Blakely seeks additional upgrades at intersection where pedestrian died

BLAKELY — Borough officials want to improve pedestrian safety at a Main Street intersection with a busy trail crossing where a motorist struck and killed a bicyclist in September.

Borough crews painted new crosswalks and installed more pedestrian signs within two days of the bicyclist’s death Sept. 20 at Main Street, Bridge Street and Constitution Avenue — colloquially known as Decker’s Bridge. Those improvements were already set to begin Sept. 22 and were not reactionary, borough Manager Chris Paone said.

“Our guys had their paint up at Sherwin-Williams getting it mixed; we had the paint machine prepped and ready to go. All they had to do is prime it with paint on Monday morning, and we were gone,” Paone said. “It’s just an unfortunate series of events. I feel bad for that family. I really do.”

Raymond Bacchiocchi, 79, of Peckville was riding his bike through the intersection when borough police say Diane Fontana of Archbald struck his bicycle as she turned left toward Jessup after coming down Main Street from Archbald. Police found the elderly man lying face down in the road unresponsive and bleeding from his head. Fontana, who told officers she had been running late driving to her uncle’s funeral in Jessup, turned around and returned to the scene before making a U-turn and leaving again without stopping to render aid, police said.

Fontana turned herself in to Blakely police that day. She was initially charged Sept. 20 with one count each of accidents involving death or personal injury, failure to stop and render aid, failure to notify police of an accident involving injury or death, and failure to yield to a pedestrian.

Those charges were withdrawn Oct. 21 and refiled the same day, upgrading the accident involving death or personal injury charge from a third-degree felony to a second-degree felony, according to court dockets. Fontana remains free on $20,000 unsecured bail with a preliminary hearing Nov. 18 at 11 a.m.

The intersection where the man died sees pedestrian and vehicle interactions each day. The Lackawanna River Heritage Trail crosses the intersection next to Decker’s Bridge, and the location is the juncture of Archbald, Blakely and Jessup.

Paone estimates he would receive one or two calls every week from residents regarding that intersection, whether it was complaining it was difficult to cross or asking for a police officer to sit there.

The crosswalks wear down quickly in that location, so the borough paints new lines every year, sometimes twice a year, Paone said. The borough repainted other crosswalks throughout the town as part of the same project in September, he said.

Since the improvements, those calls have significantly declined, but the borough wants additional safety measures in place, he said.

Paone hopes Blakely’s third application for funding through the state Department of Transportation’s Automated Red Light Enforcement program, which uses fines from automated red lights and speed enforcement signs to improve safety at intersections, will pay for those upgrades.

The borough used a $123,210 ARLE grant to carry out similar upgrades to Depot Street at the Lackawanna River Heritage Trail’s crossing there, installing an inlaid crosswalk with additional signs and blinking lights embedded in the crosswalk that pedestrians activate with a button. The project also involved building a berm and slightly rerouting the trail to encourage pedestrians to use the crosswalk without cutting through a nearby business’s parking lot. The borough completed the work in July 2024 and subsequently applied for an additional ARLE grant, Paone said.

Blakely was rejected twice, he said.

“(PennDOT) said there was a lack of data for incidents at the intersection, even though we showed them that there was a lot of traffic there, not just vehicle traffic but pedestrian traffic,” Paone said. “Sadly, we’ve been denied a few times, and hopefully we can get it to go through to get that improvement.”

The Main Street intersection will cost about half as much because it doesn’t involve rerouting the trail, totaling an estimated $60,000 to $70,000, compared to Depot Street’s $135,000 cost, Paone said.

Paone believes the crosswalk, which will look like maroon bricks, will be more noticeable long-term.

The borough applied for PennDOT’s 2026 round of ARLE funding, and with the design already complete, he anticipates moving forward as soon as the town receives the money, if the application is approved.

“As soon as it’s approved, I want to fire forward on it as fast as we can,” he said.