COLRAIN — A day after a New Hampshire man was killed when his dump truck crashed into a vacant brick building, the battered shell of the former “Blue Block” apartment building at 3 Main Road was fenced off, while the Selectboard has called a special meeting.
The board intends to discuss installing better warning signs for truck drivers and to consider other safeguards to break the pattern of accidents along steep and curvy Greenfield Road on the downhill into Colrain center. That meeting will be Monday at 5:30 p.m.
Selectboard member Eileen Sauvageau and Chairman Mark Thibodeau said Wednesday that they have spoken to state Department of Transportation officials and that Town Coordinator Kevin Fox will contact Sen. Stan Rosenberg’s office to see what resources might help.
“We want signage where there’s enough forewarning to alert the trucks,” Thibodeau said.
On Tuesday morning, 46-year-old Robert Leustek of Winchester, N.H., was killed when the dump truck he drove ran off the curve and crashed into a brick wall of the Blue Block at about 8 a.m.
Leustek, who had moved to Winchester in 2014, according to the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel, was elected to his town’s selectboard this spring. He and his wife, Gloria, helped start a farmers market for their community and raised produce at their business, Porcupine Acres.
Leustek also worked as a driver for Bob’s Fuel Co. LLC, which delivers heating oil in Winchester, N.H., Brattleboro, Vt., and Greenfield.
“He was so helpful in many, many ways,” company manager Caitlin Ward said of Leustek. “He had a heart of gold.”
According to firefighters and first responders, there have been at least five accidents over the past decade in which someone lost control of a vehicle traveling down Greenfield Road due to brake failure.
Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Worden remembers that two people were killed several decades ago. He said the couple’s car crashed into the porch of a Jacksonville Road house.
In 2004, a tractor-trailer hauling 50,000 pounds of mulch lost its brakes going down the hill, according to Recorder files. The vehicle rolled over, smashing a utility pole and cutting power to many townspeople for several hours. In that incident, the driver was not injured.
Most recently, on July 7, another dump truck crashed into a utility pole in front of 6 Jacksonville Road, at the bottom of the hill. The truck was loaded with gravel, and the driver was taken to the hospital.
After the accident in July, the Selectboard discussed whether it would be possible to put a truck ramp somewhere along the bottom of the road, for truck traffic to use in an emergency.
According to traffic counts done by the Franklin Regional Council of Governments in 2013, between 1,500 to 1,600 vehicles go through that intersection daily. The intersection of Jacksonville, Greenfield and Main roads is slated for improvements in 2020 through the federal TIP (Transportation Improvement Program), according to Franklin Regional Council of Governments.