UNM senior pushes city of Albuquerque to add crosswalk along Central near campus

Whether you walk or drive to The University of New Mexico, hundreds of students, staff, and faculty trek across Albuquerque's Central Avenue to get to class. UNM Senior Jackie Davis is one of them. She crosses Central at Buena Vista daily and has noticed a dangerous trend that she wants to see fixed.

Davis, who is studying Geography at UNM, says she used to cross the light at Yale, but as schedules get tighter, time is ticking.

"It's a lot easier to cross down here (Central and Buena Vista), but that comes with the danger of crossing a multilane road every single day without a crosswalk," she said. "Cars aren't going to stop, you just kind of wait for a gap in traffic and you have to be really careful because the ART bus goes in both directions."

Davis says since she started crossing at Buena Vista, between Yale and University, she's witnessed a few close calls such as people nearly getting hit by vehicles or even cars rear-ending each other.

"We have signs telling you not to cross, obviously those don't work," she said.

Davis took her concerns about that area to Albuquerque City Council in February. She said Councilor Louie Sanchez responded to her comments by mentioning some of the things they could potentially do, whether it be a crosswalk or speed cameras. After the meeting, Davis says the former director of the city's Department of Municipal Development (DMD) said an intersection that big and complex would need more than just a crosswalk, but a signal there too.

"My thought was well if we need to justify an entire signal, I need to go get data on this," Davis said. "I need to see how many people are crossing because the city is not going to install a signal for one random lady who is crossing the street and complaining about it."

That's when Davis took the problem into her own hands, she sat down one morning with a pen and paper, tallying how many people crossed at Central and Buena Vista.

"I don't think I expected it to be as many people as it was, 50 people crossing every hour, hundreds of people daily at this intersection," she said.

Using a data collection process she learned in her Field Research Methods class, which is going out and collecting data on real-world problems, she took that information back to the City Council in May. She then took more data on the intersection and presented it again to the city on the first day of classes for the Fall 2024 semester. She says the data shows it's enough to justify putting in a signal/crosswalk at Buena Vista.

Now, Davis says the ball is rolling. She plans to follow up with DMD in the coming weeks, hoping to help track potential funding sources.

"As much as I'd like to feel accomplished, I will when the crosswalk goes in here and hundreds of people cross the street safely daily," she said. "When that happens there will be students who can go home to their families over the holidays who are not injured or killed crossing the street here."

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, New Mexico ranked as the deadliest state for pedestrians in 2022 and 2023. Davis says it's time to turn that around and start at the state's flagship university.

What started as something she noticed in passing, Davis hopes will end with a new piece of infrastructure.

"Eventually a crosswalk is going to go in here, I can say I'm pretty confident about that," she said. "I can't say it will come in my time here, but it matters that I left an impact."

UNM's University Communication and Marketing reached out to DMD about the city's plans for that intersection. The department says they're looking into adding a High-Intensity Activated crossWalk signal(HAWK) which can cost up to $1.25 million. That idea is going to the engineering and design team for consideration.

Davis, 21, has plans to attend law school after graduation.