Study looks at safety options for Lead and Coal corridor

Study looks at safety options for Lead and Coal corridor

Neighbors say they've been working for years to make the Coal and Lead corridor safer. Now, there may be some solutions on the way.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Neighbors say they’ve been working for years to make the Coal and Lead corridor safer. Now, there may be some solutions on the way.

“As I got to the underpass area by the 25 some guy ran a red and ran right into me while I was trying to get to work,” said Leila Murrieta. “I had to go to the hospital and get, like, a brain scan, and they checked for broken bones, and I had to go get my bike fixed.”

Now, every day, she’s worried about riding down Lead or Coal and getting hit again. 

“We’ve had head-ons, people sideswiped and pushed up onto the sidewalks. I can think of two deaths in the last two years,” said a concerned neighbor. “It seems like a third of the time we’re seeing something, or I hear a bump, I hear a crunch, and I look out, and I’m like not again.”

Neighbors KOB 4 spoke with Wednesday say seeing car crashes like is the norm.

Greg Wiers is on the board of directors for the Nob Hill Neighborhood Association. He says they have been wanting something to be done about safety for years.

“I understand that that can happen, but it seems like it happens every other month. And so that is the problem, right?” said Weirs. 

In the last few years, the city put in speed cameras along the corridor and a stop light on Walter and Coal.

A traffic study started this summer, and it’s looking into recommendations from a 2022 road safety audit to see if they could work.

Murrieta agrees with one of them.

“It’d be really nice. Finally, that they’re the city’s talking about it. It’d be great to reduce it down to one lane, I think. I’ve been talking about this forever, and people think I’m crazy. You reduce it down to one lane, you could widen the sidewalks a little bit,” said Murrieta. 

Other recommendations include turning each street into one lane each, or changing them to two-way traffic. 

Weir says any changes will help.

“People just like to walk down the street and feel like they can do that safely. And as it is now, they have lovely sidewalks, but nobody uses them because they’re kind of terrified,” said Weirs. 

The traffic study is expected to conclude early next year. There is one more community meeting to discuss the study next Wednesday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.