Police ID Woman Killed Along Montopolis On St. Valentine's Day

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX -- Police have released the identity of a woman killed in a road fatality in southeast Austin on St. Valentine’s Day -- her birthday, as fate would have it..

Teresa Garcia, 29, was killed after she was struck by a 2010 silver Cadillac traveling southbound in the 700 block of Montopolis Drive.

The incident appears to have been nothing more than a tragic accident, not exacerbated by alcohol consumption by either party, police noted.

“This was in a darkened area and not at a designated crosswalk,” police said in an advisory sent to members of the press.

The day after the accident, residents in the area noted they’ve been trying for nearly a decade to have the city install safety measures in the poorly lighted section.

“Statistically, it was inevitable,” Delwin Goss told KEYE-TV. “It’s sad.”

Goss said he avoids walking in his neighborhood for fear of being struck by a car in a part of the city where traffic has increased exponentially in recent times.

“I get over 1,600 cars a day on this street, and that’s what the city measured two years ago,” he told the television station.

Something of a neighborhood activist, Goss has helped clean up crime into the area. He expressed lament that what once was a quiet neighborhood is being transformed, fueled by surrounding growth.

“It’s like the last undiscovered diamond in the circle around downtown,” he said.

For the past seven years or so, Goss has been calling attention to the growing danger as traffic levels have increased: “There’s a lot of kids in these neighborhoods, and some of these streets have absolutely no sidewalks.”

He pointed to the intersection of Montopolis Drive and Ponca Street, where the traffic light is timed to last a mere seven seconds, according to his calculation. He added pedestrians get 20 seconds to get across Montopolis -- not enough time to cross safely, he said.

It’s worse for pedestrians unfamiliar with the area and the brief amount of walk time granted, he added.

None of the safety measures for which Goss has called have been implemented. And it’s in the realm of conjecture whether or not Garcia’s life would have been saved had those safeguards been in place on the day of her birthday, the day she was killed.

The television station reports Montopolis barely missed the top ten streets prioritized for further study for a pedestrian hybrid beacon -- safety gadgets with two red lights and a single yellow light that the pedestrian can activate before crossing the street.

The next chance for that to happen is in May. And Goss only hopes there’s not another death before that time comes.

Maybe Garcia’s death might bring more success in convincing the city to do something, he inferred.

“It’s like talking to a brick wall,” he said of his pleas for safety measures to be implemented.