Widower fighting to improve safety at a crossing where his wife died is killed in same spot: ‘Like science fiction’

A widower devoted to trying to improve safety at a Colorado intersection where his wife was run over and killed has died in a car crash at the same spot.

Gerry Goldberg, 82, had lobbied local officials to do something about the dangerous crossing where his wife of 32 years, Andie Goldberg, 59, was killed on her morning run in May 2024, according to First Coast News.

He had petitioned to get a new traffic light, to be named “Andie’s light” in her honor, to ensure there were no other deaths at the “dangerous” spot in Cherry Hills.

But in a cruel twist of irony, he was himself killed there Monday in a crash with another vehicle.

His cousin Gloria had been expecting to meet him for lunch when “he never showed.”

“I went home with a very empty feeling that something was askew because that was not like him,” she told First Coast News.

When she heard later that day that he had been killed in the same spot as his wife, it seemed too surreal to be true, the cousin said.

“To have it happen in exactly the same place … it’s almost like science fiction,” Gloria said.

Gerry used his wife’s death to campaign for greater road safety measures and pushed officials to install “Andie’s light.”

“I would like to think that Andie’s tragic death could have some positive outcome by ensuring the future safety of others using Belleview and being able to cross or turn onto it safely,” he told city council leaders just months before his death.

“It would give me a great deal of resolve for closure in the loss of my wife,” he told KUSA last year when describing the importance of the light.

The petition, signed by 432 people and submitted last fall, urged lawmakers to “look in the mirror [and] ask themselves ‘What’s the right thing to do?’”

Locals had been urging city officials to install a traffic light for decades.

Jennifer Arcenia claimed she and her mom lobbied for a traffic light at the intersection 45 years ago, according to KMGH.

Colorado Department of Transportation officials carried out a study in September 2024 and concluded that 85 per cent of traffic was traveling at least 5mph over the 35mph speed limit.

State officials approved plans for a traffic light but village officials are yet to follow through on this.

Megan Copenhaver, the city spokesperson, told KMGH the number of police patrols had increased in the area.