Community members will hold a vigil tonight for the young boy struck and killed in Delaware Park by a motorist on Saturday. Organizers are also calling for more safety improvements in and around the park.
Various elected officials and residents living near Delaware Park and the Scajaquada Expressway have been calling on the New York State Department of Transportation for years to make the highway that cuts through the park safer.
"The results of the various studies that have already been completed have not really gone anywhere," said Kerri Machemer, who founded "Parents for a Safe Delaware Park Community" after 3-year-old Maksym Sugorovsky was killed Saturday when a car veered off the expressway, over a curb and onto the park's Ring Road.
"We frequently walk Ring Road," Machemer said. "When I heard of the accident, I immediately thought that could have been me or any one of the other mothers in the Buffalo area."
Jersey barriers were installed on Monday and the expressway speed limit has been reduced to 30-mph, but Machemer said more needs to be done in the area, including calming traffic on Parkside Avenue, and improving pedestrian access to the park.
She said the vigil for the young boy will be held at the "Hunter and the Dog" statue on Ring Road near Parkside and the Scajaquada at 7 p.m.