Parents and residents in March will discuss progress on improving safety at Walt Whitman High School’s back entrance, about a year after a senior and his parents were killed in a collision at the Bethesda intersection.
The March 8 meeting in the high school auditorium begins at 7 p.m. and will update community members about ongoing efforts to address hazards at the juncture of River Road and Braeburn Parkway.
The Feb. 27 crash killed 52-year-old Michael Buarque de Macedo, his 52-year-old wife, Alessandra, and their son, 18-year-old Thomas, who was set to graduate last June. Helena Buarque de Marcedo, the daughter and sister of the other victims who was 15 at the time, was seriously injured in the crash. She has since recovered.
The Bethesda family was heading to a school play and its 2016 Chevy Volt was crossing River Road to enter Whitman’s back entrance when it was struck by a 2016 BMW M235 driven by Potomac resident Ogulcan Atakoglu, 21 at the time. Atakoglu pleaded guilty to three counts of vehicular manslaughter in the case last year and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
In the wake of the crash, community members began lobbying the Maryland State Highway Administration to close the intersection, create a new back entrance to the Whitman parking lot at Pyle Road and station traffic signals at the intersection and crosswalk. A community committee formed, a Whitman student circulated a petition and county, state and federal lawmakers got behind the residents’ effort.
However, dealing with state transportation officials has been “frustrating and slow,” Bannockburn neighborhood leader Richard Boltuck wrote in an announcement. “The forthcoming meeting will review where things stand with this effort and what remains to be done before concrete progress takes place.”
SHA is currently working at the intersection to install yellow signs that will flash when cameras detect a car turning left from River Road to Braeburn Parkway. The project is expected to wrap up in the next 45 days, according to SHA spokesman Charlie Gischlar.
Improvements under way at the intersection of River Road and Braeburn Parkway. Source: Maryland State Highway Administration
State transportation officials are also barring cars on Braeburn Parkway from turning left onto River Road and separating left-turning traffic from through-traffic at the intersection, Gischlar reported.
Seven crashes at the intersection were reported to police between 2010 and 2015, but none resulted in fatalities, according to Gischlar.
