Mayor Eric Jackson asked the state for a public meeting for residents to convey their concerns about Route 129 safety.
TRENTON -- In November 1994, about a month before the new Route 129 opened to traffic, South Ward residents met with local and state officials and peppered them with questions about the highway, as many would have to cross it on foot.
Most were from the South Village senior apartments on Lalor Street at Route 129, where the meeting was held, and they were concerned. They depend on the shopping center across Lalor Street and they wanted safety precautions.
Now, another meeting is on the horizon, following the death Monday of 56-year-old crossing guard Antonio Wiley, who was struck by a northbound pickup truck at Lalor Street.
A memorial to crossing guard Antonio Wiley, who was struck and killed on Route 129 at Lalor Street Monday. (Kevin Shea | NJ Advance Media) Mayor Eric Jackson on Thursday sent a letter to the state's transportation commissioner asking for a public meeting for residents to convey their concerns and discuss possible solutions concerning Route 129 safety.
For the past 22 years, there have been several other meetings, calls for action and worry from South Ward residents.
At the 1994 meeting, residents presented a ''wish list'' of requests: a crossing guard at the intersection of Route 129 and Lalor Street; posting signs that warn motorists of pedestrians; adding a protected island in the middle of the highway; and eventually building a pedestrian walkway-type overpass.
The pedestrian signage exists and anyone walking across the highway can stop in the median.
And the crossing guard post at Lalor Street has been a fixture for years during daylight hours - although the city and state have at times squabbled over who should pay for the position.
The city currently picks up the tab, at a cost of over $50,000 per year, a city spokesman said.
But the overpass idea at Lalor Street never got off the ground.
After Wiley's death, some people took to social media to vent - and to ask why there is still no pedestrian walkway at the intersection.
Jackson's letter did not specifically mention pedestrian walkways.
"The safety of pedestrians crossing all three intersections of Route 129 - Lalor Street, Cass Street and Hamilton Avenue (near the Sun Bank Arena) - is a profound concern to me and the residents of South Trenton," Jackson wrote.
"The history of this stretch of highway is marked by numerous accidents and several fatalities over the last several years," the mayor wrote.
Robin Lord does call for walkways, bluntly.
The Trenton attorney is currently litigating a lawsuit for the family of a 3-year-old girl killed on Route 129 at Hamilton Avenue in 2009.
"How many people will die on the highway before they build pedestrian footbridges?" she asked.
"This is one of the deadliest highways in Mercer County, and possibly the state," Lord said.
Kevin Israel, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation (DOT), said the agency sends their condolences to Wiley's family.
"The safety of pedestrians is always one of the department's primary concerns," Israel said. "We are dispatching our Bike and Pedestrian unit to assess the intersection next week and determine what, if anything, can be done to improve safety."
"Once the investigation is complete we will discuss our findings and determinations with the city," Israel said.
Lalor Street is often the focus of the safety issues along Route 129, since it's the first intersection motorists approach driving into the city and they are coming from highway speeds to a 40-mile per house stretch.
But at Cass Street, residents are often joined by groups of state corrections officers from the state prison at the intersection, who park across the highway.
And the Hamilton Avenue crossing is at the Sun Bank Arena - which usually employs a police officer during concert and shows.
A police officer was on duty in February 2009 when a city fire engine and another vehicle collided at the intersection, sending the vehicle careening into the Moreland family - Lord's client.
I'Asia Moreland was holding her 3-year-old daughter I'Maya's hand in the median waiting to cross to the arena to see Disney on Ice when the girl was struck. The mother felt her daughter's hand ripped away, Lord said.
Lord is suing several agencies on behalf of the family, alleging they did not adequately protect them as they walked to the show.
The Hamilton Avenue intersection, though, was the one that almost got an elevated pedestrian walkway, Lord notes.
The builders of New Jersey Transit's River Line had plans for one at the intersection to link light rail passengers to the arena.
It was designed to look like a suspension bridge as a tribute to the former John A. Roebling's Sons Co. nearby, whose workers spun wire rope for the George Washington, Brooklyn and Golden Gate bridges, a March 2002 Times of Trenton story describes.
Lord said her research in the Moreland suit found the walkway was scrapped during a feud over who would maintain it.
"How much would that have cost a year?" she said.
When it opened in December 1994, state transportation officials heralded Route 129 as a key to connecting the city's downtown with a $400 million state project called the Trenton Complex, which linked interstates 195, 295 and Route 29.
City officials, though, had fought the state on several details, mainly safety issues.
The late and former Trenton Police Chief Ernie Williams told The Times of Trenton in 2001 - after a series of serious crashes - that he sat in numerous meetings they city had with state officials in the 1990s opposing almost everything about the impending highway.
In January 1995, the highway had its first fatality, when a Bristol, Pa. man - who police said was likely confused - was broadsided by a northbound truck at Lalor Street that was entering the city.
Every two to three years after it opened, a series of bad crashes or a fatality put the 2 1/2-mile swath of pavement back into the headlines. In the early 2000s, South Village residents said they had just learned to live with the crossing dangers.
On Thursday, Dennis Keenan, the city's former fire chief and public safety director, also said he recalled all the meetings to oppose how Route 129 cut through South Trenton.
Keenan, who replied to some Facebook comments earlier this week defending the city's role in pushing for safety enhancements years ago, said Thursday that at one point the city suggested Route 129 go under the cross streets.
"We pushed for an underpass at Lalor street, from a public safety point. And the state said they didn't have the money to do an underpass," Keenan said.
Keenan said that in the early planning stages, people did mention that elderly residents - maybe some who push shopping carts across the highway - might not use an elevated walkway. "We figured that might be the case all along," he said.
"The crossing guard has helped, but there's still pedestrian deaths at that intersection and there's been vehicle deaths too," Keenan said.
"I don't know what the answer is now."
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.