Wilkes-Barre police officer Jude Allen hands a safety flyer to a motorist on Public Square Wednesday morning. Officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Northeast Highway Safety Program joined police from Wilkes-Barre and Kingston on the square to talk about funding received by the departments to focus on pedestrian safety.
Roger DuPuis | Times Leader
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WILKES-BARRE — A contingent of uniformed city police officers — together with their own chief and Kingston’s as well — assembled on Public Square Wednesday morning.
Some stepped out into the street, approaching motorists as they slowed for red traffic lights.
There was no emergency, no manhunt, no accident.
Instead, the officers and department leaders were joined by officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Northeast Highway Safety Program in a bid to prevent future accidents — specifically those involving pedestrians and motor vehicles.
And it’s not always the drivers at fault.
“Especially on Public Square, people become impatient and they just cross,” Wilkes-Barre Police Lt. Phil Myers said. “We’ve had some pedestrian accidents in this area. That’s why the downtown, South Main Street, North Main Street, we’re going to be looking at those areas to get the message out. We have a lot of pedestrian traffic with the colleges, the businesses, the high-rise residential structures.”
The police departments in Wilkes-Barre and Kingston will be aided in that effort with $2,000 each in pedestrian enforcement grant funding through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and PennDOT and administered through the Luzerne County District Attorney’s Office.
Officials with both departments said that the grants will allow them to have added officers monitoring high-traffic areas, including plainclothes officers who may be crossing streets as “decoys.”
“You have to yield to pedestrians in a marked or unmarked crosswalk. If you fail to yield and get pulled over it could be a $169 fine and two points on your license,” said Rebecca Rybak, education coordinator of the Northeast Highway Safety Program in Luzerne County.
Whether drivers — or pedestrians — get ticketed is a question for police to consider when dealing with violations.
“That’s going to be up to the officer, Myers said. “In this case I think education, creating awareness is probably more important.”
Wilkes-Barre Police Chief Joe Coffay echoed that theme. “It’s another way to open up dialogue,” he said of the program.
Kingston Police Chief Richard J. Kotchik said the focus in his community will be largely around Kingston Corners and Wyoming Avenue.
As the warm weather arrives and pandemic conditions wane, he has seen traffic, and pedestrian incidents, on the rise.
“Our traffic has picked up big time. Wyoming Avenue and Market Street is back to like what it used to be, from what I can see,” Kotchik said.
John Morgan is the Pottsville-based Region 4 law enforcement liaison for the Highway Safety Network, which is funded by PennDOT. He said that Northeastern Pennsylvania is far from alone in dealing with pedestrian safety.
“It’s a big issue across the state. We have to educate the drivers, we have to educate the pedestrians,” Morgan said.
“So we’re not only looking for the drivers who are driving past the crosswalks without yielding the right-of-way to pedestrians, we’re looking for pedestrians who are violating the law by jaywalking by stepping out in front of cars and causing issues,” Morgan said. “People also are walking and looking at cell phones, trying to text, and that’s dangerous as well.”