Long after the police and ambulances and fire trucks have pulled away, after the yellow tape and the traffic cones are gathered up, after the rubberneckers drive on and after the skid marks on the pavement fade, all that’s left behind are the shattered lives of those affected by the tragedy.

For the drivers that come along after the crash, it soon goes back to being just a road. A means to an end. A few unremarkable seconds of a busy work day.

Everything goes back to normal. Until the next one. Then it all comes back again.

And it will keep coming back — the agony, the loss —until public officials and citizens rise up and take effective action to stop the next one from happening.

That time has come for Route 7 in Niskayuna, which has a long and deadly history of fatal accidents.

Yet the same issues with the road persist, even as people continue to die there.

Last Tuesday around 2:45 p.m, 59-year-old Angela Fisher-Reid of Schenectady was crossing Route 7 near Hickory Road in front of the Bellevue Woman’s Center when she was struck by a vehicle. She was later........

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