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'Gabby’s Light’ to make road safer where Worcester 20-year-old was killed

WORCESTER, Mass. — Two years after 20-year-old Gabriella Lowell was hit and killed in a Worcester crosswalk, construction has begun on a traffic light to make that stretch of Grafton Street safer.

Gabby’s mother, Alyson Lowell, has been working with Worcester City Councilor George Russell and City Manager Ed Augustus to install the flashing light, which will bear a plaque with Gabby’s name.

“When I first saw it, I was overcome with emotion, I started crying,” Lowell told Boston 25 News of seeing the work begin on Grafton Street. “It actually gives me hope that I could possibly save somebody else’s life and prevent another family from going through this.”

Road and electrical work began on “Gabby’s Light” over the summer, and the light is expected to be completed in the coming weeks, with a ceremony to follow.

The traffic light is needed, Lowell said, to illuminate the dim road and prompt drivers to slow down and stop for pedestrians.

“Every single time I drive by the site, it kills me. The memories, the flashbacks. It’s very, very traumatic,” Lowell said. “Nobody stops up there for pedestrians. I’ve seen it, and it’s extremely dangerous.”

In June 2018, vivacious, happy-go-lucky Gabby was in a crosswalk when driver Tyler Hamilton fatally struck her. Hamilton admitted to police on the scene he had looked at a text message from his mother at the time of the crash and hadn’t seen anyone on the road.

Hamilton pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to four years of probation and a loss of license for 15 years.

Prosecutors had asked for jailtime. Gabby’s mom feels Hamilton’s punishment was not justice.

“Every single day, no matter what time of day, I think of how he got off on killing my daughter,” Lowell said. “There is no other way to describe it.”

But Lowell is trying to move forward for her daughter. She has been working with lawmakers on texting and driving education and legislation.

She also hopes to help make vehicular homicide a mandatory felony in the state of Massachusetts. Currently, it is a misdemeanor if the driver was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Lowell’s work is far from done. Her mission is to make her community safer and keep Gabby’s memory alive.

“I think having the light up there is going to just give me a little bit of positive when I drive by there,” Lowell said. “That light is going to be there for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years when I’m gone, when my family’s gone. That light is still going to be there. And everybody will know who Gabby was.”