NOB HILL--City Councilor Rey Garduño has entered the fray of what might be called The Crosswalk Wars of Nob Hill. He is about to introduce a resolution in the City Council that would establish two more traffic signals, one at Central and Wellesley. and the other at Central and Morningside. A City Council resolution would be a way to out-flank the city administration which says that any more signals in Nob Hill are not warranted.

If ever a city street needed a crosswalk more than Nob Hill's Central Ave., I would be hard pressed to name it. It is one of the busiest streets for both vehicles and pedestrians in the entire state. Yet there is but one designated crosswalk of any kind between Richmond and Washington, a distance of almost exactly one mile. That crosswalk is the stoplight at Central and Carlisle.

Jay-Walkers and Frogger
For literally years and years people have complained about the Frogger-like conditions for crossing Central Ave. A friend of mine rails against the jay-walkers that can suddenly appear anywhere in that long stretch. I tell him that only a fool would cross at the corners in Nob Hill because, not only are there no crosswalks at the corners, there is another lane of traffic--the turn lane, and there are cars turning left, cars doing u-turns, extra traffic coming out of the side streets that can't see anything until they pull way out, and narrow two-foot wide "islands of safety" that have uneven footing with cars and trucks whizzing by close enough to hit you with their mirror. No Sir! Give me the middle of the block where you at least might have a tree to hide behind if you can make it to the median!

Garduño Calls a Meeting
Anyway, last week I emailed Rey Garduño and asked him if he had any thoughts about the situation. It turned out it was already a concern of his. We met last Friday on Central and discussed the problem, and then I was able to accompany him as he sat down with representatives from the Nob Hill community and Michael Riordan, Director of Albuquerque's Municipal Development Dept. By the way, the Municipal Development Department is huge...encompassing every kind of infrastructure project from Streets & Traffic to Storm Drain Design. Even the Public Art program is a part of Riordan's department.

We sat down at Kelly's. We were just a few feet away from the location of one of the proposed signals. Others besides Garduño and Riordan included Jim Neustel from Peacecraft, Carolina Yahne and Nick Pisano of the Nob Hill Neighborhood Assoc., Julian Moya who is a Term Policy Analyst working with Councilor Garduño, and Tom Menicucci who is Senior Analyst with City Council Services.

Not everybody from the neighborhood was in agreement about what kind of signal was necessary. Most were pretty flexible, stating that either a traffic light or a pedestrian activated crosswalk signal was okay. I spoke in favor of a traffic light.

Helter-Skelter
Anyway, Michael Riordan stated that the city was not about to start putting traffic signals up helter-skelter just because the neighborhood wanted them. They have to meet certain criteria established by a professional group of traffic engineers who arrived at these 'warrants' after many years of thoughtful study. This is city policy. And these two intersections, the crossings at Wellesley and the one at Morningside, did not have the side street traffic necessary for the city to put them in. If somebody got in an accident at the signals and the city violated its own policy by putting them up, "we would be opening ourselves up to lawsuits," he explained.

He also seemed to wonder whether Nob Hill appreciated everything that was being done in the neighborhood: bump-outs, plantings, pedestrian lighting, and the $30,000,000 Lead/Coal project. Jim Neustel assured him Nob Hill was indeed grateful for those projects. But that the safety concerns were genuine.

A Young Mother
Meanwhile the whole group watched as a young mother attempted to escort her son across the street. He was walking his bicycle. They stopped at the median, but his bike hung out into the traffic lanes on both sides. It really was pretty scary.

Riordan came up with ways to increase the traffic going through the intersection enough to maybe warrant a traffic light. For instance, we could close off the left turn lanes in the adjoining blocks to push the traffic into turning here at Wellesley. Well, that didn't have too many supporters.

Catch-66
Finally Riordan had to leave for another meeting. It turned out that he wasn't going to do anything that wasn't 'warranted,' no matter what the safety issues were or explanations about why there aren't an enormous number of pedestrians willing to risk life and limb crossing right there at the present time. We needed the light to get pedestrians to cross at the corner and, according to Michael Riordan, we need the pedestrians to get the light.


Rey Garduño smiled. He had decided to introduce his resolution authorizing the two signals in the City Council meeting on September 9th. If he can convince the other Councilors to go along with his measure, it will bypass the Warrants problem. It seems a Council Resolution has the power of law. Warrants, however, are only city policy. A veto by the mayor is possible...but so is an over-ride.

What You Can Do
So something that has worried the Nob Hill neighborhood for years may be coming to a head on September 9th. The NHNA is looking to have 4 or 5 speakers in favor of the resolution. If you want to lend your support, consider doing the following:
• Email your Councilor.
• Comment on this post telling about your own experiences trying to cross the street, and give your own ideas.
• Show up at the City Council meeting.

Here are a couple of points that might be additional matters for discussion:
• Lower the speed limit. Currently along Central in Nob Hill it is 35 mph. However between downtown and Old Town it is 30. It is also 30 on both Lead and Coal, major southeast arterials with a lot of traffic.
• Traffic signals at Wellesley and Morningside could be sequenced with the rest of the signals so as not to stop normal flow. What they would do is stop straggler traffic and group everything together so that pedestrians would have gaps in the traffic up and down Central Ave.

El Rey
I really appreciated that Rey Garduño has already started to work on this. He had all the major players together in one place. Nothing was resolved between the parties, but issues were clarified. This meeting had to happen before anything else could find widespread support. If Rey Garduño can untie the knot that has kept anything from happening for years, he is certainly to be congratulated.