When Arthur Brazeau’s foot was run over as he traversed the crosswalk in front of the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building in Bangor last month, he became the fourth pedestrian in two years to be hit in the congested area.

Brazeau, 59, a Bangor resident, was crossing Harlow Street on Dec. 1 when a vehicle entered the crosswalk and essentially stopped on his foot.

His foot, though not broken, was badly bruised and is still in a cast, he said recently.

“It [seemed], like, maybe three, four minutes that she was parked on top of my foot,” Brazeau said. “That lady was trying to, I guess, beat the other people.”

In the past two years, four pedestrians have reported being hit by vehicles in front of the building that houses Bangor’s central post office. Those incidents are among 24 vehicle accidents of all types reported at the site, numbers that stand out to Police Chief Don Winslow.

“I would consider that to be unusually high,” Winslow said.

In addition to the pedestrian accidents, there have been 10 accidents in the past two years involving parking outside the building, nine involving traffic on the street in front of the building and one in which a bicyclist was hit.

According to Duane Brunell, state Department of Transportation safety performance analysis manager, two additional pedestrian accidents were reported at the location in 2004. That means two pedestrians have been hit there in each of the past three years.

“Any crash that happens is a crash that happens too often,” Brunell said.

According to Brunell, there have been 15 pedestrian accidents there since 1989.

Brunell added that the intersection of Harlow and Franklin streets also has historically been an accident hotbed.

The dearth of parking around the federal building may be at the root of the area’s high accident rate.

When the red brick building was constructed in 1968, 276 parking spaces in the area were lost. The building’s construction eliminated parking spaces from the old Abbott Square lot.

Today, the city of Bangor owns the Spring Street parking lot directly across from the federal building. The city has had discussions with the U.S. General Services Administration, which serves as the landlord for the federal building. The city wants to see some funding for improvements to the parking lot.

“My best guess is we’ll be able to work something out with them in the near future,” City Manager Ed Barrett said.

According to Barrett, GSA wants to acquire some city property, including the parking lot that City Hall employees now use on the left side of the federal building. His hope is that a kind of swap could be agreed upon between the city and GSA, with city property going to GSA and funding for parking improvements going to the city.Bangor has worked independently of GSA to improve the traffic situation around the building recently.

Cumberland Street was widened, protected left turns were added, and the traffic signals were upgraded, according to Barrett. The crosswalk in question now has an inlaid sign noting that the law requires drivers to stop for pedestrians.

Christina Diebold, 68, of Bangor is another Harlow Street accident victim.

At dusk on Jan. 3, 2006, an accelerating driver failed to see her in the crosswalk.

“It’s a terrible situation,” Diebold said. “Compared to the situation in Brewer [at the post office], it’s really terrible what you have to cross. It’s a dangerous situation.”

The post office in Brewer has multiple drive-through lanes, allowing customers to stay inside their vehicles rather than cross a busy road. While Diebold still uses the downtown Bangor post office, she now avoids it after dark.

As a participant in a weekly peace vigil outside, Diebold visits the federal building regularly. From her post alongside the road, she has noticed that few drivers respect the crosswalk, choosing instead to try to zip through.

GSA does plan to renovate the building. It would cost $1,227,662, but no restructuring of the parking situation is planned. The project is still in a design phase, and construction is scheduled to begin in September 2008, said Cathy Menzies, a business development specialist for GSA.

Chicago-based Teng & Associates is working on the design. Teng is associated with Oest Associates, located in Portland.

State Sen. Joe Perry, D-Bangor, would like to see the city aided in improving the parking.

Since the parking lot is city-owned and the building is federal, Perry does not expect funding to come from the state.

“I would think the federal government has some responsibility for parking there,” Perry said. “I’m surprised it’s not five people hit there a day. It’s a bad spot.”

Perry noted that while the lot is city-operated, the majority of people who park there intend to conduct business with the numerous federal agencies housed in the building.

The building houses federal agencies including GSA, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Social Security Administration. In addition, the building is home to U.S. District Court, the post office, and the office of U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

When the building was constructed in 1968, debate arose over the parking and traffic ramifications. Harlow Street was notably busy even then, and the city attempted to persuade GSA to reconsider its selection of the location for the federal building.

GSA chief Bernard Boutin visited the area at the time to survey other potential sites, but the agency ultimately declined to change plans. Proposed alternatives then were sites on Exchange Street and outer Hammond Street.

“I cannot tell you of a single instance all over the United States when everyone in a community was in unanimity in saying ‘God bless you, mister, you picked the perfect site,'” Boutin said at the time.

Perfect site or not, the federal building crosswalk on Harlow Street remains a dangerous place.

Leslie Poake, 42, of Bucksport was hit outside the building on Oct. 19, 2005. Since her office uses the downtown post office for its mail, she still visits the building almost daily.

“I see people at least once a month have close calls there,” Poake said. “I think it’s just people being careless.”

Poake’s experience outside the building mirrored Brazeau’s. She was crossing Harlow Street when a vehicle drove past her.

“I saw her out of the corner of my eye and kind of jumped back, and she hit my foot,” Poake said.

The U.S. Postal Service would not consider moving Bangor’s Harlow Street postal facility to a less-congested area, according to Christine Dugas, a spokeswoman. She stressed that the Postal Service considers the issue a city concern.

“This would be a law enforcement or a town issue,” Dugas said.

In addition to all of the pedestrian accidents outside the building, a 2005 accident occurred when the driver of a car heading through the crosswalk saw a pedestrian too late and stopped short. The vehicle was rear-ended, but the pedestrian was not hit.

Donna Kraft-Smith of Parkman was a pedestrian hit in front of the building on Feb. 4, 2005. Because Kraft-Smith, 50, works on Harlow Street near the federal building, she cannot avoid crossing the road.

“I cross that road a couple of times a week, and I hold my breath,” she said. “It’s a very dangerous place. I think there’s getting to be more and more traffic and people don’t know what to do.”

When Kraft-Smith was hit, the driver left the scene. Her ankle was crushed, and she spent three months in a cast, out of work and unable to put pressure on the ankle. The driver who hit her sped away and was never caught.

Kraft-Smith suspects that the actual number of accidents is higher than the number reported to police.

Last month, a client of hers saw a woman who was crossing the road with her family get hit, but the Bangor Police Department had no report of such an incident.

“And there’s a lot of almost-accidents,” she said.