According to the Albuquerque Rapid Transit official website, in reference to the UNM/Nob Hill area, “designated eastbound travel lanes at University shift from the south side of the street to the north side, expect major delays for commuters. Commuters are advised to use extreme caution at the University intersection. Southeast intersection work is scheduled through September.”
But how likely is the advice to use extreme caution heeded in light of the traffic flow and delays?
The ART project has been ongoing, and as of the start of the UNM fall semester, it is still working towards completion. Questions about the process of construction as well as ART’s impact on the traffic flow for the City of Albuquerque are continually arising.
In response to these questions, several accommodations for ART have been put forth to the Albuquerque community including free parking provided courtesy of Albuquerque at several pay stations around heavily congested areas as well as construction updates provided by ART’s website. However, despite accommodations such as these — meant to make life easier while the construction is completed — there are several problems that can not be avoided.
One such problem is pedestrian safety — this goes hand-in-hand with the problem that cannot be solved: what pedestrians will choose in regards to their own safety.
While construction is being done along the sides of the roads and in front of crosswalks that lead to UNM and other areas of Albuquerque, many people — UNM students and Albuquerque residents alike — are faced with the same decision to make: choosing to either walk farther to a crosswalk not impeded by construction or walking past edges of construction where you are essentially walking in the road.
Neither option is appealing to most when faced with time constraints and the desire to take the routes they are most familiar with. Often, many avoid choosing either option by instead making the decision to jaywalk.
The reasons for this can be credited to a variety of circumstances: many may not feel comfortable walking alongside construction to get to where the crosswalk begins and the construction impedes traffic to where there are long lengths of time where there is seemingly no traffic coming in from either side, making it tempting to get to your destination faster.
But is the temptation worth the risk?
A July 2016 brief statistical summary of a report made by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration may hold a strong argument that it is not.
“A statistical projection of traffic fatalities for 2015 shows that an estimated 35,200 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes. This represents an increase of about 7.7 percent as compared to the 32,675 fatalities that were reported to have occurred in 2014,” according to the report.
A state like New Mexico, with a particularly high risk for pedestrian deaths, makes these numbers a little scarier.
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But while numbers can certainly be intimidating, they are still very much numbers. When faced with student anxiety and human impatience, the warning these numbers give can fall on deaf ears.
So as we go into the second week of the semester, hopefully, a human voice can accompany the warnings these reports give for all those who cross the roads during times of high traffic.
Whatever your choices may be this semester, in the face of high traffic, heed the dangers of the road, because although it may not be easy to grasp, one misstep can be the difference between life and death.
Nichole Harwood is a news and culture reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com, culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Nolidoli1. The views presented in this column are her own.
