ANDERSON — Folks who live at the Cross Lakes Apartments told RTV6 they're forced to cross busy State Road 9 to get to a shopping mall. They want a crosswalk, but a spokesman from Indianapolis Department of Transportation said that wouldn't work, but they're working on a solution that would have residents walk a quarter mile down to East Cross Street.
"Ain't nobody gonna walk that far," Cynthia Young, a resident of Cross Lakes Apartments - turned advocate for her neighbors - said. "We trying to save lives. We not trying to keep having people die out here."
Young says it was dark and foggy the night 50-year-old Nancy Shaw and her daughter were crossing back over State Road 9 to their apartment from the shopping mall.
"She's gone now, and it's sad because she lost her life on the road that something could have been prevented out here," Young said.
Shaw died that night in November. Shaw's daughter now has serious injuries, including brain damage.
The speed limit on State Road 9 is 50 mph in front of the apartments where Anita Denman and April Gilliam live together.
"There is a lot of residents here in Cross Lakes Apartments that don't have cars," Denman said. "We walk."
A spokesman from INDOT told RTV6 that anytime there is a fatal crash on one their roads they launch a safety investigation. The spokesman also said, in this case, no changes were recommended in front of the Cross Lakes Apartments.
"So many people just fly through here no matter what," Gilliam said.
INDOT is planning to meet with Anderson city officials. The spokesman said that if the city will agree to put in sidewalks between the apartments and East Cross Street they will work to put in a crosswalk at that intersection.
Further, INDOT said they couldn't put a crosswalk from the apartments to the shopping mall because there's no stop sign or stop light. INDOT said it's too close to the light at East Crossing Street to put one in, even though there is a light just north of East Cross Street on Bethany Road.
City officials and INDOT will meet in a couple of weeks to see if they can work together in getting sidewalks and a crosswalk installed at the intersection.
Young said she would keep fighting for a crosswalk outside of her apartments.
