MULTIMEDIA REPORTING PROJECT

POPULATION AT RISK ; PEDESTRIANS IN NEW PALTZ

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Raymond Rattray was only 22 when he was hit and killed as he walked home from school, SUNY New Paltz, on January 23, 2024. He was traveling Southbound on Route 208 towards his apartment when he was struck from behind and left to die, his body going undiscovered for nearly 24 hours after the impact. The campus community continues to mourn and grieve the loss of a student, classmate, teammate, friend. He is symbolically memorialized via a placard situated at “the Gunk”, a pond adjacent to the Student Health Center on campus. 

Since 2020, there have been 164 reported pedestrian injuries in Ulster county, 8 of these proving fatal. Half of these fatalities have occurred in the last year alone, not to mention, consolidated over the span of a month. This begs the question, what can and is being done to further protect pedestrians in the wake of seemingly increased danger? Additionally, is New Paltz a hub for particularly unsafe walking/cycling conditions? 

When it comes to the matter of statewide roads the New York State Department of Transportation holds jurisdiction. Therefore, local municipalities/counties have little to no influence on what safety precautions can be amended within their regions on these roadways. Unfortunately for New Paltz, much of the stretches that serve pedestrians fall under state jurisdiction rather than that of Ulster county executives. Route 208, 299 and 32, all heavily trafficked highways, intersect and wind through the bustling college town. Meaning, students and community members who commute on foot are never able to avoid these high risk areas. Moreover, the local government cannot intervene in making official improvements as it does not fall under their authority.

Mayor of New Paltz, Tim Rogers, is an avid cyclist himself. He, among many other advocates in town, have been lobbying for change for years. At a Village Board meeting on April 11, 2024, Rogers and his cabinet voted on and issued a letter to the NYSDOT requesting the following:

1. Install Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFB) at the intersection of Southside Ave and Rt 208. As two of our Village’s largest apartment complexes, where a majority of tenants attend class or work at the college, are on Southside Ave, to say that this

intersection is one of the busiest pedestrian pathways in our Village is an

Understatement.

2. Narrow the abnormally long crosswalk at Oakwood Ter and Main St by installing

bump-outs to extend the curb into the street. This long crosswalk at this site leads to

countless cars going around cars that are yielding to pedestrians in the crosswalk, so in

addition to narrowing that crosswalk, installing RRFBs at that location would make a lot

of sense too.

3. Establish crosswalks on Main St at Prospect, Harrington, Duzine, and Joalyn. Each of

these locations is a regular pedestrian pathway. Our Main St serves as the pedestrian

part of the Empire State Trail through New Paltz, and not having any place to cross

safely between the Tops Plaza uptown and Manheim downtown makes for a deadly

section of the Empire State Trail.

“There’s nothing demonizing about these people, but when you step back, the policies of NYSDOT Region 8 are killing people”, says Daniel Lipson, Chair of the New Paltz Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee. Lipson has served as a makeshift liaison between the SUNY New Paltz campus and local community when it comes to ped/bike initiatives due to his dually established position as a professor of political science. In mentioning specific areas of improvement he follows, “There need to be more bike paths where Ray was hit and run. Route 208 is a designated state bike route and it shouldn’t even be called a state bike route because it is just treacherous to be [riding a bike] on”

The Red String Theory & Traffic Violence Victims

Red String Theory 

[red striNG THirē] 

noun

“when someone's born, there is a red thread that is tied to them, an invisible red thread that connects them to the people they are destined to meet and be connected to in their lives.”

Rattray is not the first pedestrian to be hit in New Paltz. Gabriela “Gaby” O’Shea, 33 and New Paltz alum, was hit while riding her bike near the intersection of Butterville and Albany Post Road on September 11, 2016. She was struck by a woman driving a Jeep who, like in Ray’s case, also fled the scene. The driver was later apprehended and sentenced for the crime. The accident landed Gaby in a coma for a month and upon waking, life altering injuries including, but not limited to, legal blindness. “I was nearly killed, very seriously, nearly killed. I survived, thanks to the help and the love and dreams and wishes of so many people. I've done intensive rehabilitation, done all of the work that it takes to pull yourself together and be able to live independently. I've worked a lot to be able to live a basic life is what I'm saying”, O’Shea explains while donning her sight corrective goggles, an element of her rehabilitation treatment. 

Her bones sit differently in her frame, the swing in her arms imbalance in a way she feels in her neck and shoulders as she walks. Fractures in her neck have changed how she holds herself and her left foot and ankle ache almost constantly. To this day, some 8 years later, her long term memory has returned less than 1%. “Losing memory of your life feels like a robbery of identity, the essence of who you were/are. What are we without knowing who we’ve been, where we’ve been, what we’ve done, felt, learned and loved?”, she emphasizes. 

However, it wasn’t long before O’Shea began learning to ride a bike again, the thing she loved so much, but also brushed death with. Due to the support of her father Stephen and mother Blanca she began her own advocacy work and integration further into the bike/ped community. A little less than a year after the accident she was handing out flyers at an event that Rosemary “Rose” Quinn happened to be attending. At the time, Quinn was working for SUNY Ulster, administering a grant for the governor’s Traffic Safety Committee for traffic safety education. Before that she worked in multiple positions at Ulster BOCES, but when she began to date John “Host” Lynch, a major cyclist himself, she felt she wanted to refocus her work. 

Many years earlier, Quinn would walk her daughter to the bus stop which happened to be on Route 208, not too far from where Rattray was presently killed. One morning a woman named Blanca approached Quinn and asked if she might walk her daughter as well, since she had to leave early for work and was also concerned about the walk to the bus stop. The little girl’s name was Gaby and for two years this continued, the same walk to the stop, the same two little girls by Quinn’s side. 

Suddenly it all came flooding back. “It never clicked that Gabriella O'Shea was my Gaby, until I saw Blanca. Gaby was so passionate, her family was so passionate, and then there was that connection. I started really working with them as an advocate, helping Gaby use her voice and find different venues and stuff. I got to help her relearn to ride a bike which was really wild and cool”, Quinn reminisces. 

Fast forward to 2021 and Quinn is still dating Lynch whom she refers to as, “my partner, my mentor, the reason I really started to rearrange my thinking”. According to her, Lynch would routinely ride back and forth from Kingston to Albany, doing 100 miles without even considering how much that actually was. Growing up in Queens, Quinn’s world had never been particularly car centric, but moving to the Hudson Valley and being a single mom changed that. “I was in my car all the time. So when I met John [who exclusively cycled] I started really thinking about and learning how to live without my car”, she responds. 

On July 20, 2021, Lynch was struck and killed while cycling with friends near Washingston Ave in Kingston, NY. The group had been biking entirely off road until they were faced with the “notorious strode” a multilane street/road put in place to accommodate more vehicular traffic rather than pedestrian facilities. The maneuver they asserted to cross Washington Ave was
“completely legal” (as cited by Quinn) when suddenly a vehicle operated by Terry Clark came out from a dead stop in a parking lot and hit Lynch, 57, crushing him. Clark was never ticketed or charged with any crime.

Where Do We Go from Here?

Changes to enhance pedestrian safety in New Paltz can be inexpensive and life saving. Some are as simple as artist Ryan Cronin’s “Expect a Bike Ahead” signs. Odds are if you’ve been around New Paltz you have seen these signs planted in the yards of businesses and homes alike. EABA is a hopeful global initiative, but was born out of the very incident that happened to O’Shea in New Paltz, NY. Cronin reached out to Gaby and her family when hearing of her tragic accident to help aid in medical costs and the rest is history.

The most recent, permanent, safety installations are the flashing beacons on South Manheim near the SUNY campus. According to the Federal Highway Administration, “Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon (RRFB)  accompany a pedestrian warning sign. RRFBs consist of two, rectangular- shaped yellow indications, each with a light-emitting diode (LED)-array-based light source. RRFBs flash with an alternating high frequency when activated to enhance conspicuity of pedestrians at the crossing to drivers”. In layman's terms, flashing beacons are upright pedestrian crossing signs that flash on either side of the crosswalk when a button, similar to that on a standard crosswalk, is pressed. This alerts drivers to stop and yield to pedestrians. 

Some strategies might appear a bit more controversial to people accustomed to driving “loopholes”.  The elimination of red lights and turning right at them is one. Lipson mentions, “Some of the other recommendations are to get permission from DOT in Albany, to reprogram all or almost all of the traffic lights [in New Paltz] to ban right turns on red”. This would potentially eliminate the risk of impatient drivers from creeping through red lights if it were to be further enforced as a traffic violation. 

When New Paltz's population rises during the academic months due to student enrollment there is an even greater need for improvements. With increased foot traffic from a populous student body, it’s important this need is met. “The very south end of our campus where the micro farm is, it's just a thin strip of woods to a development where a lot of professors and other people I know live. If there could be a path through those woods, their kids could bike and walk from their homes into college and then from college into town”, Lipson adds. 

On campus at SUNY New Paltz, such bike paths are being proposed to mitigate pedestrian/cyclist interaction with the busy and unsafe main roads. Michael Hanson is a student ambassador for SUNY New Paltz’s Office of Sustainability and is currently one of a few advocates spearheading the “Bike Friendly University Team” on campus. Hanson describes the work being done as, “Mostly focusing on outreach to both the community and to certain members of our faculty as well as facilities. We want to focus on biking infrastructure, which includes things like bike racks, potential bike lanes, bike routes, bike rooms and upcoming renovations, and we've had some really great progress in doing so throughout this year”. So far the group has drafted two different bike paths named, “Hugo Bike Route” and “Hawk Bike Route” and if approved, will serve as safer commuting means to and from town/campus. 

In the broader worldly sense, Quinn and O’Shea have both pointed towards Copenhagen’s initiative called, “Vision Zero”. Since its adoption in Sweden in the 90’s, the movement has spread to places as traffic heavy as New York City, described as a “strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all”. “In a nutshell, what it basically means is that no fatalities are acceptable. So you're going to do everything in your power as a municipality , as a planning agency to ensure that nobody dies on the roadway. You know, is it achievable to save every single person from cancer? No, but you still try to, right? It's kind of that same thinking”, Quinn explains. 

…and Now

O’Shea along with her parents tabled at New Paltz’s Earth Day Celebration to organize a petition/letter writing activity to NYSDOT, lobbying for changes to be made in further protecting local cyclists and pedestrians on April 20, 2024. Additionally, over the past weekend , O’Shea hosted New Paltz’s second annual “Love Your Brain, Rides for Resilience” benefit to promote and raise awareness for those who have suffered terminal brain injuries due to traffic violence. Advocates (who also happen to cycle) meet for guided meditation, a slow easy ride and comradery. O’Shea’s father hopes more young people will get involved in the cause and that Gaby will find a community of advocates based around her age. 

Between May 13-15, 2024, Quinn was at our nation’s capital of Washington, DC rallying for #ZeroTrafficDeaths. She shares, “As an advocate for safer streets, I will be participating in these days of action in Washington D.C. in memory of John Host Lynch. I will be joined by hundreds of others from across the United States who have similar stories. Our mission is clear: to push for policies that prioritize road safety and aim for a future with #ZeroTrafficDeaths.

This is an amazing opportunity to share and to learn.  I will be making sure our elected leaders in Congress are aware of the dire conditions we face here in Ulster and the whole Hudson Valley. We have lost too many. We need the  promise and the funds that are promised in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill to fix what years of dehumanization and inequity in planning and transportation have created. At long last finally this crisis is getting some of the attention it deserves. But we have lost too many.  Not one more pointless death, broken body or shattered family. We can fix this. And we will”. 

On Monday March 25, 2024, Ty Kolbert was arrested in connection with Raymond Rattray’s death and charged with felony counts of second-degree manslaughter, tampering with physical evidence and leaving the scene of a fatal motor vehicle crash. The arrest of Kolbert doesn’t make the burden of losing Ray any easier. It doesn’t bring him back. It doesn’t justify or explain away anything surrounding the tragedy that unfolded in January. It might, however,  give those who loved him a small bit of closure, maybe the notion that justice does prevail in the end. 

Pedestrian safety has never been a more critical issue than now in New Paltz, NY and the greater Hudson Valley. It is easy to prevent injuries like Gaby’s and deaths like Ray’s. What it comes down to is honest dedication and allocation toward life saving pedestrian/cyclist education and infrastructure. 

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