Cheryl Anne Mayberry was trying to get across four-lane Thompson Boulevard at Ash Street in Ventura this month when a motorist struck her only feet from the sidewalk. She died hours later at a hospital.

Wearing a sun dress and holding a pair of sandals, Mayberry looked like she had just come from the beach, said Jim DeArkland, who witnessed the March 5 collision from his vehicle. Mayberry, 58, made it across three lanes after at least one car stopped to let her cross. She was struck moments later in the fourth lane, police said.

"She had a pink dress on," DeArkland said. "I don't think the driver ever saw her. There were no brake marks. It was absolutely awful."

Still disturbed by the incident, DeArkland, a local developer, is among a group of residents who believe it's time for the busy crossing to become more pedestrian friendly.

"This city talks all the time about how it wants to become more walkable and promote itself as a pedestrian-friendly destination," said DeArkland, who measured the distance Mayberry's body traveled at 26 yards. "But when you hear people are getting killed, that's not good P.R. No one wants this to happen again, and to do nothing would send the wrong message."

The Ash Street crossing on Thompson deserves special attention, said Debora Schreiber, coordinator of the Kalorama Coalition neighborhood group.

The crossing is the most direct route to a pedestrian and bicycle foot bridge that travels over Highway 101 to the Ventura Pier. Corralles Restaurant, a popular walk-up Mexican eatery, is on the corner.

"People definitely cross there, and it's dangerous," said Schreiber, who sent a request to City Hall several months ago asking for the intersection to be studied.

Traffic light a block away

Although there is a lighted intersection at Kalorama a block away, "people don't want to go out of the way," she said.

But simply painting a crosswalk across Thompson at Ash Street, where motorists typically drive 35 to 40 mph, likely wouldn't help, traffic engineers say. It actually could make the crossing less safe.

"It could give people a false sense of security," said Tom Mericle, Ventura's transportation manager.

Mericle said Thompson used to have a marked crosswalk at Ash, but it was removed several years ago because research at the time showed crosswalks on busy, wide corridors like Thompson were somewhat ineffective. The studies showed people often blindly walked into crosswalks and didn't give motorists time to stop.

Thompson and Ash has a dangerous past, said Councilman Brian Brennan, who recalled a similar pedestrian fatality there eight or nine years ago.

At the time, he talked to city staff members about improving the crossing, but nothing substantive came of it, he recalled.

"It was something, unfortunately, that got off the radar screen as time passed," he said. "Whether it would have helped or not, who knows. But that intersection is a funnel (to the beach), and it's definitely something we need to give another look at."

Even before the most recent tragedy, DeArkland said, he was part of a downtown group pushing to get crosswalks painted on portions of Thompson. He fears more accidents will occur if nothing is done.

"Ash Street is a gateway to the beach, and it presents a real opportunity," said Rachel Morris, executive director of the VCCool nonprofit group, which advocates for climate change and walkable neighborhoods.

Changes would fit new plan

Creating a safe crossing at Ash and other nearby streets, she said, would lure walkers, bikers and people with strollers who now often drive to the beach because Thompson is unattractive and unsafe.

The time for change could be right. Ventura officials are in the process of drafting a citywide mobility plan called "Ventura on the Move." The plan is intended to provide more bicycle, pedestrian and transit opportunities.

Dan Burden, director of Walkable Communities Inc., a nonprofit corporation that helps cities develop pedestrian-friendly areas, recently toured downtown. One of his ideas was to restripe Thompson to have one lane of traffic in each direction with a center turning lane, similar to the striping on nearby Main Street, Mericle said. Curbs also could be extended to shorten the distance pedestrians have to walk in the street. Since Highway 101 was built, Thompson no longer needs to be four lanes, Mericle said.

In-pavement lights expensive

A new trend to improve pedestrian safety is the installation of in-pavement flashing warning lights — small, blinking lights outlining a crosswalk that provide a warning for motorists to stop.

Ventura recently installed in-pavement lights, costing roughly $40,000 per crosswalk, at three locations: across Loma Vista Road near Community Memorial Hospital; across Telegraph Road at Dunning Street near St. Bonaventure High School; and across Ventura Avenue at Warner Street. A pedestrian was struck and killed by a drunken driver at the Warner crossing a few years ago, Mericle said.

The city used grant money administered by the Ventura County Transportation Commission to pay for the lights.

Given the recent fatality and the heavy use of the Ash Street crossing, an improvement project there "would likely be a very competitive application" for a grant, said Mary Travis, manager of regional rail programs for the commission.

The driver of the car, Arthur Cid, 56, of Ventura, has not been cited or charged, but police have not concluded their investigation, Lt. Quinn Fenwick said.

The sun was low and might have contributed to the incident, witnesses said.

The accident still hangs heavy on DeArkland, who didn't know Mayberry. Authorities said the homeless woman had lived in Hawaii before moving to Ventura County.

"We, as a community, need to do something," DeArkland said. "To ignore it would be a worse tragedy."