Albuquerque is a particularly dangerous city for pedestrians, consistently ranking near the top nationally for the number of walkers and bikers killed on its roads. With seven pedestrians killed already this year on East Central, according to the Albuquerque Police Department, 2024 is on track to be the deadliest yet despite years of safety initiatives. Now, the city is looking to AI for help.
If nothing changes, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said 84 pedestrians will be killed on the city’s streets this year.
“That almost matches the number of homicides we had last year, so it’s a very serious issue,” he said at a news conference Thursday.
The city had 97 homicides in 2023, according to APD data.
East Central is one of the city’s most dangerous stretches of road for people on foot. With the support of voter-approved bonds, as well as state and federal funds, the city has installed more lighting, restriped and repaved roads, added medians and bike lanes, as well as mid-block signaled crosswalks over the years. And yet, the issue not only persists, but appears to be worsening.
APD Sergeant James Burton announced Thursday that his fatal crash unit will conduct a “pedestrian safety operation” throughout the month of March, combining amped-up enforcement with talking to pedestrians and drivers about ways to stay safe.
The Department of Municipal Development is also experimenting with using AI to get lights to flash even if a person does not make the effort to walk to a signaled crossing and press a button.
Traffic Engineering Division Manager Tim Brown came up with the idea, realizing it would be similar to existing technology on U.S. 550 that warns drivers of wildlife entering the roadway.
“We have reached out to a local consultant to see if our camera equipment that we have out on city streets already is capable of detecting pedestrians in the roadway and then sending a signal to a flashing beacon that will notify the diver,” he told KUNM.
He said urban environments are more complex than rural highways, so the system would need to be intelligent enough to recognize when an object is human.
“And then it also needs to know that the person is doing a very specific action that could put that person’s life in danger,” he said.
The department aims to install the system it is calling “PAWS,” for pedestrian-activated warning system, on Louisiana and Central by the end of the summer. If this pilot project works, DMD Director Pat Montoya said the department will look into installing them throughout the city.
