By Chloe Lutts

A group of concerned citizens took their lives in their hands – and feet – to judge the sidewalks and crosswalks of East Somerville Wednesday, June 13.

The group of residents, business owners and pedestrians attended a workshop at the city’s Senior Center at 165 Broadway to address problems facing East Somerville pedestrians and include the community in the process of remedying them. East Somerville Main Streets, a non-profit community revitalization organization, hosted the workshop. Carrie Dancy, executive director of the organization, said the goals of the workshop included “putting pedestrian rights on people’s minds (and) raising consciousness.”

Making an area easier and more pleasant to walk in, Dancy said, increases pedestrian traffic, which in turn offers social, commercial and health benefits to the community. “In order to have a thriving community center you need to have people bumping into each other,” she said. Increasing pedestrian traffic would be a great way to “create vibrancy in this area,” she said.

Attendees included area business owners, residents and frequent pedestrians such as George Berry, a resident of Mt. Vernon Street. “I do a lot of walking in this area,” Berry said. “It’s a nice walk, but the dangerous thing is crossing McGrath and O’Brien. It’s really easy to get killed there.”

Workshop attendees took a walk to this exact intersection, noting obstacles facing pedestrians and cyclists along the way. Participants started at the Senior Center on Broadway and walked across the Stop & Shop parking lot and under I-93 toward Assembly Square. The route is neither pleasant nor safe, despite the fact that it’s the most direct route from Broadway to Assembly Square, Dancy said.

When walkers weren’t scuttling across highways or waiting for a break in traffic so they could do so, Dancy pointed out high curbs – difficult for cyclists and wheelchair users to navigate, bushes encroaching on the sidewalk and sharp edges on guardrails. Walkers also noticed some things that weren’t there, including sidewalks, crosswalks and walk signals.

The problem is only going to get worse, according to Berry. He said development planned for Assembly Square, including the construction of greater Boston’s first IKEA, “will put a lot of pressure on pedestrian access.”

The workshop attendees discussed ways to accomplish a better “pedestrian atmosphere,” including improving the safety and aesthetics of East Somerville’s sidewalks. The barriers to making the area pedestrian-friendly – both physical and intangible – are high but not insurmountable, Cathy Buckley Lewis of the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization told the group.

In her presentation, Lewis discussed the main problems facing East Somerville pedestrians. Among the physical features she identified were sidewalk potholes, narrow sidewalks and obstructions like telephone poles. She also pointed out several problems of particular concern to wheelchair users and people pushing baby carriages, including uncut curbs and sloped driveways. The latter poses a secondary danger by making the sidewalk the domain of drivers, she said.

Cars pose the greatest danger to pedestrians by far, Lewis said, demonstrating by unfurling maps of the area on which 7 years of accidents involving pedestrians were marked with red dots.

Lewis proposed a variety of ways to reduce the automobile threat to pedestrians, some of which have been implemented in other communities. Neon-yellow crosswalk signs with flashing yellow lights activated by pedestrians can help slow traffic down in areas where drivers don’t expect people to be in the street, she said. A similar setup could make the oft used but low-profile crosswalks by the I-93 on-ramps safer, Lewis said.

On streets with fast-moving traffic, curb extensions can slow drivers down and make it easier for pedestrians and oncoming cars to see each other, Lewis said. At busy intersections, raising the entire intersection to curb height slows drivers down and makes them aware of pedestrians, she said. She suggested moving stop lines back further from crosswalks to decrease the danger of “multiple threat” crashes where pedestrians are hit by drivers coming from around the far side of a stopped car. And she said traffic islands placed in the middle of the road protect pedestrians, increase visibility and slow down traffic.

The group also discussed pedestrian and driver attitudes toward each other. Cars shouldn’t have all the power, they said, but pedestrians – especially younger ones – need to recognize the danger posed by traffic. Concerned drivers and pedestrians agreed that education for both parties could help address these issues.

Somerville pedestrians face the added threat of large numbers of commuters on the roads, most of whom are not from Somerville or even going to or from Somerville locations, said Dorie Clark, vice president of East Somerville Main Streets. She said that because so many commuters travel through Somerville, “People don’t necessarily seem troubled by the idea of slowing down traffic… so that they will stop and pay more attention and patronize our businesses.”