State plans to add lighting on deadly stretch of road near Metropolitan Detention Center

Yahoo

06-03-2025

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – After years of deadly crashes and promises to light up a dark stretch of road to the county jail, the project has finally taken a big step forward.
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Metroplitan Detention Center Officer Joshua Munoz was just 19 years old when he died in a crash after leaving his job at the Metropolitan Detention Center. His family has pushed to light up miles of Shelly Drive and the I-40 frontage road, and the city said it has now completed its part of the job. 'We recently installed 64 new lights on Shelly to brighten it up at night,' said Spokesperson Dan Mayfield, CABQ Dept. of Municipal Development.
The deadly and dark stretch of road to and from MDC is no longer as dark as it used to be as the City of Albuquerque recently installed dozens of new street lamps on existing PNM poles. 'These are really bright 277 watt LED bulbs, too, so they'll provide a nice big coverage all over the road,' said Mayfield.
The Shelly Drive project has been almost years in the making, getting attention from the family of Munoz who died in a night-time single vehicle crash on the road.
While Munoz's family says it appreciates the new lights but asked why it took so long for them to be placed. 'Why was it so difficult to put lights on this kind of post?' Joshua Munoz's mother Sujey Sanchez.
Sanchez said she wishes the project would have happened quicker, noting a second MDC employee, Raquel Sach, who was killed in a crash in October. 'They work too many hours, so they need it, a lot of lights on. They need a lot of protect to the road. They need to fix the road for them,' said Sanchez.
But lighting up the two mile stretch of road hasn't been simple. While the county started in 2017, they needed the city to help finish the project. 'Once we realized the road was being as trafficked as it was with a lot of traffic moving in and out there to MDC, to the racetrack, to the dump, it made sense to make it safer,' said Mayfield.
The county is also working with NMDOT to light the frontage road to Atrisco Vista with 103 new solar lights coming soon. 'As soon as we have finalized those plans and there are some certification processes, we have to go through because it is a state road and we have been working with our partners at the New Mexico Department of Transportation to get those certifications in place,' Jennifer Flor, senior project engineer, Bernalillo County.
Munoz said she won't rest until she sees the project finished. 'I don't forget that you guys promised to me that the lights are going to be in there, I want you to put the lights for him for my son,' said Sanchez.
The county hopes to break ground on those new solar lights by April with a goal of finishing before the end of the year. That part of the project should cost $2.5 million with the lights lasting for 20 years.
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