Middlebury has had too many tragedies between cars and bikes/pedestrians over the past several years.

When I moved to Rogers Road, we went out with several friends and their kids to see the Christmas lights in Buttolph Acres. As we approached the Monroe Street crossing (no crosswalk, no nothing) a car screamed around the corner. Thankfully, a friend on the fire department had the reflexes to leap into the road and wave his hands wildly to get the attention of the driver. Thankfully, nothing tragic happened.

Since then, I and three other people that I’m aware of have been yelled at by the nice lady who lives at the intersection for walking there. She calls out of her window that it’s not safe.

Every morning and afternoon a stream of kids walk, bike and rollerblade by my house on their way to and from all three schools. I worry about them.

My cat was killed this spring by a car. I get that a sidewalk wouldn’t have helped. And I get the irony that it actually became the most useful moment so far in teaching my kids about the deadly potential of automobiles. But I believe there are better ways to solve this problem.

I spent a year trying to communicate this need to the town.

Now my neighbor Wendy has taken up the work. As she tries to help her disabled father into and out of his car, she is confronted by angry drivers swerving around her. Men have stopped to scream at her that they have every right to drive as fast as they do. There are now skid marks in front of her house from a car stopping to yell.

I hope that something meaningful can be done to solve the issue of a neighborhood street, built in the ’60s as a dead end, that has become an informal cut-through for cars.

If you live on Rogers Road or are willing to help communicate the need to make it safe, please fill out the town survey about Bike/Pedestrian Connectivity at surveymonkey.com/r/middleburybikeped.

Daniel Houghton

Middlebury