A man was left in critical condition Monday afternoon after being struck by a vehicle on I-90 East near East 152nd Street in Cleveland. Emergency crews rushed him to a hospital, and the driver believed to have hit him stayed at the scene as investigators began piecing together what happened.
Cleveland police confirmed the man was struck and transported by EMS in critical condition, according to WOIO, which first reported the crash as a developing story Monday. The outlet's report, credited to reporter Brian Koster, noted that Cleveland's Accident Investigation Unit was headed to the scene to open a formal investigation. Under Cleveland Division of Police procedure, that specialized unit handles severe vehicular crashes and highway collisions, working to reconstruct the scene and determine liability.
A High-Speed Corridor With a Troubled History
The crash site sits on I-90 East, part of the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway corridor that runs along Lake Erie before merging with the interstate, linking downtown Cleveland to the city's eastern suburbs through interchanges near East 140th and East 152nd streets, per Wikipedia. The location falls within Cleveland Police's Fifth District, which is headquartered nearby at East 152nd Street and St. Clair Avenue, according to the Cleveland Police Foundation, and covers northeast Cleveland neighborhoods including Collinwood and Glenville.
It remains unclear how the man came to be in the roadway. Ohio law generally bars pedestrians from occupying any part of a freeway right-of-way, with narrow exceptions for official duties or emergencies such as a vehicle breakdown or crash, per the Ohio Revised Code. Whether the man was a stranded motorist, a transit rider, or someone else entirely has not been disclosed, and investigators had not released that detail as of Monday.
Echoes of Recent Cleveland Highway Tragedies
This is not the first time someone on foot has been struck on I-90 in Cleveland this year. In July, a 55-year-old man was killed on I-90 westbound near West 44th Street after being hit while standing outside his stopped vehicle on the shoulder, a case Hoodline detailed weeks ago. Cleveland's highways have proven especially dangerous for people outside their vehicles: in November 2022, veteran Cleveland firefighter Johnny Tetrick was struck and killed on I-90 East near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard while responding to an earlier crash, according to the Cleveland Division of Fire, with the driver in that case later charged after fleeing toward East 152nd Street.
Ohio law requires drivers involved in a collision to stop immediately and remain at the scene, with failing to do so in a case involving serious injury or death treated as a felony under state statute. Police confirmed the driver believed to have struck the man on Monday did not leave, a detail that stands in contrast to several other fatal East Side pedestrian cases Hoodline has covered this year, including an Euclid Avenue hit-and-run and a fatal Eddy Road crash investigated by Fifth District officers.
Part of a Larger Pattern on Cleveland Streets
The crash adds to a grim tally tracked by local advocates. Bike Cleveland reported in May 2025 that 603 pedestrians and bicyclists were struck by vehicles across the city in 2024, up from 550 the year before, while total traffic deaths climbed from 59 to 75 over that same span. Those numbers have risen even after the City of Cleveland formally adopted its Vision Zero Action Plan in 2022, which set a goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and severe injuries on city roadways by 2032 through infrastructure changes and speed management.
Statewide, the trend has moved in the wrong direction too. A July report from the Governors Highway Safety Association projected a 7 percent drop in pedestrian fatalities nationwide for 2025, even as preliminary figures showed Ohio pedestrian deaths rising from 128 in 2024 to 148 in 2025. Cleveland has also seen a string of vulnerable road user deaths in recent months, including a scooter rider killed in a vehicle strike on the East Side in late July and a 66-year-old man who died after being hit twice on Pearl Road, both cases the Accident Investigation Unit was called to handle.
As of Monday, the man's condition and the circumstances that put him on I-90 East remained unclear, and police had not released further details about the driver or potential charges. Hoodline will update this story as the investigation continues.
