The birth of Easthampton’s Safe Walks project happened in December when there was a devastating accident involving a local artist, Denise Herzog. Our community lost a dear friend when she was struck by a car while walking in a crosswalk. This sparked something in Cindy Bow and I to somehow make our streets safer immediately. I live and work in Easthampton and know firsthand how hard it is to get a driver’s attention while waiting in a crosswalk to cross. About three to five cars drive by until one finally stops. I always wait for the 2nd & 3rd car BEHIND that first car that stopped to make sure they stop as well. I’ve experienced many near misses. It is challenging especially with the increase of traffic both car and pedestrian. Cottage Street is a Cultural District with many new businesses popping up therefore more and more people are walking and shopping. It’s fantastic and we encourage growth but want to help prevent future pedestrian accidents.
Cindy and I both saw this post on an Easthampton Facebook page about a flag system in place elsewhere that seemed to work well and we said ”we can make these!” She grabbed a stick, felt and duct tape and spent hours walking around town for several days following the accident to raise awareness for pedestrian and driver safety. Cindy’s way of dealing with her grief of the loss of her friend was to take action. And it helped. Being the owner of the local art supply store, Valley Art Supplies on Cottage Street, I had access to plenty of felt and wooden dowels. I made about a dozen flags the day after the accident. Cindy took it a step further and bought bright orange weather resistant material and our friend Silas Kopf cut a bunch of wooden dowels for us. Cindy came to the shop and we made about 40 flags! I had an art storage tube here at the store. My husband sliced it in half to be used as a holder for the flags. We attached it to a donated safety cone and we now had our first Safe Walk crosswalk in place! The way it works is you have these flags positioned on both ends of the crosswalk. You grab a flag, stop and look for cars, cross when it’s safe and replace your flag in the holder once you reach the other side.
Easthampton realized that something needed to be done about crosswalk safety. Cindy and I attended a public safety meeting and the main discussion in the end was education of both pedestrians and drivers. These flags ended up becoming a catalyst for jump starting said education. Education of not only crossing safely but drivers being more aware of their surroundings and speed limits. People started contacting us about where they would like to see these flags in place. They started offering donations of cash, cones, flags and reflective tape so the flags can be seen at night. We even received press from two local news stations.
This has been a very heartwarming project that bloomed out of an extremely sad situation. My kids, Everest age 9 and Sierra age 5, have witnessed the outpouring of generosity from the people in town coming into the art store with their donations and ideas. They see how the community has come together and learned that you can make a difference and you can make change happen. They also feel the flags help with crossing and that they feel a bit safer. The City has plans in the making for improving safety along Cottage St. and Union St., but they cannot start until winter is behind us. Our Safe Walks system is something we can do right now, while we wait for the City’s improvements to happen.
We now have twelve Safe Walks in place. There are at least 18 more that we would love to have around town. Moving forward, we’d like to have volunteers and local business owners adopt a Safe Walk and let us know when more flags are needed, etc.
For more information and if you’d like to be involved, you can email info@valleyartsupplies.com and you can check out our Safe Walks page on Facebook. Any donations can be mailed to
Valley Art Supplies
76 Cottage Street
Easthampton, Ma 01027
Thank you,
Juliette Mooers & Cindy Bow
