Water Street in Whitehall Township is open to traffic again, but only in one direction, nearly two years after a 75-year-old man was struck and killed trying to cross it on Christmas Day. The road reopened Thursday as a one-way route running north to south from Lehigh Street to Eberhart Road, ending a closure that stretched well over a year.
Edward D. Tomcics, 75, died after being hit by a car while crossing the street on Dec. 25, 2024, according to The Morning Call. Township officials said the new one-way configuration was developed with traffic engineers to address the road's limitations, reduce traffic speeds and provide safer pedestrian access, the outlet reported. Whitehall Township's own website confirms the layout, stating the street is now one way from Lehigh Street to Eberhart Road, north to south.
The driver, Etienne Theagene, 47, was charged with homicide by vehicle and other crimes, and is scheduled to stand trial in Lehigh County Court in January, per the same Morning Call account. No court records were provided beyond that reporting, and the case's outcome remains undetermined.
A Street Residents Said Was Never Safe
Long before the crash, neighbors had raised alarms about Water Street. Reports described recurring complaints from residents about vehicles speeding along the 17-foot-wide, two-way street, which carries a 25 mph limit, according to LehighValleyNews.com. In the days after Tomcics was killed, neighbors also pointed out that the street had no sidewalks on either side, the outlet reported separately.
Those concerns were echoed by the township's own analysis. Engineer Peter Terry told officials that pedestrian safety and speeding were the central problems on the corridor, and that police speed data showed the fastest trips happened during commuting hours. “The higher speeds are during the commuting periods. It's the through-trips that are going the fastest,” Terry said, according to the Lehigh Valley Press.
From Closure to a Contested Reopening Debate
The street closed to through traffic last year, though accounts differ on exactly when. Lehigh Valley Press reported the closure took effect at the start of its reporting cycle, while the Lehigh Valley Press separately noted that commissioners had still not reached a final decision on reopening as of a July meeting this year, with officials stating at the time that no official decision had been made about the reopening of the street. The original seed report attributed to WFMZ placed the closure in October 2025, while LehighValleyNews.com's own account dated the temporary closure to Sept. 22, 2025 — accounts that conflict on the precise start date.
Before settling on the one-way design, officials considered a range of fixes. Terry's early suggestions included turning Water Street into a cul-de-sac, along with speed humps, a trail connection and a one-way option, the Lehigh Valley Press reported, though those were floated as possibilities rather than adopted measures at the time.
Commissioner Says Resident Pressure Paid Off
Commissioner Taylor Stakes said the closure had prompted resident concerns about neighborhood access, traffic patterns and the loss of a roadway, and said reopening Water Street had been part of his 2025 campaign. He said he worked with the board of commissioners over the past year to press the township administration to restore access to the street.
Stakes said he intends to keep advocating for a permanent solution that would restore two-way traffic on Water Street, crediting residents for staying engaged with the issue. He said residents' persistence in raising the concern made a difference in getting the street reopened, even in its current one-way form.
