Walk in My Shoes

Pedestrian safety among troubles near shelter for homeless

As snow fell on Jan. 12 and white dust settled on Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe drivers began to move at a much slower clip.

But a few guests of the Interfaith Community Shelter at 2801 Cerrillos Road say not all motorists adjusted their driving accordingly. One man says that as he and his three friends crossed Camino Consuelo—which intersects with Cerrillos Road at Walmart—a small, white four-door vehicle had to slam on its brakes to avoid hitting them. And that was despite the fact that the pedestrians had the right of way to cross with traffic at the green light, say two of the men.

"You could smell the burnt rubber, too," says one man waiting outside the shelter.

City Hall started plowing money into the emergency homeless shelter in 2009, eventually buying and renovating the building that formerly housed Pete's Pets retail store and giving money to a nonprofit to provide staff and coordinate volunteers.

Officials didn't do much prior planning and haven't done much since, however, seeming to only attempt to deal with inadequacies there when complaints reach a dull roar. Several councilors and the mayor have even debated whether keeping the shelter in operation at that location is the best move.

Next week, two community meetings are scheduled where neighbors are expected to vent their concerns about livability issues that arise when nearly 100 guests seek out the shelter per night in the winter—only to be kicked out at sunrise. Guests and shelter officials are also likely to talk about living in and maintaining the shelter, too.

One of the shelter's main missions is to prevent homeless individuals from freezing to death in the winter, hence its nighttime hours and policy of allowing inebriates to sleep and eat there. But its opening has created a new hazard for those without a place to stay at night or way to get there, which has been left unaddressed by city and state officials: pedestrian safety.

The proximity of the Pete's Pets location to the city's busiest bus line was an attractive feature for those who rely on transit to get there, but since the shelter is on the west side of Cerrillos, that means those heading inbound on the No. 2 need to be on the other side of the street. And those traveling to the shelter from the south also need to cross.

The nearest crosswalks are a block north and south of the shelter, so it's common for shelter guests to dart across six lanes of traffic rather than backtrack.

Records produced by city police under the Inspection of Public Records Act show at least three traffic-related incidents at the spot between November 2012 and Dec. 8, 2014, but only one of them involved a pedestrian.

On Nov. 30, 2013, a college student heading south on Cerrillos Road in the right lane hit a man "in dark clothing" who was headed from the shelter. Her car struck the man at 30 miles per hour, and her passenger would later note that he did not see the man until his body slammed into the windshield. The man told police at the hospital he didn't recall the crash, and police say he was drinking a 40-ounce Budweiser before it happened. Police reported the cause as "pedestrian error" and cited the man for jaywalking.

Shelter guest Thomas Wiggins says he knows all too well the perils of walking in Santa Fe, noting that a vehicle fatally struck his friend, Abel Martinez, on Christmas Eve night near the intersection of Cerrillos and Siler Road, a few doors down from the shelter.

Media reports indicate that Martinez, 33, was not in a crosswalk when a vehicle struck him, and that he was wearing headphones and dark clothing.

"How many people have to die before they put a crosswalk there?" says Wiggins.

District 2 Councilor Ron Trujillo, who volunteers at the shelter along with his wife, recalls the "boom" of a vehicle crash he once heard while he was there. A resolution he authored in 2013 that called on city staff to look at intersections on the major Santa Fe highways for pedestrian improvements hasn't produced any results yet.

"We do definitely need to look at that intersection along with others," Trujillo says. "Can we put something there for people to cross?"

Yet the shelter's mid-block location on a state highway makes it less than an ideal place for a new crosswalk.

Santa Fe's Pedestrian Master Plan, which officials are scheduled to open for public comment in February, doesn't identify that stretch as one of major concern for pedestrian improvements.

Mark Tibbetts, a senior planner at the Santa Fe Metropolitan Planning Organization, says that doesn't mean the plan won't address potential improvements on that stretch. "I think there's an awareness of that as something that probably needs more immediate attention," he says.


COMMUNITY SHELTER MEETINGS
11 am and 4 pm, Jan. 22
Frenchy's Field Barn, 2001 Agua Fría St.

Letters to the Editor

Mail letters to PO Box 4910 Santa Fe, NM 87502 or email them to editor[at]sfreporter.com. Letters (no more than 200 words) should refer to specific articles in the Reporter. Letters will be edited for space and clarity.

We also welcome you to follow SFR on social media (on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) and comment there. You can also email specific staff members from our contact page.