There was a time when Gulf Bank was a rural road, but now it's a busy one. But it still doesn't any street lights to illuminate children as they walk to school buses in the dark.
In the shadow of a busy two-lane road, a memorial still grows in the three weeks since a 15-year-old boy was killed as he walked to his school bus stop. For his parents, time is still frozen.
"You can just imagine how that hurt," father Jose Alvarado said.
Brian Alvarado was struck by a car. The driver, deputies say, swerved to avoid him but it was too late. His family lives not far from where he died. Other children have to walk along the same path each school day, and it's a dangerous one.
"They drive pretty fast. Some, they go like 60. And yeah we do need the sidewalks," said Josseth Chinchilla, Brian's best friend.
There are no sidewalks there. Rather, there's only a ditch on one side of the road and an unprotected shoulder on the other. The family wants that to change.
"We're thinking a sidewalk, we are thinking a traffic light and we are also thinking about stop signs," Jose Alvarado said.
The county though doesn't typically provide for those services, but Brian Alvarado's family desperately wants something positive to come from his death.
"The reason I lost my brother is, it was this." Brian's brother, Jessy Alvarado, said while pointing to the street, "is what happened."
At this point, Harris County is only committing to a traffic survey along Gulf Bank.
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