BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — From almost the first day District 5 City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo took office, his phone was ringing off the hook about the corner of Dana and Hyde Park Avenues.
"Dozens and dozens of complaints, even in this short time in office, on speeding, on running of red lights, of near hits or near misses in crosswalks," Arroyo told WBZ NewsRadio's Chris Fama.
There was an expansive construction project at the intersection last year, but the final touches—the installation of new traffic lights and crosswalks at the high-volume crossing—went uncompleted.
Kieran Jordan said the intersection is right outside the front door of her business.
"It was a big construction zone, it was noisy, it was dirty," she said. "It was an inconvenience for everybody who's a pedestrian or a driver in that area."
She said Eversource installed the lights, but never turned them on.
"There's actually still cardboard covering up the lights," Jordan said. "They finished construction on the traffic lights, on the walk signals, but they've never been connected."
The city said the lights were ready for power in late September, but the project sat dormant.
"People are basically scared for their life when they're crossing the street there," Jordan said. "When I cross the street myself to go to work, and when my students come in the door to take dance class, inevitably every day, someone is saying, 'I almost just got killed in the crosswalk.'"
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Three weeks ago, a pedestrian who couldn't press a crosswalk button because it didn't have power was struck by a vehicle.
"We got told that somebody was hit at this location," Arroyo said. "The lights, I believe what we were told is, the lights still had coverings on them. At that point, our office then reached out to the Boston Transportation Department, where we were told the issue actually lied with Eversource."
Only this week, after calls from Arroyo's office and from WBZ NewsRadio, did Eversource complete their project, according to Eversource's Massachusetts Media Relations Manager, Reid Lamberty.
"We received notice in October of the completion of that project, and that it was available for us to power up," Lamberty said. "The good news is it has been completed, just two nights ago."
Arroyo said he's making it his mission to find other stalled projects that may be presenting dangers to the public.
"Something that we're not going to let up on is trying to figure out how many projects in the district they're sitting on," Arroyo said. "We're not looking to wait for other people to have safety issues where they're being hit by cars ... when it comes to actors like Eversource, we're certainly going to make sure that we're holding them as accountable as we can."
WBZ NewsRadio's Chris Fama (@CFamaWBZ) reports
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