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Efforts to make bus stops safer for RTC riders continue

Posted at 11:26 PM, Jul 31, 2018
and last updated 2018-08-01 13:25:59-04

The conversation of bus stop safety is coming up again after a man died Sunday morning waiting for a bus near Pecos Road and Washington Avenue.

Police say Rigoberto Flores-Tovar was impaired when he crashed into the bus stop, killing the man.

There are different kinds of bus stops throughout Clark County. Some of them have shelters, some are just benches, and some just have a sign.

The bus stop Sunday was an older one that had a bench located fairly close to the curb.

The Regional Transportation Commission began an aggressive program in 2007 to improve the safety of bus stops. They began asking property owners for access on their property to move bus stops back at least five feet away from the sidewalk.

So far, they have moved about 1,200 further away from the curb.

The one involved in Sunday's crash was not one of them.

Steve Miller, former RTC employee, wants all bus stops with a shelter to be redone.

"All of the old shelters need to be ripped down immediately," he said. "They are death traps and I just the word trap because the people are trapped in those."

Miller is referring to previous crashes when drivers ran up onto curbs and smashed into bus shelters. He says bus riders have no where to run when they are trapped inside a bus shelter, specifically the older models.

The RTC says they are working to replace some of the older models as money becomes available.

Traffic safety advocate Erin Breen says we can move bus stops back and replace shelters as much as we want, but she ultimately blames the reckless, impaired drivers for causing these crashes.

"The bottom line is, someone made a bad choice to get impaired and get behind the wheel of a car," said Breen. "If we are going to point fingers, it goes right back to the driver. It's difficult to engineer for stupidity and driving drunk is the stupidest thing you can do."