A Philly mom fights for more speed bumps after her son was killed near one of the city’s most dangerous roads
After her son was killed in a Cobbs Creek hit-and-run, this mother wants change.
Angela McDonald caught her breath on the sidewalk at the intersection of South 58th and Delancey Streets in Cobbs Creek, a few feet from where her son, Mark Ringgold, was killed last year in a hit-and-run crash by a speeding driver in a Jeep Cherokee.
She wants someone to answer for her son’s death and for the city to install speed bumps on the streets and other road-design changes to slow drivers down. And surveillance cameras.
“This is what my purpose is now,“ McDonald said Friday, a year after the crash. ”I will fight until God calls me home.“
Ringgold, 33, was crossing Delancey Street after leaving a friend’s house shortly before 3 a.m., when he was hit and left in the street. The family calls it a blessing they were able to say goodbye to him in the hospital before he died.
Last year, 28 pedestrians were killed in hit-and-run crashes in Philadelphia, according to the city’s count.
“Don’t wait for it to come to your door before you do something. Nobody knows what’s coming. Make change now,” said McDonald, 62, a retired Philadelphia police officer.
A group of family, neighbors, and traffic safety advocates walked the streets Friday in heat brushing triple digits as thunderstorms rolled in.
Cobbs Creek Parkway, a state-designated highway not far away, is listed on the High Injury Network, one of the 12% of city roads where 80% of traffic crashes have occurred. Many of those streets are thoroughfares or state highways, like Broad Street (Route 611).
South 58th Street is not on the map, though there are speed bumps near a recreation center at South 58th and Spruce Streets.
And the city is working on a Neighborhood Slow Zone nearby, about five square blocks bounded by 52nd Street, 57th Street, Spruce Street, and Baltimore Avenue. The program imposes a 20 mph speed limit on residential streets and adds traffic-calming infrastructure such as speed cushions, narrower pedestrian crossings at intersections, and other elements.
“We have a lot of traffic violence on streets in regular Philadelphia gridded neighborhoods, not just on the High Injury Network or thoroughfares,” said Andrew Goodman, director of equitable development in the office of Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who is working on getting some safety treatments for South 58th Street and Delancey Street.
Evidence shows that the interventions work, city officials say.
“We get calls from people asking for speed bumps consistently,” Goodman said. “There are so many needs, so much demand. Driver behavior seems to be getting worse by the day.”
McDonald wants the neighborhood to get consideration. Speed-enforcement cameras are limited, with installations requiring specific authorization by the state legislature.
But she wonders about police surveillance cameras. If there is a hit-and-run crash, they might be able to capture the image of the driver. Police have recovered the car that hit her son, but there is no footage of the driver and there has been no arrest.
“As long as I have been traveling this road, since I was a young girl, 58th Street has always been a racetrack,” McDonald said.
“Speed bumps are definitely going to slow people down, because if you don’t, you’re going to tear your car up,” she said. “You may flip yourself over.”
