Looking through City of Albuquerque’s announcement and media coverage regarding upcoming multi-modal improvements on Louisiana Blvd. from Gibson Blvd. north to Central Avenue, I’m not finding any mention of Angelica Baca.

Let’s correct that omission here.

Back on March 23rd of 2019, Ms. Baca was trying to cross Louisiana Blvd. at Ross SE, roughly midway through the soon-to-be-improved stretch, when she was struck and literally shorn in half by USAF Airman Calvin Cooper. The grisly result of Airman Cooper’s beyond reckless speeding got local media attention at the time and here at BB we looked through the incident’s crash and supplemental reports during Cooper’s trial in 2020. Albuquerque Journal’s Matt Reisen wrote the following as part of his excellent coverage of the case/trial.

How Angelica Baca played a very important, yet heretofore anonymous, part in the City improving this stretch of Louisiana illustrates the slow, circuitous manner such change happens (if at all), particularly when it comes to making life safer for those who aren’t driving on our roadways. Later in 2020, after Airman Cooper was court-martialed but before he was sentenced to five years in military prison, some folks at the City got the Federal Highway Administration to conduct what it calls a “Road Safety Audit” of Louisiana Blvd from Gibson north to Lomas Blvd.

That 2020 audit had to overcome not just the multi-jurisdictional bureaucracy of fed, city, etc., but health orders and other hindrances due to COVID. Nevertheless, the audit was published in October of 2020. Nowhere in the audit’s 158 pages does one find the name of Angelica Baca. Instead, as with all such studies, there are many statistics but no case studies (notably the authors do throw in a few persuasive photographs illustrating Louisiana Blvd. inadequacies).

That audit was followed by an extensive series of public meetings, public walking audits, and other gatherings to assess needs and hear from those in the neighborhood. This very nice online storymap (worthy of many downward scrolls) thoroughly relates that process and resulting recommendations. Each and every one of these discussions has been very important in developing the City’s plan for Louisiana improvements. Still, there’s no mention of Angelica Baca on the hugely informative and thorough storymap.

More time has passed, five years in all now, but eventually we’ve come to this week’s announcement by the City and work is supposed to be complete by beginning of next year. Good. Many sincere thanks go out to everyone putting time and effort into making this happen, from Mayor Keller and City officials/staff to, especially, all the neighborhood folks who went to all the meetings, walked the streets, and made this happen.

Those thanks also need to extend to the memory of Angelica Baca. We may not tend to remember now, but in a very important way this all started with her.