HONESDALE, Pa. — People were walking about on Friday through the streets of downtown Honesdale.
"Honesdale is a genuine, authentic town. It's a real town. There's restaurants, banks, hardware stores. There's all kinds of shops in Honesdale and a post office," said Brian Wilken, president of the Greater Honesdale Partnership.
But in recent weeks, several people have been hit by cars while on crosswalks.
Pastor William Stamford was walking through a crosswalk at the corner of Church and Ninth Street on Saturday morning when he was hit.
"I landed in the middle of Church Street, and one of the wonderful things was that people stopped and came running. A man held an umbrella over me because it was raining. A nurse who happened to be in another car stopped. She held my hand," Pastor Stamford said.
The borough of Honesdale has been looking to make the streets safer for people and drivers since traffic patterns have changed to one-way on both Main and Church Streets. Nearby Hawley already has bump-outs to help increase pedestrian safety.
"Hawley has certainly led the way, of course, with a much different downtown dynamic, but Honesdale can get there too, and we can see it works in other communities, so it can work in Honesdale too," said Jim Hamill, Honesdale borough council member.
Wilken estimates that safety upgrades will cost $2.1 million per block. He says the partnership has received nearly $2 million in grant funding to kickstart the overhaul.
"The PennDOT standard right now for pedestrian safety is to have bump-outs, so we will have bump-out sidewalks. Right now, it's 40 feet to cross Main Street. With a bump-out, it will be significantly less, and the pedestrians will be visible to oncoming traffic," Wilken said.
To the borough, that's a small price to pay for safer streets.
"We have to work together to ensure that we don't have one more pedestrian crash, we don't have one more person who is a near miss," Hamill said.
Pastor Stamford hopes drivers are more alert to prevent anyone else from getting hurt.