OPINION: City needs better plan for addressing safety problems on East Central

The city of Albuquerque may be pledging to spend $5 million on making changes to East Central, but what its Department of Municipal Development is proposing doesn’t seriously address the root causes that make East Central one of the deadliest stretches of road for pedestrians in the entire country.

The basic problem is that East Central has too many lanes (three in each direction) for the small amount of traffic it carries and this encourages drivers to drive faster than is safe for the conditions. The city is proposing to convert the outside lanes to “Business Access and Transit” (BAT) lanes for ABQ Ride buses and cars making right turns at intersections and to access businesses. This change only modifies the striping on the road — there will be nothing to actually prevent cars from using those lanes for through travel, as they currently do. People crossing the street on foot will still have to cross six lanes of high speed traffic with deadly results.

The most hazardous stretch between Louisiana and Wyoming experiences heavy foot traffic of people often impaired by substance abuse and mental illness. BAT lanes may be acceptable east of Wyoming where there are not as many pedestrians, but between Wyoming and Louisiana the street should be narrowed down to two lanes in each direction. This can be accomplished easily and inexpensively by building bulb-outs at bus stops and street crossings with the space between bulb-outs used as on-street parking. Reducing traffic lanes to two in this manner would encourage lower speeds and reduce the crossing distance for pedestrians.

DMD’s proposal will add more lighting (long overdue) and two additional High-intensity Activated crossWalK (HAWK) crossings proposed for sections of Central east of Eubank with almost no pedestrian crashes, and will follow our recommendation to lower the speed limit (currently 35 mph between Wyoming and Louisiana and 40 mph east of Wyoming) and to use speed cameras on this stretch to provide 24/7 enforcement. However, it is disappointing that the city is ignoring the Bohannon Huston study it paid for in 2020 that recommended the lane reduction that is being proposed here. It is also discouraging that the city does not plan to use proven engineering features such as narrower lanes or speed cushions (with cutouts for bus wheels) in the BAT lanes to inhibit drivers from using them for through traffic.

Most of all, it is disheartening that Mayor Tim Keller and his administration would propose such patently inadequate half-measures to address such a serious and long-standing problem. If the city wants to live up to the Vision Zero pledge of eliminating traffic crash fatalities, it is going to have to do far better than this.