Campus, News

Student struck by car crossing Commonwealth Avenue near West Campus

A female Boston University student struck by a vehicle on Commonwealth Avenue was transported to a local hospital with a leg injury Wednesday afternoon.

The student was hit crossing Commonwealth Avenue at St. Paul Street by a car traveling inbound, said Boston University Police Department Captain Robert Molloy. The driver appeared to have a green light when the collision took place. The driver then stopped the car and identified himself.

The student sustained leg injuries and was transported by Boston Emergency Medical Services to a local area hospital. She was alert and conscious at the time she was transported and is now in stable condition, Molloy said.

“This is a tragic accident,” said BU spokesman Colin Riley. “We certainly hope that she’s able to get back on her feet.”

Aleksander Skjølsvik, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, was attempting to cross the street as well when he witnessed the accident.

“She was trying to cross when the car just came down, doing 40 [miles per hour], tried stopping, but he couldn’t do anything,” he said.

Cars turning right onto St. Paul Street appeared to have obstructed the student’s view of the vehicle that hit her as it was approaching, Skjølsvik said.

The Boston Police Department received a call at 2 p.m. reporting the accident, and BUPD subsequently responded, Molloy said.

The intersection of Commonwealth Ave. and St. Paul Street is the same location where College of Communication graduate student Christopher Weigl was killed in December 2012 in a similar accident, according to police on the scene.

Weigl, a first-year graduate student in COM, died at the age of 23 in a collision with an 18-wheeler truck while riding his bicycle at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and St. Paul Street in December 2012.

In the same semester Weigl was killed, College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Chung-Wei Yang suffered a fatal bicycle crash in Allston in an incident involving an MBTA bus.

In the wake of Weigl’s death and several other bicycle collisions, BU President Robert Brown and former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino pushed for greater safety measures in March 2013 to protect cyclists on the 1.5-mile strand of Commonwealth Avenue that stretches along BU’s campus, according to a March 2013 press release.

Their campaign brought cautionary signs, enhanced bike lane pavement markings and highway reflectors to the portion of Commonwealth Avenue running through BU.

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