With tourists passing through Windham by way of Route 302 four wheels at a time this weekend for the Fourth of July rush, some elderly residents are saying they don’t feel safe crossing the road.

“I wouldn’t dare cross the the street,” said Mary Mathieu, 81, who lives at Unity Gardens senior residence center just north of downtown North Windham. “Those cars drive like a bat out of hell.”

Mathieu said she drives herself and would never take a chance crossing busy Route 302 that cuts the downtown area neatly in half.

“You take your life in your hands,” said Cathy Bishop, 84, who lives at New Marblehead Manor. “It’s the lights and the impatient drivers.”

She said she would feel more comfortable with longer crosswalk light cycles.

“If it was just two (more) seconds, it would be a big help,” said Bishop.

“I think that’s something that could easily be fixed, we’re talking an extra 10 seconds or so,” said Town Council Chairman John MacKinnon.

“Downtown is not particularly pedistrian-friendly as it is,” he said. He said he would add the issue to the agenda for the next town council meeting if he were asked to by a resident.

“Those right on reds worry me,” said Barbara Collins, 78, of New Marblehead Manor. She drives an electric scooter that goes 20 mph and said drivers who take a right turn on a red light don’t always look ahead before they hit the gas.

Virginia Billings, the Unity Gardens site coordinator for the Southern Maine Agency on Aging, said she would like to see some benches in downtown North Windham on which people could rest, but said she expected vandals would destroy or steal them.