Prominent State Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas) says he plans to hold community meetings to address a traffic danger zone exposed in an NBC 5 investigation.
On Wednesday, NBC 5 Investigates pinpointed a stretch of Loop 12 in southern Dallas where drivers struck and killed five pedestrians in just 11 months of 2023.
Over 10 years, crash records from the Texas Department of Transportation showed 11 pedestrians died on a section of the road that is less than a mile long.
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“Obviously, something must be done, and we can't just study it. We've got to get something done about it,” said West.
West is the vice chair of the Senate's Transportation Committee. In an interview Friday he pledged to pull together state and local leaders to take more urgent steps to prevent deaths
“What we need to do is to make certain we do a town hall meeting, get TxDOT, get DART, get the city of Dallas to come out,” said West.
Loop 12 is both a state highway and a city street. On Wednesday, an NBC 5 Investigation showed how it has also become a loop of injury and death.
NBC 5 Investigates searched TxDOT crash data and discovered at least 479 serious injury crashes and 105 deadly crashes on Loop 12 in less than five years.
The deaths include 77-year-old Betty Sue Fleming, one of the five pedestrians killed in 2023 on a portion of Loop 12 also known as Ledbetter Drive, near Bonnie View Road.
In an interview with NBC 5 Investigates Fleming’s brother, Arthur, called for changes to make the street safer.
“This area needs to be modified to be more pedestrian friendly. Right now, it's not pedestrian-friendly,” said Fleming.
When NBC 5 Investigates walked the area to observe traffic, our cameras captured images of people constantly crossing the street without using crosswalks, often people trying to get from bus stops and apartment buildings.
In some cases, pedestrians dodged traffic in the middle of the road just feet from moving cars.
Road safety experts told NBC 5 that this often happens when roads are designed without enough crosswalks in convenient locations in places where pedestrians instinctively want to cross, without having to travel long distances to find a crosswalk.
As NBC 5 Investigates has reported TxDOT’s current policies prohibit adding mid-block crosswalks or flashing pedestrian safety beacons on streets like Loop 12 where the speed limit is 40 mph or higher. The state would first have to agree to lower the limit.
“In terms of reducing the speed limit, I think that obviously, you've got to look at everything and put everything on the table and figure out whether or not reducing the speed is going to, significantly impact, the reduction in fatalities,” said West.
West grew up not far from Loop 12 and remembers how it was once a highway around the edges of the city, not a congested urban street.
And as times change, he said roads may need to change too.
“So with the increased traffic count and the use of Loop 12, we've got to find out what the community thinks about what needs to be done. And that's exactly what we'll do,” said West.
TxDOT did not immediately respond to questions about West's comments Friday, but the agency has told NBC 5 that it will continue to work with the City of Dallas and DART to improve pedestrian safety on Loop 12.
The agency conducted a speed study on Loop 12 this summer and said it is still talking with the city to determine if the speed limit should change.
Both the city and TxDOT are also investing in upgrading traffic signals and better street lighting on Loop 12. But, both Fleming and West have questioned whether more needs to be done to reduce deaths.
