EMERYVILLE (KRON) — A Brentwood father of two is still in the hospital recovering after being hit by a truck in Emeryville on Wednesday.

Now the Emeryville councilmember who witnessed the accident is calling for pedestrian safety changes in the city.

It happened at the intersection of 45th and Hollis streets.

At first glance, the intersection appears safe given the four-way stop signs, but it gets pretty busy.

Many people use it as a cut-through to get home from work.

Emeryville City Council Member John Bauters witnessed a truck hit James Andereggen in a crosswalk on Wednesday at the intersection of 45th and Hollis streets.

“He was in shock,” Bauters said. “His face was a little — he looked scared. He wasn’t moving.”

Andereggen was on his way to meet his daughter Kaylee and her sister for dinner.

“I was waiting to hear when we were going to meet,” Kaylee said. “And I didn’t, so I texted my step-mom to see if she heard from him because he wasn’t answering me and that’s when she told me.”

Kaylee said he suffered a bad head injury but his daughter said he’s doing much better now and is expected to make a full recovery and come home tomorrow.

“He had a small brain bleed but he’s doing a lot better,” she said.

While Andereggen is lucky to be alive and recovering well, Bauters said it should’ve never happened in the first place.

He blamed the intersection and impatient drivers.

“This intersection is located in one of the few north-south routes through Emeryville,” Bauters said. “And at this time of day as people are trying to race home from work, those get congested pretty quickly.”

Emeryville police said the driver that hit Andereggen stayed on scene and is cooperating.

No drugs or alcohol were involved but distracted driving likely played a role.

Now Bauters wants the city to act fast on improving pedestrian safety here. 

“We shouldn’t have a situation like this have to happen to make changes,” Bauters said. “What I want to have a conversation in Emeryville is how can we accelerate and move forward with the design infrastructure design to make safe streets possible.”

Bauters said a new development is coming to this neighborhood and this intersection is slated to get a four-way traffic signal with pedestrian-activated lights, but he says the wait is too long.

He said he’ll push to get those improvements sooner.