MILWAUKEE — Standing at the intersection of 35th and Capitol, it can be hard to collect your thoughts with the rumble of speeding traffic nearly constant. But it’s thoughts this intersection sparks for Tionna Hicks that she wishes she could forget.
“I don’t try to come over here at all,” Hicks said. “It brings back a lot of memories.”
It was here where life and death intersected in October of 2017. Early that morning, Shakela Rhodes was driving her 11-month-old daughter, Aaliyah in the backseat, and her cousin, Tionna, riding shotgun.
“We were right here at the red light,” Hicks said. “I remember looking back at Aaliyah and I had said I love you and that’s all I remember.”
Reggie Gaston was driving west on Capitol Drive and blew a red light, crashing into Rhodes' vehicle. Rhodes and her daughter died at the scene but Hicks survived. Gaston was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2018.
In the five years since the crash, Shakela and Aaliyah are always on her mind. Along Tionna’s collarbone is a daily reminder; a tattoo of Aaliyah’s name with a crown on top.
“I was with Shakela like every day,” Hicks said. “I was real close with her. She always got me out of the house. I used to be kind of depressed like that and I was always with her. She was like a second mama.”
In 2017, Shakela and Aaliyah were two of 94 people killed in a motor vehicle crash. They also represent a startling disparity in crash statistics. Since 2017, 53.7 percent of crash deaths in Milwaukee County are African American victims, despite making up 27.6 percent of the entire county’s population.
“What’s tragic is, that’s not unusual,” Beth Osborne, VP of Transportation and Thriving Communities for Smart Growth America said. “This is something we see across the country. If you are walking and you are Black, you are twice as likely to be struck and killed than a white person. If you are a Native American, you are three times as likely.”
In total, people of color represent two-thirds of all crash deaths in Milwaukee County since 2017. Osborne points to road design as a reason we see these types of statistics.
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“Roadway design tells us, on an ongoing basis, how we should behave,” Osborne said. “If a road is wide with wide lanes, straight ahead and few places where you’re expected to stop, that feels like an expressway. We feel comfortable moving faster.”
By and large, those types of roadways, Osborne says, go through minority neighborhoods.
“We’ve built a lot of highways and high-speed roadways through Black and brown communities,” Osborne said. “When you build high-speed roadways in an area, that does not become a place where people with options desperately want to raise their children.”
Because of systemic racism, Osborne says, both through lower economic status and redlining, people of color were forced to live in these less desirable areas.
“When that property becomes lower value, people with less money and less opportunity are likely to be pushed there,” Osborne said. “Not because they choose to but because we have not provided enough affordability elsewhere in more choice neighborhoods. That isn’t a failure of affordability.”
Osborne points to other ripple effects of these systemic practices; African Americans are less likely to have access to a vehicle. The National Equity Atlas shows 18 percent of African American households nationwide do not have access to a vehicle which is the highest of any racial or ethnic group. By not having ready access to a vehicle, people will need to use a different form of transportation, like walking or biking, which put them at greater risk. Additionally, Osborne says these systemic practices equate to lost time that could be used to advocate for change on the roadways.
“These are folks that often have less time to attempt to exercise political power,” Osborne said. “To demand a redesign of the roadway to make it safer, particularly for people traveling within the roadway. As opposed to people trying to pass through their community.”
The intersection where Hicks’ crash happened is well-known as one of the most dangerous in the city. According to Milwaukee Police data, it ranked third in total crashes across the city.
“We aren’t waiting,” Osborne said. “[Public officials] don’t get five years to fix it. They could make changes with temporary improvements at a very low-cost, including paint and delineators for tens of thousands of dollars right now to make that intersection safer. There is no excuse for them failing to do so.”
When comparing satellite images of the intersection in 2017 compared to today, there are infrastructure improvements that have been made. There are more, and more visible, traffic light signals, the traffic islands are more pedestrian-friendly, and a bump-out was recently added on 35th Street.
While infrastructure improvements are often lauded as an integral part of solving reckless driving, Tionna hopes her voice can be stronger than any amount of concrete.
“I want to send out a message for reckless driving,” Hicks said. “Stop being selfish. Stop running lights. Slow down. Put kids in car seats, booster seats, stuff like that. Wear your seatbelts. My story, it’s a story. I’ve been through a lot these last five years.”
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