Girl's death spurs safer roads effort

Courtney Sipes was an active and idealistic 11-year-old. She danced, played softball, enjoyed cooking, wrote songs and wanted to help others.

Since her death two years ago this week while crossing Main Street, the Smithtown girl has become the emotional focal point of a campaign to make the road safer for drivers and pedestrians.

Safety improvements such as new crosswalks and a fence to discourage jaywalking were installed the year after Courtney was fatally struck on Nov. 24, 2009.

Then, when two other pedestrians died after being hit on Main Street, state and local officials began considering a major redesign of the four-lane road, which is officially state routes 25 and 25A.

"People had wanted things done at the street for a number of years," Lavena Sipes, Courtney's mother, said. "But the progress that [has] . . . been made so far has been more than what was done in the past."

Sipes, her husband, Tracy, and their son, Cameron, 16, plan to remember Courtney at 7 p.m. Tuesday with a vigil at Main Street and Lawrence Avenue, near where she was killed.

For years before Courtney's death, calls to revamp Main Street had been ignored, residents said. In 2004, Smithtown architect Mark Mancini took it upon himself to draft a design, including a raised center median and left-turn lanes.

"The design of the town does not support people doing safe things," Mancini said. "That four-lane highway looks like a speedway to me."

But Mancini, president of the Greater Smithtown Chamber of Commerce, said his ideas met resistance or skepticism. "People just come to accept this road as, well, this is just the way Smithtown is," he said.

Then Courtney was killed, and in the next 15 months, two others. In March, days after Seamus Byrne, 33, of Smithtown, was killed, the Sipes family circulated petitions calling for changes on Main Street. They have garnered more than 3,800 supporters, Lavena Sipes said.

Byrne's family, too, called for a solution. "Who wants to see somebody else live through this?" said his mother, Rose Marie Byrne, of Kings Park. "This has been a nightmare for my whole family."

The tragedies led to an August meeting of state, federal, county and town officials to consider a pair of designs -- one to reduce the road to three lanes with a turning lane, the other to divert westbound traffic away from downtown. Both were panned by local lawmakers, who are awaiting follow-up discussions with state officials.

In a statement, state Transportation Commissioner Joan McDonald said her department is "gathering input" from local officials and community leaders, and plans will be finalized "by the end of the year."

For the Sipes family, knowing Courtney's loss inspired a new look at Main Street "brings us some peace," her mother said. "It doesn't change the fact that we have this pain and she's not here. If we can help bring about change and keep other people from feeling this pain, I think she'd be proud of us."

Fatal stretch

Pedestrian deaths on Smithtown's Main Street

Nov. 24, 2009: Courtney Sipes, 11, of Smithtown, is killed when she is hit by a sport utility vehicle driven by Maureen Lambert, of Stony Brook, who is high on heroin and driving at twice the posted 30 mph speed limit. Lambert, now 22, is serving 4 to 12 years in prison.

Jan. 2, 2010: Charles Doonan, 65, of Flushing, and his fiancee, Mirtha Rotkowitz, 61, of Sunnyside, both in Queens, are struck by a car. Doonan dies from his injuries seven months later.

Feb. 27: Seamus Byrne, 33, of Smithtown, is struck and killed.