterday the fatality was the worst I’ve seen.”
Pierce said the main problem seems to be drivers speeding and running red lights. 13th Avenue is one way headed west. 14th Avenue is one way headed east. Both roads are two lanes wide with 30 mile per hour speed limits. Syracuse is the first traffic signal in several blocks for both streets. Pierce believes the lack of stops causes driver to speed.
A spokeswoman for Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure said Monday that a rapid response team from the department will review the police report for the fatal crash and do a site review to determine if there are any short- or long-term improvements that could make the intersection where it happened safer. She also said DOTI has started the bidding process for a project that would provide traffic calming along 13th and 14th Avenue.
The spokeswoman said anyone with specific concerns about their neighborhood streets, like Pierce, should contact 311 to be directed to the engineer for the area.
9Wants to Know data producer Zack Newman contributed to this report.