Boston woman walking across a Brookline street is killed by motorist making a turn

Brookline Police report that Patricia Arellano, 63, of Keswick Street in Audubon Circle, was walking across Downing Road at Washington Street when a driver making a right turn from Washington onto Downing hit her around 11:20 a.m. last Friday.

Police say she was transported to Beth Israel Hospital, where she died that night.

The operator of the motor vehicle remained on scene and was fully cooperative throughout the investigation. She had been travelling on Washington Street and turned right onto Downing Road when the accident occurred. She was cited for failure to stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk.

Randy Parker, a nearby resident discusses Arelleno's death and past efforts to get the town to do something about traffic conditions along Washington Street between the Brighton line and Beacon Street.

As many know, the speeds on Washington Street have been TOO HIGH FOREVER. A group of us formed a traffic calming project in the 1990s and spent a lot of time, got funding support from Sen Cindy Creem, but ultimately only got very small measures of traffic calming enacted.

We were thwarted in doing more. We were told “Wash St is under state jurisdiction”, “it’s a main artery”, etc. But these rules that blocked us can no longer take precedence over lives. We need to PROTECT PEOPLE FIRST.

If the laws say we can’t slow cars down, even when the risk has been obvious to neighbors for decades, then the LAWS MUST CHANGE.

Compare to West Roxbury, where, after an initial outcry over the death of a woman walking across Centre Street in 2019 led to demands to do something, the city wound up doing nothing after some residents became convinced the city's plans were a plot by outside agitators and Big Bicycle. Those residents continue to fight their alleged outsider foes.