Mar. 3—The Albuquerque area was deadlier than ever for those on foot last year, with drivers striking and killing a record-high 56 people and surpassing the previous record of 49 in 2021.

And city officials say 2024 is off to a bad start.

Mayor Tim Keller told reporters at a late-February news conference that at the pace the city is going, 80 people will be fatally struck by a driver this year.

“Just so folks are aware of how acute and how real this is, seven people have already lost their lives crossing the street between Louisiana and Eubank, on Central,” he said, referencing Albuquerque’s most deadly stretch of road.

The city said another seven people were seriously injured after being hit by a driver in that same part of the Central corridor.

Officials held the news conference to bring awareness to the rising death toll and tout the various projects, engineering and otherwise, they were undertaking to improve pedestrian safety in Southeast Albuquerque.

Almost all of the listed projects — such as the pedestrian lighting, slower speeds and less lanes already in place on West Central and now being implemented on far East Central — are not focused on the 3-mile stretch that has seen the highest number of pedestrian fatalities, year after year.

A Journal analysis found that at least 34 people have been fatally struck by a driver on Central, between Eubank and San Mateo, since 2018. The parts of Central surrounding the stretch, from San Mateo west and Eubank east, has only had one pedestrian death in that same time period.

The area has had three pedestrian push-button crosswalks installed in recent years but the signals have not stemmed the deaths and the stretch continues to garner less attention, comparatively.

When driving the length of Central, the difference is noticeable.

West of Louisiana, Central is reduced to two lanes and 35 mph speed limits, with pedestrian lighting all through Nob Hill. Once drivers pass Louisiana headed east, the roadway expands to six lanes and 40 mph speeds with none of the pedestrian lights and, in general, more dimly-lit areas.

An East Central Safety Study released in 2020 recommended lowering speeds, narrowing lanes and adding pedestrian lighting along sidewalks to the portion of Central between Louisiana and Eubank.

East Central Safety Study

The chance of a pedestrian dying from a crash in a 40 mph zone is 80%, compared with 40% in a 30 mph zone, according to the study, with the difference being 100 feet of driver “reaction and stopping distance.”

The study found that a less-costly temporary road diet — using flex posts, planters or striping — could reduce lanes and slow drivers down. The study found that, eventually, the entire stretch needs a permanent road diet with a “comprehensive reconfiguration of the corridor.”

Longtime traffic safety advocate Scot Key said the lack of effort to address that part of Central, as opposed to other roads, was “the single most frustrating aspect” of his work.

He said the frustration, coupled with “a feeling of not being terribly effective” made him walk away from advocacy. Key said, “There just doesn’t seem to be any actual traction towards addressing this trend.”

“As long as that stretch is so demonstrably different than those other two stretches, you’re just going to continue to see the same abnormal number of people die,” he said. “And the fact is the behaviors in that stretch require the engineering to be even more extreme, if you’re really going to address the numbers.”

City officials said they would focus on that portion of Central only after the current projects were done, but nothing is funded yet and no timelines were given.

Meanwhile, Keller said they plan to educate those along the corridor, telling the unhoused and transients the dangers of crossing the street and citing them if they don’t listen.

“These sound like really basic things, but I want to remind you, for seven people this year not understanding those things cost them their life,” the mayor said.

In the middle of the news conference outside the International District Library, someone jaywalked in front of a vehicle — nearly being hit — with a crosswalk less than 100 feet away. The driver gave an exasperated honk before both continued on their way.

Deaths then and now

The number of pedestrian deaths in Albuquerque has seesawed since 2010, when there were seven, with each upswing reaching ever higher.

The city’s metrics have also prodded New Mexico into the top spot as the deadliest state for pedestrians every year since 2016, according to rankings by the Governors Highway Safety Association.

The most recent GHSA preliminary report, released Feb. 27, has New Mexico ranked No. 1 for 2023 as well.

Last year, the Albuquerque Police Department investigated 36 fatal pedestrian crashes, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office investigated nine and New Mexico State Police investigated 11.

The majority of the fatal crashes happened within the city limits or in the general vicinity of Albuquerque. Additionally, there were also seven cyclists hit and killed by drivers.

One part of town in particular can’t shake a deadly trend.

Sgt. James Burton of the Albuquerque Police Department’s Fatal Crash Unit said the stretch of Central between San Mateo and Eubank “has our highest pedestrian fatal (crashes) of anywhere in the city.”

Jennifer Morrow, deputy director for the city’s Department of Municipal Development, said a person walks across Central in that area every two minutes. She added, “Unfortunately, several of these people get hit by a car.”

Morrow said the Central corridor is one of DMD’s priorities and she said a brand-new initiative is in the works: Using wildlife crossing technology to keep people safe.

DMD is planning to first test the system, which is usually placed along highways and flashes lights to warn drivers when wildlife crosses the road ahead.

Morrow said the company programmed the signal — named the Pedestrian Activated Warning System, or PAWS — for pedestrians and, if the signal is efficient during testing, it will be installed along Central.

At the news conference, officials said the technology would be tested at Central and Cornell by the University of New Mexico.

In response to Journal questions, DMD spokesman Dan Mayfield said the department has changed plans “as of this week” to test the PAWS signal at Louisiana and Central instead, where it is needed most.

After the news conference, DMD Director Pat Montoya — who was named the city’s chief operating officer last week — said other areas of Central have gotten, or are getting, upgrades.

Montoya said the city has invested millions to install several pedestrian safety measures on Central west of Louisiana. Now, they are adding those same measures — pedestrian lighting and fewer lanes — to Central east of Eubank, he said.

He said once the current projects are done, they will look at addressing pedestrian safety between Eubank and San Mateo. But as of now, Montoya said, nothing is in the works for the corridor that claims the most lives.

Back in 2020, Montoya gave the Journal a similar answer and addressed the population killed in the area — transients often jaywalking — differentiating between a pedestrian fatality and “someone that’s crossing the street that is so drunk that person doesn’t even know they’re on the street.”

During the recent news conference, Keller addressed the walking population in the area.

“We understand there may be all sorts of root causes behind that,” he said. “But at the end of the day, no one should lose their life crossing the street.”

In response to Journal questions, DMD spokesman Mayfield said pedestrian lights, road re-striping and more medians east of Louisiana are halfway through the design phase. He couldn’t give a timeline for completion or any other details and said they still need to get funding.

Mayfield said they prioritize areas identified by the High Fatal and Injury Network, or HFIN, which has a two-year lag time.

“That does not mean we ignore other areas,” Mayfield said. “We will wait until the data comes through two years from now.”

Since 2018, the Journal has avoided the two-year lag by compiling pedestrian fatality data directly from APD, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and New Mexico State Police, using it to map out the parts of town that see the most deaths.

Unlike the HFIN data, the Journal is not able to map out all pedestrian crashes, of which there are hundreds annually.

Since 2018, three crosswalk signals — which light up at the press of a button — have been added to Central, between Louisiana and San Mateo, and raised medians have already been put in some areas for pedestrian safety. But statistics show those changes have not had a measurable effect on the pedestrian deaths in the area.

Journal reporters have watched people crossing the street within feet of the signals, ignoring them altogether. On the flip side, drivers can be seen going right through the crosswalks even as the bright red lights flash.

“We can’t always engineer our way out of these situations,” Mayfield said. “… Overall, road safety is a three-pronged approach: it takes a mix of engineering, education and enforcement to help drivers and pedestrians get to where they need to go safely.”

‘They have to live with that’

At the recent news conference, Sgt. Burton said they are working another angle for the deadly stretch of Central: education.

Burton said when the city first tried to educate those in the area a few years ago, they handed out pamphlets. The results were not promising, he said, and they even found some pamphlets in the pockets of those killed by drivers.

This time around, they patrolled Central through January — in vehicles and on horseback — stopping jaywalkers and reckless drivers.

Burton said they will let them know about the ongoing pedestrian fatalities and ask them to use crosswalks or, for drivers, pay attention to speed and walkers.

He said officers have stopped one person from jaywalking only to watch others do it down the block. They also recently stopped a driver speeding 70 mph down Central, near Louisiana.

Burton said many pedestrians and drivers hear the message and some are even apologetic about their actions. He said there are those who are dismissive and, once they stop patrolling for a few hours, the jaywalking begins again.

“So for every one that I get to back off and do the right thing, you still have another person not doing the right thing,” Burton said. “And that’s, unfortunately, why we do eventually come to the point where we actually start issuing citations.”

He said they are now in the enforcement phase and will be citing people through March because talking only goes so far.

“There has to be some type of deterrent that says there will be consequences, outside of death, to try to get people to stay away,” Burton said. “At the end of the day, my goal is, I don’t want people to die.”

He said addressing pedestrian safety along that stretch of Central is uniquely difficult, due to “high drug usage” in the area.

It is not uncommon to see people smoking fentanyl and other drugs off of tin foil and underneath blankets along the street. Often, those traversing the area appear to be in the midst of a mental health crisis.

The stretch also has one of the largest homeless populations in the city, with people walking the streets at all hours.

“They are not necessarily in the right state to make proper decisions such as walking over to a crosswalk, or ‘Maybe I shouldn’t cross in front of this moving vehicle,'” Burton said. “And that’s a hard one to address because I can’t penalize a person’s free will to make a choice, whether or not they want to use alcohol or drugs.”

He added, “That’s a difficult thing for us, as human beings, to have to come to terms with it; people have the right to make wrong choices.”

Burton said the PAWS signal could address that by notifying drivers when those walking the streets “may be making a choice that’s not the best.”

He emphasized that when incidents turn deadly, everyone is affected.

Burton said that around Christmas a grandmother, who was with her granddaughter, struck a woman who stepped into the road, “spider webbing their windshield and basically dying right there.”

“They have to live with that, whether it was their fault or not,” he said. “Likewise, … now I have to go and tell the family, ‘Hey, your loved one is no longer here with us.'”

“No matter how many times I do it,” he added, “it never gets easier.”