A vigil was held Wednesday night as a tribute to Anne Rapkin, who was struck and killed on Sedgwick Road on Nov. 27, 2024.

By Ronni Newton

For the second time in a month, the West Hartford community came together for a solemn gathering, standing next to a utility pole on which a pair of white sneakers now hang – ghost shoes bearing the name of Anne Rapkin, a resident who was struck and killed near that spot a week ago.

Friends and former colleagues recalled her as a brilliant and compassionate woman who was dedicated to helping others.

On the night before Thanksgiving, Nov. 27, Rapkin, 74, had been walking her dog, Rosie, on Sedgwick Road, near the intersection with Castlewood Road, when she was hit by a passenger vehicle. The incident was reported at 6:44 p.m. and although medical aid was rendered immediately at the scene, Rapkin died of her injuries. The dog was also killed.

“I think it’s a good reminder to all of us what our streets are like right now, and to perhaps reflect on what happened here and what can be done to make sure that we don’t have another tragedy like this in West Hartford again,” said Mary Donegan, a member of Bike West Hartford, which organized the vigil.

“Although we do not know all of the details around this crash, we recognize that any fatality or serious injury on roadways is one too many,” said Ethan Frankel of Bike West Hartford.

People were invited to share some words to memorialize Rapkin during the vigil, and there was a moment of silence as well as a reading of the names of the five other pedestrians who have been fatally struck in West Hartford were read aloud.

Arleen Kline said she had met Rapkin through her synagogue and had known her for about 25 years. “She’s probably one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, if not the smartest,” Kline said.

Rapkin was a lawyer, and she became a chaplain, and then used her skills to work with immigrants in the community through Trinity Episcopal Church in Hartford, in particular with two Afghan families who grew to consider her as family, Kline said. “So that’s a great loss for the immigrant community,” she said.

“She was so knowledgeable in so many subjects,” Kline said. Rapkin led a class in Yiddish literature, and had an amazing and eclectic record collection and a library full of amazing books. “And she has a loving family,” added Kline, and as long as she knew her Rapkin always had a dog and must have walked past that corner so many times.

Debbie Agrella and Bob Raupach moved several years ago from Farmington to Cherryfield Drive near the house where Rapkin and her husband, Steve Zhitnik, have lived for decades, and quickly became good friends. While they knew her personally not professionally, Agrella and Raupach said she has touched so many people’s lives through her work that will be felt for generations. “And even in her death … she was an organ donor.”

They were planning to spend Thanksgiving with Rapkin and her husband, and said they were shocked to learn of her death on Thursday morning.

“Three hundred deaths of people in car accidents, and they’re not really accidents,” Raupach said, referencing signs along the highway that note fatal crashes on the state’s roadways. “Yup. Three in West Hartford. And this is one.”

The ghost shoes will remain, and will be a reminder to all of Rapkin. “She was our dear friend and we loved her and, forever, this will never leave our memory,” Agrella said.

Elin Katz said Rapkin was her boss when she was hired as an assistant counsel at what was then called the Department of Environmental Protection in 1996. “She was one of the best bosses I ever had … she was the epitome of work-life balance because I was pregnant with twins at the tine and she could not have been more accommodating.

She was one of those people that you trusted with anything,” Katz said. Rapkin was compassionate, understanding, and “absolutely a brilliant woman, one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, and she was also fierce,” Katz said. “Fierce in her beliefs, she was fierce in her intellect, and in doing what she thought was the right thing.”

Katz said she met Rapkin and her husband for coffee just a few weeks ago. “She told me she had been about to retire and then Afghan crisis occurred, and she felt she could not retire knowing that she had the ability to help Afghani refugees trying to come to the United States.” She was a wonderful person and a great role model, said Katz.

Rapkin was the third pedestrian killed in West Hartford this year. On Nov. 8, 87-year-old Patricia Brulotte was struck by a car on Oakwood Avenue near St. James Street. She died the following day as a result of those injuries. In January, 80-year-old David Goldfarb  sustained fatal injuries when he was crossing Albany Avenue near Mohegan Drive.

Jason Wang of Bike West Hartford also read aloud the names of three pedestrians who were struck and killed in 2022: Carlos Garlaza, 60, killed by a driver while assisting a person at the corner of Mohegan Drive and Carlyle Road on Dec. 21; Eugenia Yurovsky, 89, killed in a hit and run while walking across Boulevard at Whiting Lane on Dec. 20; and Bob Oneal, age 61, killed by a driver while standing on the sidewalk on the corner of Farmington Avenue and Main Street on June 3.

In a period of eight days in December 2022 five people died in town and another was seriously injured as a result of motor vehicle-related incidents– and as a result of those tragedies the town formed a task force and launched a Vision Zero initiative resulting in an action plan that is being finalized and with a set of projects that could be implemented quickly.

In the past few months, many of the initial Vision Zero Action Plan items have been implemented – such as the addition of raised crosswalks and rectangular rapid flashing beacons – and others are in progress. The goal of Vision Zero is to completely eliminate serious and fatal traffic incidents by 2033.

“Let us find ways to work together to prevent crashes like this from ever happening again,” Wang said. “Our community has embraced the principles of Vision Zero rather than accepting so-called traffic accidents as route parts of life. We can take proactive steps and prevent these tragedies by prioritizing traffic safety as a public health issue.”

Sedgwick Road, Wang added, is the type of roadway that is designed to fail because it’s too wide, and too easy for cars to go fast and take turns quickly even though the lighting is inadequate. He said the town has done a good job making Tunxis Road safer, and implored the town to do something quickly on Sedgwick Road where kids walk to school, people walk their dogs.. “We need to move faster, please.”

A young boy also stepped up. “I want the streets to be safer so I can ride by bike to my friend’s house. Thank you so much,” he said.

Town Manager Rick Ledwith told We-Ha.com that the whole premise of Vision Zero is that fatal or serious crashes are preventable, and it also acknowledges that human error is inevitable. “What factors into the next step is what could we have done, engineering-wise, to account for that lapse in behavior.”

At a meeting of the Town Council’s Public Safety Committee on Wednesday morning, Ledwith said that when Vision Zero was adopted, it was “not just a goal to make our streets safer for everyone it was absolutely a priority,” and the recent incidents underscore the commitment to preventing future incidents.

“We need to accelerate our Vision Zero efforts,” Ledwith told the Public Safety Committee, and during the winter that will include more education as well as preparation, including the drafting of ordinances that will be needed for implementing speed enforcement and red light cameras in 2025. There will continue to be significant infrastructure upgrades to improve road and pedestrian safety throughout town.

The town had switched to lower wattage lighting about a decade ago, and Ledwith told We-Ha.com that starting with roadways identified as in the “high injury network” and then moving to residential areas, 15-watt, 25-watt, and 32-watt lights will be replaced with 46-watt lights as the norm.

The lighting on Oakwood Avenue, where Brulotte was fatally struck last month, has already been replaced, and Ledwith provided the below image to show the stark different between the previous 15-watt lamps vs. the new 46-watt lamps.

West Hartford Police have not yet issued a full report about the collision on Nov. 27 that resulted in Rapkin’s death. Police said the driver remained at the scene and cooperated with the investigation, but a final report could take several months to complete and no further details have been released.

A memorial service for Rapkin will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 14 at Trinity Episcopal Church in Hartford.

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