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The city of Albuquerque is installing pedestrian fencing on East Central; work to take about two months
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The city of Albuquerque is putting up fencing in the middle of medians on East Central in hopes of improving pedestrian safety.
“This new fencing is designed to help pedestrians cross Central at safe locations, like intersections and new mid-block crossing locations,” Department of Municipal Development spokesperson Dan Mayfield said in a news release Tuesday.
The fencing will be installed on Central near Pennsylvania, Wyoming and Louisiana. Installation work began last week and is expected to take about two months, he said.
The contractor will provide traffic control during construction, which will require partial lane closures of about 500 feet.
On Sept. 5, the city announced it was making about $2 million in upgrades, including the fence installation, aimed at protecting pedestrians on East Central.
They include adding HAWK, or high-intensity activated crosswalk, signals at Britt and Dorothy, reducing the speed limit to 35 mph, installing nearly 200 solar lights and reducing the number of lanes on Central from six to four — adding business access and transit lanes to the outer lane.
BikeABQ President Patrick Martin said in a phone interview that he does not expect the fencing to have much of an impact, but “we’ll have to see if people respect it.”
He emphasized its importance “particularly at night, which is when you get a lot of speeders on Central.”
