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OPINION: City, mayor must address bike safety
A makeshift memorial near the crossing where Kayla VanLandingham was fatally struck by a driver while riding her bike July 22 in Northeast Albuquerque. VanLandingham was the third employee of the city’s Esperanza Bicycle Safety Center to be killed in a cycling crash since 2023.
On July 22, Kayla VanLandingham, an employee of the city-run Esperanza Bicycle Safety Education Center, was riding her bike on the Hahn Arroyo Trail when she was struck by a car and killed at the trail’s crossing with Carlisle Boulevard. She is the third Esperanza employee to be killed on their bicycle in the past two years — after Chuck Malagodi and Rosanna Breuninger — and the ninth bicyclist killed in New Mexico this year.
How many more lives must be lost before Mayor Tim Keller acts? The city cannot continue its playbook of delays and excuses. Immediate, drastic measures are needed to prevent the next tragedy.
Albuquerque can start tomorrow by installing Temporary Safety Zones at every location where a trail or bike boulevard crosses a major or minor arterial, including removing one-vehicle travel lanes, adding rumble strips and placing delineators to prevent dangerous lane changes at crossings. If these protections are provided for roadway construction crews, why not for people walking and biking?
For long-term safety, Keller and the City Council must immediately adopt an ordinance dedicating an additional $8 million annually, in perpetuity, to bicycle safety improvements. This funding should prioritize installing Pedestrian Hybrid Beacons at every trail or bike boulevard crossing of city streets with three or more travel lanes, and protecting existing bike lanes with vertical delineators and low barriers.
These deaths are completely preventable. The time for half measures is over. We have lagged behind our peer cities on roadway safety for far too long. Albuquerque needs more than empty promises that we are a Vision Zero city. Keller must prove it by immediately directing and funding significant and sustained safety improvements for vulnerable road users.
