SUV Driver Kills Priest on Route 138 in Milton

A Milton priest has died of injuries he sustained after a driver drove an SUV into him on Route 138 near the Blue Hills Trailside Museum last week.

According to reports from the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office, a suspect drove into Father James B. Doran, aged 68, while he was riding his bike along Route 138 around noon on Wednesday, May 7.

Doran died from his injuries on Friday night in a Boston hospital.

Authorities have not identified the suspected perpetrator, but describe him as an 85-year-old man from Hyde Park.

David Linton, a press spokesperson for the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office, told StreetsblogMASS on Monday that “an investigation is continuing to determine the cause of the crash and whether charges will be issued.”

Perpetrator could still be driving

Under Massachusetts law, the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) is required to suspend the driving license of drivers involved in a fatal crash. 

Linton, of the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office, would not answer our questions about whether that had happened in this case.

An RMV spokesperson also declined to tell StreetsblogMASS on Monday whether the suspect’s license had been suspended. We’ve also reached out to the Milton Police Department, which has not yet responded to our inquiry.

MassDOT admits roadway has ‘poor safety conditions’

A 2018 study of Route 138 in Milton identified “poor safety conditions” on the roadway, with a high rate of crashes and hazards to walking and bicycling that included “a lack of connected and continuous bicycle lanes, narrow and substandard sidewalks, (and) gaps in the sidewalk network.”

Near the site of the crash where Doran was killed, Route 138 is a two-lane roadway with wide shoulders with painted bike lane markings in each direction. There is a sidewalk on the west side of the roadway, but not on the east side, where the Trailside Museum and Blue Hills Reservation hiking trails are located.

Route 138 road has a 45 mph speed limit in the area. The average risk of severe injury for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle at that speed is 90 percent, according to a 2011 study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Two crosswalks with flashing beacons, nearly a quarter-mile apart, connect the Route 128 sidewalk to the Trailside Museum parking lots and the hiking trails on the east side of the roadway.

In 2019, MassDOT started planning a major “complete streets” project that would have built a new separated shared-use pathway on the east side of Route 138, alongside narrowed motor vehicle lanes.

But that project no longer exists in MassDOT’s online project database.

Instead, the agency is now planning to rebuild a shorter 1.7-mile segment of Route 138 between Dollar Lane in Milton and Royall Street in Canton – including the segment near the Trailside Museum – in 2029.