I-25 Expansion Project

To say the bottom line up front, highway expansion is bad. It's just plain bad. In this case the expansion of highways refers to adding more lanes, widening lanes and increasing speeds, adding more frontage roads and ramps, as well as adding whole new highways. Not only do all of these make traffic worse, they make highways less safe and more deadly, are an economic sinkhole, and continue to divide our communities. This page will address these four areas with references. After reading through this article or the presentation we hope that you will join the fight against highway expansions and help us work towards a safe, healthier, and more connected community.

Past Presentation

A condensed version of this page was presented to affected neighborhood associations at the ABQ Press Club on July 7th, 2024. A version of that presentation has been made available online for interested parties and as a resource for readers wanting something more concise!

STABQ - I25 Meeting - Presentation.pptx.pdf

Congestion

Ramps and interchanges

Congestion isn't fun. No one enjoys being stuck in traffic. Though this is a much more ubiquitous opinion than the one that started the article! This point is made up front to say that we here at Strong Towns ABQ are fighting against congestion! This is why we are fighting highway expansion. Now that may sound counter intuitive, but let's think about the highways in a different way. Given that 93.1% of burquenos own personal automobiles [1], many of you reading this can answer this question: where do you usually get stuck in traffic on the highway? Near on/off ramps and flyovers (like the Gibson and Lead/Coal ramps or big-I and Paseo). This is due to the inherent bottleneck caused by these features and has been a phenomenon known since the 1960s [2]. The bottleneck is caused due to two aspects of these features: 1) lane changes and 2) speed differential. If we imagine a highway on/off ramp common in ABQ most of us will picture the Cloverleaf style ramp seen below. This is one of the older styles of ramps in US highway engineering, but I-25 is an old highway! There are more updated styles of ramps, however, none of them greatly improve upon the main flaw of on/off ramps [3,4]: people on the highway want to get off and people taking the ramp want to get on! This issue is compounded by the speed differential of those entering the highway [5]. This is a phenomenon that we are all too familiar with. When you’re driving along the highway in the rightmost lane and a car merges in front of you from the ramp. You generally need to slow down to accommodate that car as it is very unlikely that vehicle is moving at full highway speeds already. Add a bunch of cars doing this during rush hour and you get congestion. Adding a secondary lane to the interchanges doesn’t alleviate congestion either as then the two lanes of traffic entering the highway are vying for the same lane on the highway [6]. The discussion about highway expansion began with ramps and interchanges as the majority of road users are folks like you and me getting to and from work based on the vehicle counts for the Phase 1 report on the I-25 project [7,8]. This tracts with the usage of highways across other large metropolitan areas in the US. That is to say, the majority of people taking the highway are going to need to enter and exit within the city limits. Thus, highway expansion will not reduce congestion. Adding more lanes to the highway and increasing speeds will never reduce the time it takes one to get home. In fact, it will only increase it!

Cloverleaf Ramp: https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/services/publications/fhwaop02090/fwymarkings_longdesc.htm

Induced demand

The statement that the last section ended on may seem contradictory that more lanes mean more traffic. Upon first thought, it would seem that more volume of road would move more cars more efficiently. However, it is exactly that allure that draws more people to take the expanded road which creates more congestion and longer commutes. Don’t believe me? Check out Reference [9] to see how the 2nd most congested road in the US spent $2.8 billion to only make commutes 55% longer! Several major outlets have covered the phenomenon of induced demand in depth, of note are Wired [10] and the New York Times [11]. Those two articles are highly recommended, a somewhat shorter version of this topic will be discussed below.

Induced demand is a term originating from economics and refers to the phenomenon that increasing supply leads to an increase in consumption of goods. In this case, the supply is the volume of the highway and the goods are the number of travelers [12,13]. Induced demand as it applies to traffic is not a new concept, one of the earliest mentions of the phenomenon dates back to a 1930 survey of the traffic in St. Louis [14]. The idea was formalized in 1962 by economist Anthony Downs [15]. Downs continued to make this point for many decades penning his last briefing in 2004 [16]. The phenomenon of induced demand continues to be proven by data from many US cities [17]. So how does the road itself make more congestion? Of course every day 16 year-olds get their driver's license, but that’s not the road’s fault! Expanding highways created short and long term increased demand by drawing drivers who took alternate surface road routes [9] and allowing for urban sprawl [18], respectively. All of these effects will compound with time, resulting in worse and worse congestion. This will lead local governments to “fix” the problem with highway expansion and the cycle continues. Going back to the Houston area, many highways have been expanded and congestion has returned rapidly to pre-pandemic levels [19].

In 2008 Katy, Tx completed a $2.8 billion project to widen the Katy Freeway to 23 lanes, over the course of 2011 to 2014 congestion increased by about 25 minutes each direction [9]

Let’s address the natural case of induced demand: population growth. This is the main criticism of opponents to the causes of induced demand like Dr. Steven Polzin, former Senior Advisor at the US Department of Transportation [20]. Polzin and critics do not argue that induced demand isn’t a phenomenon, just that other factors like population growth are more significant to the demand than the ones aforementioned. To reiterate, studies like that done in Katy [9] show that the increased demand far outpaces even Houston’s population growth! That being said, the population of most major cities is growing steadily. The Houston metro area alone tends to be nearer 2% which relates to around 100,000 individuals per year. Albuquerque on the other hand tends to hold steady at an average of 0% growth per year. That being said, there is an appreciable amount of money ($2.6 billion each year for all of NM) lost due to time spent stuck in congestion [21]. Even if population growth was the leading cause of congestion on highways, there is not a world in which construction could outpace it. Again, Houston has tried and has not succeeded in the last 20 years! Does that mean we are doomed to be stuck in traffic forever? Nope! There are many cities that have successfully reduced congestion [22]! The majority of these cities used diversification of transportation options to reduce congestion for all. This is often called multimodal planning [23]. Essentially these cities focused on improving the other ways of getting around town like buses, light rail, walking, and biking. When these faculties are improved, more people opt to take them. This is due to the same principle of induced demand, though in this case it reduces congestion for everyone by spreading out the users for each service. Think of it this way: when you’re getting into a concert or a ballgame, you get in faster when there are more queue lines. This is the same principle. When cities improve bus lines and bike lanes, it opens up more ‘queues’ for people to take. And so less people drive to these places, leading to less cars on the roads, and less congestion! So to bring it full circle, we here at Strong Towns ABQ are for reducing congestion by advocating for equitable transportation.

Safety

Highway expansion is deadly. Highway expansion leads to more deadly traffic accidents and more health complications due to lower air quality. The New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) states that their primary concern for expanding and straightening I-25 is safety, however, it ranks third on their priorities in their first study [7] and is reduced to “maintaining or enhancing operation performance and safety” in the second study [8]. The primary goal of both reports is to address so-called physical deficiencies such as “horizontal and vertical curvature, ramp spacing, and aging bridge structures.” Note that the actual physical deficiencies of the road itself are left for last in their reports. More specifically, NMDOT states that their desired design speed for mainline I-25 is 70 mph. Not only will increasing the speed to 70 mph increase the number of crashes but will increase the severity [24]. Reference [24] is a particularly good resource for understanding the relationship to speed and safety and is a highly recommended read. This section will summarize the points of the reference. Lastly, expanding I-25 and increasing speeds will only produce more toxic pollutants via exhausts [25, 26] and tires [27].

Excerpt from the Phase 1A study shows that safety is secondary and their primary concern is to increase the design speed to 70 mph for the sake of ‘traffic flow’ [7]

Speed and Crashes

Speeding is a serious problem here in New Mexico. Our state is 6th in the nation for percentage of speed-related fatalities in 2021 [28]. Out of all the motorist deaths, 39% of fatalities were due to speeding. Plain and simple, we should not allow NMDOT to increase the speed along I-25. Preliminary reports from NMDOT show that straightening the S-Curve on I-25 could lead to a reduction in the number of crashes by at best 12%. Though this may be true for simply straightening the S-Curve, there is much more evidence to suggest that increasing the S-Curve speed limit from 55 to 70 mph would lead to many more crashes and deaths [24]. Thus, regardless of whether NMDOT increases the speed along I-25, if the S-Curve is straightened motorists will drive faster along it. This is due to the fact that motorists select their speed based on their individual perception of safety based on many factors such as road design, sight distance, etc. [29]. This is especially true on highways as wider lanes result in faster operating speeds [30] Lastly, a common type of crash on highways occurs during lane changes. This is due to the increased demand on the driver who must split their attention between high speed traffic in their lane as well and merging into another [31]. Increasing the width of the lanes, the number of lanes, and the speed along I-25 will all result in increased crashes and crash severity. This is not a hypothetical, a study found the 10-mile stretches of highways with the most fatal crashes [32]. Texas is home to 7 of the 10 deadliest stretches of road in the country. Therefore, we cannot allow NMDOT to implement changes to our highways only for the sake of increasing speeds.

Likelihood of fatality increases significantly with increased car speeds (55 mph ≅ 88 km/h and 70 mph ≅ 112 km/h) [67]

Pollution

Traffic accidents aren’t the only way in which highways harm our communities, they also produce more toxic pollution. This pollution is produced by the increased car exhaust [26] and tire byproducts [27,40]. Starting with exhaust fumes, internal combustion engine cars produce these fumes any time the engine is operational. However, due to the decreased efficiency (and thus increased exhaust) from traveling at highway speeds [26], highways create more pollutants than slower-speed surface roads. The increased amount of exhaust fumes affect more than those who live near a highway due to spread via winds and lead to cardiac and pulmonary complications [33]. Newer research has discovered the hidden dangers of tire pollution [27] and that they produce 1000 times more milligrams of particles per kilometer driven [34]. Currently, there is little regulation on the chemicals that can go into car tires. As a result, there are many dangerous chemicals that can be found in tires [35]. Of course many chemicals sound scary when the scientific name is used, however, these chemicals can kill. One such chemical is 6PPD which reacts with ozone to produce the toxin 6PPD-quinone [36]. Toxin in this case is used intentionally as concentrations of 6PPD-quinone present in untreated urban runoff were sufficient to drastically increase mortality rates in fish after exposure [37]. Moreover, the majority of ocean microplastics are from synthetic tire rubber [38] as well as the majority of microplastics in air [39]. And similar with exhaust fumes, tire pollution increases with vehicle speed [40]. Hence, increasing highway speeds will only further decrease the health of our communities.

The average car in the US emits 5 pounds of tire particles per year, the majority are harmful to life [27]

Making highways safer

Given all of the discussion of how increased highway speeds directly and indirectly endanger us, how do we fix this? First, we need to oppose attempts by NMDOT to increase the speeds along our highways. Second, we need to make sure people are driving at reasonable speeds. There are three proven ways to reduce speeds: narrowing lanes [41], speed enforcement [42], and intelligent speed assistance [43]. Narrowing lanes have been shown to reduce driver speeds, whereas widening lanes have been shown to increase driver speeds [30]. To achieve the speed that NMDOT desires, I-25 will have to be widened. Though narrower lanes would slow down traffic, this would involve an immense amount of construction to achieve this. This is not a desirable first path forward. Similarly, though intelligent speed assistance has been shown to have significant reductions in speeding, this issue is best suited for the federal government. Thus, the most desirable avenue to curb speeding in our state is with speed enforcement programs. Specifically, speed safety cameras have been shown to have an 88% decrease in vehicles traveling 11 mph or more above the speed limit in our neighbor Scottsdale, Arizona [44]. This was done via six cameras along an 8-mile stretch of Loop 101. Speed safety cameras are the ideal solution as they are the most cost effective when compared to physical policing. Not to mention safer for the officers as struck-by incidents are the second leading cause of on-duty deaths [45]. Speed safety cameras are also ideal given that speeding is the norm for drivers [46]. Given that in 2013 there were more than 7300 vehicles per hour during peak usage on I-25 [7], it is inconceivable that state police officers would be able to enforce speed limit adherence effectively. Though there have been some studies which cite their presence as helpful in reducing speeds [47]. Regardless, Strong Towns ABQ advocates for opposing the NMDOT plans to alter I-25 and instead seeks to improve safety via the equitable and fiscally responsible method of speed safety cameras.

The speed safety cameras on Arizona’s Loop 101 reduced crashes by 50% in the first 9 months and continued to lower the number of crashes over the next 5 years [68]

Divided Communities

It is an unpleasant truth that highways were used as a tool of racial violence and were built to further segregate and divide communities. The original highways were forcibly and without consideration built through Black and Latino neighborhoods [74]. This includes Albuquerque, who built I-25 through predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods [71]. The injustice did not end with the forcible removal of families and splintering of communities, once built, the highways led to the phenomenon known as white flight [75]. This led to the divestment in surviving impoverished communities which, in turn, has led to worse outcomes for an individual’s health, income, and education across the country [77]. However, this is a trend we will not let continue! We can take proactive steps to repair the damage done by preventing highway expansion and reconnecting our communities.

History

The commission of the over 40,000 miles of highways in the Federal Highway Act of 1956 is the most important event in the creation for what we know as the modern United States [72]. This act literally paved the way for the largest network of roadways in the world and still is to this day [73]. However, it is very important to note that Jim Crow laws were still prevalent until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and many communities did not have the right to vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Therefore, the large majority of people in the US did not have a say in the most influential decision of modern times. As result, the highways were built directly through poor neighborhoods of mostly Black and Latino communities [74-77]. With these communities forcefully divided, losing everything, access to jobs, housing, and schools decreased, health outcomes worsened [76], and, as result, poverty and its knock-on effect of crime rose [78]. The specifics of these effects will be discussed in the next section as these communities are still affected by this.

The interstates through Albuquerque were never supposed to be built through the heart of the city [71]

Lasting Effects

Minority populations were either financial unable to or expressly forbidden from moving into suburban areas. In Albuquerque, there was explicit language in the housing deeds forbidding Asians and African Americans from owning or purchasing homes [80]. This practice only began to soften in 1968. After over a decade since I-25 was forcibly built through minority communities [71], the schism that the interstate purposely created and years of racist laws had caused so much damage that it could not correct itself with time. The proof that these effects are lasting can be seen in the Washington Post article [70] where cities all across the United States are still segregated by the interstates built in the 1950s. As result, minority communities that were forced to endure the blight of highways for decades now face worse economic, education, and health outcomes.

As was discussed in the section on pollution, those who live within 600 feet of the highway have a higher chance of developing asthma in childhood and have an increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease [33]. Moreover for children, it has been shown that proximity to highways leads to decreased test scores, and more behavioral issues and absences [79]. Lastly, those of us who have lived right next to highways know how difficult it is to access the surrounding areas due to the size of highway facilities. This proximity lead to increased difficulty for people to access jobs, health care, and other amenities [82, 83]. Thus, it is apparent that the decades of proximity to highways has led those predominantly Black and Brown communities experiencing a self-reinforcing decrease in quality of life. This phenomenon needs to be addressed in its own right. As it pertains to highway expansion, more and more Americans are being forced to live near them. Currently, nearly one-quarter (24%) of Americans live near high-traffic roadways [81]. Strong Towns ABQ advocates for decreasing the number of burquenos who live near highways by stopping the I-25 expansion.

Over 50 years after the interstates though Milwaukee were built, the areas separated by the interstates remain highly racially segregated [70]

Urban Sprawl

As those who could move away form the highways, generally affluent, white American, left for the newly developing suburban areas, the once vibrant and dense population centers of cities spread out into the surrounding areas. This period of migration is known as "White Flight" and it lead to a drastic decrease in taxation density and increase in municipal costs [82, 83]. As the effects on the communities left behind are more drastic, those were covered first in the section above. However, the era of urban sprawl which white flight created, has reduced the quality of life for everyone. As house and lot sizes increased the taxation revenue from those properties decreased and the cost of supplying an ever increasing low density network of homes increased. This leads to many other knock-on effects such as increased environmental and community costs [83], though, this page will only discuss the financial cost.

As homes and lots get bigger, neighborhoods take up more space. As populations grow in the US, they overwhelming end up in the suburbs [85]. Hence more neighborhoods are built. These neighborhoods are built on agitatable land and due to zoning laws (which came about when racially restrictive laws were banned) forbid even the most basic necessity of a grocery store, our local food systems have deteriorated leading to food deserts [86]. So people have to drive even further just to get groceries. The average distance for an American household to a grocery store is 3.8 miles [87] which is over an hour away even at a brisk pace! This drastic increase in the distances we have to travel stems from the creation of the federal highways system in 1956. And as our cities and neighborhoods have grown so has the municipal amenities supporting them. Due to the low population density, these amenities like the roads as well as sewer and water systems are the least effective both in cost and use. Moreover the low taxation revenue generated from property tax (as zoning does not allow businesses so no sales tax) is insufficient to support the expansion of urban sprawl. Hence highway expansion is financially insolvent and will be discussed in the section below. As it pertains to our quality of life, urban sprawl has been linked to increase stress, depression and rates of diabetes [88]. The decrease in quality of life due to urban sprawl comes from the increased reliance on cars and as direct result decreased reliance on one's own ability to move around. Going back to the average distance to a grocery store, a nearly 8 mile walk is not possible for many folks due to the physical and temporal demand of such a trek! As result, most Americans drive to the grocery store [87]. Similarly, 84% of New Mexicans drive to work [61]. This overreliance on cars robs us of our opportunities to use our bodies to move. This then leads to worse health outcomes. Thus, Strong Towns advocates for decreased reliance on personal automobiles for transit to improve the overall quality of life and health for everyone. And that goal starts with stopping the I-25 expansion in Albuquerque as it will only worsen the overreliance.

Economics

Roadways, and in particular highways, are financially insolvent. Financial insolvency is another term from economics and means when an entity is unable to pay their debts on time. As it pertains to roadways, they are financially insolvent as they are built with borrowed money and the roadway have not been able to pay for themselves. This is due to the high cost of building roadways, roadways don’t generate revenue directly, and the decades long subsidization from the federal government. That’s not to say we should have never built roadways! Having driven on some of New Mexico’s more adventurous (read: unpaved) roads myself, paved roadways are amazing! The problem with the insolvency of roadways is the ouroboros it has become as bigger and longer roadways have allowed people to move further and further apart. Strong Towns ABQ advocates for two ways to combat this: increasing housing density and improving public transit.

Cost

Building and maintaining highways is a costly endeavor. Much more costly than compared to the smaller surface road. This is due to the fact that higher vehicle speeds demand more robust and larger roadways with increased safety features. Moreover, surrounding neighborhoods often request noise barriers due to the drastically louder road noise of fast traffic [48]. Lastly, highways are often elevated which also leads to the increased cost. Due to all this, the average cost to maintain one mile of highway in NM was $29,430 in 2020 [49]. Compared to the average cost to repair a surface road is around one-fifth [50], repairing highways gets costly fast! To bring this back to the present, the changes NMDOT is proposing for the I-25 from the Big-I and the 12 miles south would cost in 2024 dollars $325 million [8] to $500 million [7]. NMDOT will be partially funding this project through the USDOT; however, funding is not secured at the time of writing this. Furthermore, expanding I-25 will deepen the financial insolvency of our city and our state [51]. Strong Towns ABQ does not believe this is the best use of funding given there are proven methods to reduce crashes, pollution and congestion.

Given the average household in NM makes 60k a year [63] and 94% of households own at least one car [1,61], the majority of people in NM are paying around 20% to own a car [27]. The average household in NM has 2 cars [61].

Financial Insolvency

All roadways regardless of type degrade with time. This is due to many factors such as the vehicles that drive on them [52], the heat and sun [53], and even the rain [54]. Moreover, highways and the land they take up do not collect taxes. Instead, highways must ‘generate’ revenue in other ways to cover their costs [55]. Similar to the rest of the United States, New Mexico pays for our roadways via the state road fund and transfers from the FHWA. Specifically receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal Highway Administration and generates funds for the state road fund via three main methods: 45% comes from fuel taxes, 30% comes from sales and registration taxes, and 20% comes from commercial trucking [51]. However, this is still not enough to pay for all of our roadways as New Mexico is $750 million in debt to road construction as of August 2023 [51]. Cities and states being in debt to their highways is not specific to NM, for instance, one of the worst offenders is Texas who has racked up $22.5 billion in outstanding debt to their roadways [56]. Further complicating this issue is the advent of hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs) as the name suggests use little to no gas or diesel for fuel and are exempt from fuel tax. Their prevalence is causing many states to consider instituting a per-mile driven tax [57]. This will not solve the inherent problem that roadways don’t generate revenue and need to be subsidized. And thus, expanding roadways only worsens the financial insolvency and burden on us. Hence, STABQ advocates for maintaining our aging road infrastructure but keeping our roads the size they currently are. However, as populations continue to grow, we need to address the issues of congestion. The only proven method to reduce congestion is to improve public transportation [58].

Taxes and fees for driving (i.e. gas tax, title and registration fees) cover less than half of the cost of roadways (48%), the other half (42%) comes from other tax sources such as property and income tax [69]

Multi-Modality

Earlier in this article the concept of induced demand was discussed. Induced demand is not an inherently bad thing. In fact, induced demand in a way will be the solution to the issues of congestion on roadways. In short, induced demand is the principle of “if you build it, they will come.” This article has discussed how induced demand leads to clogged and inefficient roadways. However, induced demand can also solve the issue of congested roadways when used in tandem with multi-modality. Multi-modality is a general term which means the usage of multiple modes. As it pertains to public infrastructure, these modes are the many different ways people can get from place to place: car, bus, cycling, walking, taxi, etc. Thus, multi-modality for public infrastructure is the concept that if a place invests equally in all forms of transportation, the strain on each is reduced which increases the robustness of the infrastructure overall. Multi-modality is the freedom to choose how we get from point A to point B.

In the United States, we spend almost 3 times more on highways than public transit. This results in the best form of transportation being roadways. However, as discussed earlier, we’ve reached a point where further spending, e.g. expanding highways, no longer improves the efficiency of roadways. Public transit is not sufficient in most places in the US for folks to get to work, grab groceries, or go see a doctor. So people don’t use public transit. We don’t build it so no one uses it. This starts a cycle in which the less people use public transit the less it gets funded, and the less public transit is funded the less people use it. Similarly, the cycle has progressed in the other direction for roadways and privately owned cars as 93% of households in the US own at least one car. However, if we look to other countries around the world, these countries fund more types of transportation. These countries have less congestion, less crashes, and better overall public health [59]. They build it so people use it. We see a similar thing in New Mexico: we are $750 million in debt to our roadways [51], NMDOT plans on spending $325-500 million on a small section of I-25 [7,8], and we only spend around $60 million a year on other forms of transportation in ABQ [60]. So it’s no wonder 94% of households have at least one car in ABQ [61].

There are many benefits to improving public infrastructure. Firstly, it reduces congestion on roadways [58,62] which makes everyone’s lives better! Secondly, since taking public transit requires movement, people who use public transit more regularly are healthier in the long run [23,62]. Moreover, since 74% of people in New Mexico drive to work alone [61,63], more people could take public transit to work, as public transportation is more efficient at moving people, it would reduce the amount of pollution. This is a compounding factor as to why places with better public transit live healthier lives [62]. Third, public infrastructure is more equitable than privately owned cars and leads to lower rates of isolation [23,58,62]. As discussed, owning a car costs a lot of money; 20% of the average household income [61,64]. Given the inadequacy of public transit, a person currently cannot rely on it to get them to their place of employment reliably. Thus, individuals who do not own cars struggle to be able to work jobs [65]. To be clear, these individuals want to work jobs but are unable to as they cannot get to their place of work. Thus, improving public transit is equitable as it would allow for more people to be able to get to where they need to go. In a similar vein, public transit would allow people with disabilities that make driving difficult or impossible to travel independently. For people in the US aged 18-64, 5.1% or 10 million people, reported travel-limiting disabilities. For people 65 and older, the percentage increases to 14.1% (or 7.7 million people) [66]. Strong Towns ABQ believes the best way to improve our roadways, reduce our environmental impact, improve public health, and reconnect our isolated communities is to stop overspending on roadways and improve our public infrastructure.