Peabody Residents Demand Changes On Deadly Route 114

PEABODY, MA — After years of pleas for safety improvements on Route 114 that have only led to more crashes and deaths, victim's families, residents and elected officials expressed hope that Thursday night's emotional Peabody Municipal Safety Committee meeting will be what finally jumpstarts fixing what they call a deadly road with a "suicide" middle turning lane.

"I lost my son because of the lack of safety on this road," said Rachel Dellacroce, whose 18-year-old son, Nicholas, was struck and killed on his motorcycle by a driver trying to cross all five lanes of Route 114 five months ago. "If there were a median strip instead of the hazardous suicide (middle turning) lane, I'd still have two children. And I'm going to keep saying that probably until the day I'm gone."

Dellacroce said there have been 16 fatal accidents, 1,627 non-fatal accidents and 3,260 property damage accidents totaling more than 5,400 total accidents on the Peabody stretch of the roadway in the past 19 years.

State Sen. Joan Lovely (D-Salem), State Rep. Thomas Walsh (D-Peabody) and State Rep. Sally Kerans (D-Danvers) were at the meeting conducted in-person and carried on Zoom, along with Peabody Mayor Ted Bettencourt, Peabody City Council members and dozens of citizens.

John Mallace, whose 50-year-old brother was killed was killed in May 2020 on the road, was one of three victims represented by a grieving family member Thursday night.

"I know this is an uphill battle," Mallace said. "I know that it's not going to happen overnight. But something must be done about this road. How many lives (lost)? How many families (destroyed)? How many tragedies have to occur until something is done?"

Dan Frechette, whose son, Jackson, was killed in November 2019 when he tried to cross the five lanes of Route 114 while driving with his older brother, said the city and state cannot wait until there are more fatalities to make the necessary changes.

"It's a problem — plain and simple, it's a problem," Frechette said. "How many more have to have (a fatal) accident — five, six, seven? Maybe now there should be a change. Now it's the appropriate number.

"It's unacceptable. If you have a problem at your house, you fix it. If there's a problem at your home, you fix it. It's your home. It needs to be fixed."

Dellacroce quoted a May 2018 Patch article on the dangers of the road and the preliminary plans to address them that have yet to begin more than three years later.

"The Massachusetts Department of Transportation is in the early design stages to improve a stretch of Route 114 in Peabody that it says is in the top 200 crash locations in the state," she referenced from the Patch story. "Construction on the $2.7 million project is expected to start in 2021."

"Got a couple of weeks left there," she noted last night. "I don't think that's going to get done (in 2021)."

State Department of Transportation District 4 Highway Director Paul Stedman called the meeting "an important beginning" and said there may be some mitigating changes that could be made in the short term, but allowed that a reconstruction of the road will take many years.

He said while there are plans to work on two intersections near Sylvan Street as part of the project Dellacroce referenced, he wants to initiate "a very deep dive" into all the crashes on Route 114 over the past three years that could lead to a plan to revamp the entire road.

However, he cautioned that any reconstruction plan — which would also likely have to include sidewalks and bike lanes as part of a "complete streets" approach — would need to include environmental reviews and potential right-of-way land acquisitions to widen the road.

"They're achievable," he said. "But they take time."

After 16 fatalities and more than 1,600 crashes with injuries within the last 20 years, the concern is that waiting much longer could make it too late for even more crash victims, as families and advocates promised persistence this time around.

"I'm going to be reaching out again, and again, and again until Route 114 is safer," Dellacroce said.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)