NORTHAMPTON – City police has received a state grant to enhance pedestrian and bicyclist safety as well as help young children in need of helmets.
The Northampton Police Department received nearly $7,000 from the state Executive Office of Public Safety and Security’s Office of Grants and Research’s Highway Safety Division.
The majority of the grant, $5,589.96, will be used to pay for patrols in target areas while the remaining $1,397.49 will be used to purchase items like crosswalk signs and bike helmets.
“The goal is to cut down on fatalities for bicyclists and pedestrians,” Sgt. Brian Letzeisen said.
Between 2012 and 2016, Northampton Police responded to 89 crashes involving pedestrians and 77 involving bicycles. Among those, there were 87 injuries to pedestrians reported and 73 injuries to bicyclists. During that same period, two pedestrians and one bicyclist were killed.
The department was one of 84 police departments across the commonwealth that received a total of $375,000. Part of the grant funding comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“Bicyclists and pedestrians are at risk to the motoring public because they may not be immediately visible to drivers and unlike those in vehicles, nothing protects them in a crash,” Northampton Police Capt. John Cartledge said in a statement. “We’ll use crash data and community input to identify crosswalks, intersections and roadways where our enforcement efforts can yield the largest impact on pedestrian and bicyclist safety.”
Through the grant, officers will be able to conduct three types of patrols — targeted enforcement patrol, sweeper patrols and crosswalk decoy patrols — Letzeisen explained.
The first, targeted patrols, will have officers assigned to specific problem areas in the city for added enforcement of crosswalk and red lights rules. Sweeper patrols involve plain clothes officers looking for impaired pedestrians or cyclists, Letzeisen said. Crosswalk decoy patrols involve both uniformed and plain clothes officers making sure people are stopping for crosswalks, Letzeisen said.
The grant also will fund a bicycle day for kids and the purchase of 65 to 70 helmets for the department to give away.
Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.