CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — One of our viewers is concerned about pedestrian safety along a busy stretch of a Corpus Christi street. The crosswalk is on the north of Everhart and Staples.
This crosswalk was installed in April to assist pedestrians to cross the street safely versus jaywalking.
But for Beatrice Rodriguez, as cars continue to speed on the busy street, this crosswalk is still not safe.
"You either have to back up or try to run to the middle where you are safe. Then try the other half getting across," said Rodriguez.
Rodriguez uses the crosswalk around 20 times a week and has almost been hit several times. She said she has a spinal injury and goes to the gym but isn't going to risk having to run across the street to make it to the other side in time.
"These lights, these warning lights don't stay on long enough they aren't big enough, they're not bright enough," she said.
KRIS 6 News reached out to the city on Monday to get information about what could be done to fix these concerns.
The city scheduled an interview later in the afternoon on Tuesday, to meet with the public works department interim assistant director.
So in the meantime, we went out to try the mid-block crosswalk. That's when we saw city workers on the scene at 10:45 a.m. already making improvements.
"But because of the request you know of the pedestrians and also the visibility of the cars, we increased the size of the sign," said Diego A. Leyva Interim Assistant Director Public Works Department.
Leyva also mentioned on Tuesday they increased the time for pedestrians to walk in the crosswalk from 45 seconds to 1 minute
"We also installed a back-to-back flasher, so now it's visible for pedestrians when they push the button they are going to see the lights on the other side," said Leyva.
The city will continue to monitor this crosswalk and reminds drivers that it is state law when you see a pedestrian crossing that you stop.
We then reached back out to Rodriguez Tuesday evening after the improvements she said even with the signs being elevated, drivers are still not stopping.
“People are not used to paying attention to the little bitty signs, they just are not. Especially if you have an elderly person driving, they’re not going to take that big of notice," said Rodriguez.
