ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Wilson Middle School in Albuquerque’s International District received some much-needed safety improvements this month. The changes come after parents and community members raised concerns about the safety of students getting to and from school.
“People do speed down here really quickly, and our kids are; we have a lot of kids that are coming from the eastern area to our schools, and with the reckless driving, it’s a safety concern,” said Wilson Middle School Principal Matthew Burrows.
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Approximately one-third of Wilson Middle School’s population, or 124 students, walk to school and home as there is a 1.5-mile busless radius around middle schools, Burrows said.
The concern over traffic safety in the school zone also caught the attention of Kelly Davis, community school coordinator for Wilson Middle School and chair of the Safe Routes to School Committee. Davis began looking at traffic measures around the school and found that the front of the school on Cardenas, where a majority of students use to exit school, was lacking in traffic safety measures compared to the back of the school on San Pedro.
“So the Safe Route to School Committee has one goal: which is students will arrive to school safely and on time. And so the environment prevented students from arriving to school safely, and that was because of the traffic infrastructure or the lack of traffic calming measures,” explained Davis.
Davis then reached out to the City of Albuquerque in May 2024 about the concerns. “As a Safe Routes to School Committee, we wrote a letter to the City of Albuquerque, and we advocated for speed bumps and traffic calming measures to make sure that the 371 students that come to Wilson, can exit and enter the school safely,” Davis explained, adding that she had support from Albuquerque Public Schools’ Blues Team and City Councilor Nichole Rogers.
In November, Davis secured a meeting with the city and also brought the concerns to Angelica Archuleta-Romero, a field representative with the Mayor’s Office and the Office of Civic Engagement. “We activated our public constituents, but it was Angelica that really shifted the scale and was that final weight onto us getting these traffic calming measures,” Davis said.
As a result, the Department of Municipal Development recently installed two-speed humps on Cardenas in front of Wilson Middle School along with 29 new signs around the school perimeter.
Principal Burrows said he hopes these new features will also help boost attendance at school.
“So we’re hoping that this has an impact and says that, ‘Yeah, this is a safe enough community, a safe school, that our kids feel safe and able to get to school.’ And that’s like the biggest concern because we can’t educate kids that are not here,” said Burrows.
While reflecting on the process to get the new safety measures installed, Burrows recognized the collective effort saying, “It does take the whole village to make things work here.”
Department of Municipal Development Public Information Officer Dan Mayfield said residents who think there is a speeding problem in their neighborhood can call 3-1-1. The city will then assess the situation and see if the area meets the criteria for speed humps.