City of Albuquerque settles lawsuit and makes improvements to ‘dangerous’ intersection
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – The city of Albuquerque is paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars after being sued over a ‘dangerous’ intersection. But it’s also led the city to make safety improvements they say are already making a difference.
According to court documents, in March 2019, Corey Hall got into a crash at 98th and Volcano, causing a permanent brain injury. John Sloan represented Hall in a lawsuit against the city and other parties claiming the intersection became more dangerous as the area become more developed and busier. It also claimed it caused a steady increase in crashes from 2015 to 2018.
Story continues below
News: Family speaks after woman shot in the neck at Albuquerque graduation ceremony
Entertainment: How Airbnb and Disney teamed up to create a replica ‘Up’ house in NM
Community: New food hall and entertainment venue nears completion in Rio Rancho
Now, four years later, the city settled the suit and is paying out $750,000. “Any time that you have a lawsuit against a governmental entity like a city or the state or whoever, there are caps that apply. And we exhausted their cap so, yes, we were pleased,” said Sloan.
In addition to paying out, the city also stepped in. A spokesperson with the city’s Department of Municipal Development said this lawsuit led the Traffic Engineering Division to study this intersection and found many of the crashes involved west-to-south left-turning cars.
In July 2022, the city added yellow barriers to block those turns. “I think it says a lot for the City of Albuquerque that they took responsibility that they recognized that there was a problem,” said Sloan.
The city said the barriers have made a difference. According to DMD, from March 2019 to March 2020, there were 27 crashes that could’ve been corrected by a left-turn barrier. Since installing that barrier, the DMD spokesperson said the city hasn’t seen any crashes in that intersection deemed correctible.
“If that prevents one serious crash, one other Corey Hall, that just makes me feel great,” said Sloan.
