Ten years after the West Virginia Division of Highways and the West Virginia University Board of Governors acknowledged the need for a pedestrian bridge connecting The Coliseum and Evansdale, then-20-year-old WVU student Sara Queen was struck by a vehicle while crossing Monongahela Boulevard and suffered massive skull and brain injuries.
That’s according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by Loretta Blake, Queen’s mother, on behalf of the now mentally incompetent Queen.
The suit names The Thrasher Group Inc., Dennis Corp., A. Morton Thomas & Associates Inc., and Quality Counts, LLC, as defendants.
All the defendants are accused of negligence and the suit seeks compensatory damages to fairly and fully compensate Queen for the harm, losses and damages suffered. It also seeks interest, litigation expenses and attorney fees.
Queen’s injuries are severe and include “disabling and permanent traumatic brain injury, according to the suit.
Tony O’Dell, an attorney for Queen said, “One of the main things here is back in 2008 they recognized through documents that we were able to find that 6,000-8,000 students a day cross Monongahela Boulevard in that area. So, when these people came in to do the design for this they didn’t bother to do any pedestrian counts we’ve been able to find.”
The tragedy was preventable and foreseeable, the suit said.
The danger to pedestrians was “clearly recognized” by the WVDOH and WVU and plans were made to build a bridge over the boulevard to connect the Coliseum with Evansdale, the suit said.
In 2008, WVU was awarded a $300,000 grant by the WVUDOH for the bridge project, originally named the “WVU Coliseum Pedestrian Bridge” project, the suit said.
On March 20, 2009, a written agreement for the project was entered into between WVU and the WVDOH. WVU agreed to contract a qualified consultant for the design, engineering and bid specification documents, according to the suit. The total cost of the project was estimated at $375,000.
That project was announced on Oct. 21, 2008, and authorized by the WVDOH on Aug. 29. In November 2009, the project was placed on hold.
About that time, Thrasher was hired to study, design manage, oversee and subcontract on aspects of the project, the suit said. The group was to provide WVU with recommendations for WVU students to have a safe way to cross Monongahela Boulevard, given its heavy traffic and high pedestrian counts in the area.
Quality Count was hired to perform traffic counts for major intersections around the Evansdale campus, which it did in April 2012 and January 2014, the suit said. Dennis was hired to perform an traffic assessments. AMT was also hired to do traffic studies.
Thrasher recommended the bridge project be canceled “despite it being needed to eliminate an unreasonable and easily preventable danger to WVU students and others crossing Monongahela Boulevard on foot,” the suit said.
Instead of a bridge, Thrasher suggested WVU build a crosswalk between Mon Boulevard and Evansdale Drive, the suit said.
“The driving force behind the change in plans was to cut costs despite the pedestrian safety concerns,” the suit said.
The lowest bid for the cross walk project was $291,606. The project was completed December 2016, with a final inspection in July 2017. Queen was hit Feb. 20, 2018.
The supplemental plan also did not address the “clearly foreseeable risk of harm to students and others” that still exist today.
“It’s just a matter of time until another one gets hit and killed,” O’Dell said.
Dan Dennis, owner of Dennis Corp., said Wednesday he was not served with the suit and did not remember the project. He acknowledged his company does a lot of traffic work and didn’t want to comment until he saw the suit.
No other plaintiffs returned calls from The Dominion Post on Wednesday.
