Does Los Alamos have a crosswalk problem?

An 11-year-old girl was struck in a crosswalk. Two days later, a man died in one. Now Los Alamos County is trying to explain what it’s doing about traffic safety.

The crosswalk at Central Ave. and 20th St., otherwise known as “the crosswalk by Fuller Lodge.” Author photo.

On the evening of March 13, 11-year-old Althea was in the crosswalk near Fuller Lodge, “two steps from the sidewalk,” as she told me, when she was hit by a car.

The family was downtown for dinner. Mom and Dad were at the brew pub. Althea and her older brother Abel wanted Subway for dinner and a stroll-around after. Sandwich in hand, Althea entered the crosswalk at Central Ave. and 20th St. Abel, a 6-foot-tall high school sophomore, was walking behind her, with the family dog in tow.

They had looked both ways before crossing. All looked clear. But by the time the kids were three-quarters of the way through the crosswalk, a car approached. And kept approaching. The driver, heading west into a low evening sun, told the parents afterward that she never saw Althea. “She saw Abel, who was behind her, and she started braking,” said the kids’ father, Robert Sayre, in an interview last week. “It must have been just right as she made contact with Althea that she stopped.”

Althea went down, skidding briefly on her back before jumping back up. Her first thought was to reassure her brother. “I’m fine!” she shouted. “I didn’t hit my head!” She was still clutching her sandwich. (The dog was also fine.)

Physically, she was fine, except for a bit of road rash on her spine, hands, and elbows. The paramedics arrived and checked her out in the back of an ambulance. “Just a little bit of elevated heart rate because of adrenaline and being scared,” said Robert. But she and her brother were both shaken. In the weeks since, Althea has not wanted to cross streets alone.

“Physically, there hasn’t been a lasting effect” except minor scars, said Robert. “Definitely psychologically, a bit more.” He said his son was also rattled. “He saw it all happening, and he felt a little responsible—even though they did nothing wrong.” Witnesses confirmed the kids had followed the rules. Robert said Abel isn’t feeling eager about getting his driver’s license anymore. Abel is the middle of three siblings; the eldest’s girlfriend was among four teenagers involved in a crash at the White Rock Y in October 2023, and the experience shook him.¹ This latest incident has left the whole family feeling jumpy.

Two days after Althea’s crosswalk crash, Brian Easton—a 68-year-old retired Los Alamos High School teacher—was hit by a truck as he walked in a marked crosswalk at North Road and Urban Street. He died of his injuries two days later. The question of the driver’s culpability remains under investigation. Easton’s death generated widespread grief and community pressure for answers. Until now, Althea’s story has generated no news coverage at all.

But the County knew about it, and the two incidents, together with a spate of other high-profile incidents, have created a heightened sense of urgency around road safety—especially for road users like cyclists and pedestrians, who aren’t protected by a metal-and-airbag cage.

On May 7, Los Alamos County’s Transportation Board received a comprehensive traffic safety presentation—a detailed look at crash data, current projects, and the County’s thinking about how to keep people alive on the roads.

Here’s what the board learned, and what questions remain open.

Crash numbers

Deputy Public Works Director Keith Wilson, who led the presentation, drew on crash records from 2019 through the end of 2025, compiled from New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) data via the University of New Mexico. Over those seven years, Los Alamos County recorded nearly 900 crashes, which resulted in eight fatalities, about 250 injuries, and approximately 640 property-damage-only incidents.

“You don’t want to just focus in on one incident in one year,” Wilson said. “You want to look at multiple years of data to see if there are patterns.”

A slide from Los Alamos County’s May 7 presentation to the Transportation Board

Of those crashes, eight involved pedestrians. Two, both in White Rock, were fatal. Six resulted in injuries. (In August 2024, there was another pedestrian injury at the same crosswalk—Central and 20th—where Althea was injured.) Wilson cautioned that these tallies underestimate the total number of collisions because they exclude crashes with less than $500 in damage and crashes on private property. By early March of this year, the County had already recorded one pedestrian fatality and one pedestrian injury crash, putting 2026 on par with recent annual averages.

Los Alamos compares favorably to the rest of New Mexico on most metrics: county fatality rates are about a fifth of the state rate for pedestrians, and overall crash rates are about a third of the state average per 1,000 residents. This is, unfortunately, a low bar to jump over, as New Mexico has long been the worst state in the country for pedestrians. Wilson said he was surprised, though, to see that Los Alamos had bicycle-injury crash rates that compared unfavorably to the state average. Is this because Los Alamos has more people on bikes? The County doesn’t know yet, he said: “This analysis will raise how we’re looking at bicycling, for opportunities for countermeasures.”

Police Chief Dino Sgambellone described the work of a two-officer traffic unit funded by the County Council this year. During the first four months of 2026, those officers had cited 50 drivers for exceeding the speed limit by more than 26 miles per hour. “We had an 87 in a 40 a couple weeks ago,” Sgambellone said. “That’s going to be a significant penalty for that person.” A speed camera program approved by the council is expected to return with an implementation plan for five static cameras at locations including the Truck Route, Pajarito Road, NM 4, and Diamond Drive.

What’s being built

Much of the meeting was devoted to safety infrastructure already underway or recently completed.

The longest-awaited is the Trinity Drive Safety and ADA Improvements Project. Construction bids have been received; a contract award is expected at the May 19 council meeting, with work scheduled from June through December 2026. The project will narrow westbound Trinity from two travel lanes to one, add bike lanes on both sides, and install a pedestrian flashing beacon at Trinity and 20th St. “This has been a project I started work on almost six years ago when I came to the county,” Wilson said. Green epoxy bike lanes have been installed at several downtown intersections to mark conflict zones. A bike box design is in development at the intersection of Diamond Drive and West Road.

In White Rock, a pedestrian beacon is planned on NM 4 to provide a safe crossing for children walking from the Mirador subdivision to Piñon Park and the elementary school.

NM 4 at La Vista Drive in White Rock. The county plans to install a barrier-separated trail along the north side of NM 4 east of here, with a HAWK pedestrian crossing signal about 600 feet from this intersection, connecting the neighborhood to Piñon Elementary. Google Street View.

The North Road/Urban Street intersection—where Easton was killed—is under active study. According to a press release and preliminary police report, the incident happened at about 11 a.m. on Sunday, March 15. The driver of a 2014 Chevy Silverado pickup truck was making a left turn from North Road onto Urban Street when his vehicle struck Easton. Notably, there is already a stop sign for drivers on North Road at that intersection. Whether the driver had actually come to a stop before turning left was not clear in the preliminary report.

After the tragedy, a community petition sought a four-way stop; the County Council directed staff in April to investigate and return with a recommendation within 90 days. Wilson reported to the T-board that data collection is complete; he plans to bring recommendations to the Transportation Board on June 4 and to the full council on June 23.

The County’s safety framework

Wilson described the County’s approach; first, they rely on the very old “Three Es” of road safety—engineering, education, and enforcement. Different situations may call for one, two, or all three, he said. The County has recently formed an internal traffic and road safety task force drawing on staff from Public Works, the Police Department, the County manager’s office, the Fire Department, and the public information office.

The task force’s main public-facing initiative is the “Look for Me” program, a campaign developed by the New Mexico Department of Transportation asking drivers to watch for pedestrians and pedestrians to watch for drivers.

“Safety is not just us, Public Works,” Wilson said. “It’s not just our role. It’s not just the chief’s and his officers’ role. It’s kind of like a collective, and we actually need the public to participate as well and take responsibility.”

The state’s “Look for Me” campaign, in which a wheelchair user and an 18-wheeler are visually represented as having equal responsibility for road safety.

Wilson also mentioned the much more recent approach of Vision Zero and Safe Systems—referring to both the goal of zero deaths and the strategy to get there. Wilson said that Los Alamos’s relatively low crash numbers give it a better chance of reaching that “zero deaths” target than many communities. He acknowledged, however, that the County does not yet have a formal safety plan.

The board spoke up

Board members had questions, pushback, and ideas of their own.

Hermann Geppert-Kleinrath, a former member of the County’s bicycle working group and newly appointed to the T-board, pressed for engineering interventions that go beyond signs and paint. Discussing the North Road intersection, he advocated for vertical obstacles—plastic bollards, for instance—that physically change driver behavior rather than just asking for it. “I found a study in Canada where they had a 25 miles per hour zone and people were driving 35,” he said. “Just putting a plastic bollard in the middle of the road—it didn’t change the road width at all—but people were driving 10 miles per hour slower. Humans have instincts: ‘If there is an obstacle, I’m going to slow down.’”

Inexpensive and effective, bright plastic bollards make a wide passage feel narrower. At a lizard-brain level, this signals “slow down.” Image source here.

Member Jacquelyn Connolly described a problem with inconsistent crosswalk design along Central, where bump-outs, markings, and styles shift from block to block. She said she has stood numerous times at one crosswalk—the intersection where Althea was struck—and watched drivers (“well-intentioned drivers, not distracted drivers, not speeding drivers”) sail past her without stopping—no matter the time of day, no matter how bright her clothing. Her diagnosis: drivers conditioned to certain signals lose their cues when those signals disappear. She called for consistent “visual language” all the way down the corridor.

Member Paul Lisowski thought the problem downtown is that there are too many crosswalks. “I don't know why we have all those crosswalks just lined up. …What would really help are those flashing signs. You need to have a few crossings with flashing lights. People will cross in those places.” he said.

Wilson acknowledged Lisowski’s concern but pushed back on flashers, saying that installing beacons at every marked crosswalk on Central would cause signal fatigue. When everything flashes, nothing is urgent.

“If you want to drive fast,” Wilson said, speaking rhetorically to all drivers, “take Trinity through town.” (Note that the posted speed limit on Central Ave. is 25 mph, which can still be an injury-causing speed for pedestrians.)

A glaring issue

Robert, Althea’s father, said the driver who hit his daughter cited sun glare as a factor, and he doesn’t dispute it. “I do think that the glare is a huge issue in this town, and it causes a lot of unsafe situations,” he said. But if glare is causing visibility issues, people should adjust their driving. “You just have to be super aware. If you don’t feel you have good visibility, you’ve got to be creeping along.” Drivers in dusty New Mexico should be attentive to keeping windshields clean, he said: “If there’s any dirt or particles on it, your windshield turns opaque in the glare.”

While he believes that both individual responsibility and infrastructure are factors, he questions whether a high-pedestrian corridor like Central should depend on road users being maximally attentive at all times—or on children wearing bright clothes.

“We favor cars too much,” he said. “I mean, the center of this town is a bunch of empty parking lots. It’s been built for convenience of commuting workers. But I think it should be more designed around [residents].”

Althea said she’s mostly okay. But crosswalks feel different to her now.

“I get scared,” she said.

She has been walking to Mountain Elementary from her house for years. She knows the route by heart. But these days, she’d rather not cross alone.

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The Transportation Board’s next meeting is June 4, when staff is expected to present recommendations for the North Road and Urban Street intersection. Wilson said he will give the same presentation on road safety to County Council on Tuesday, May 12. The Trinity Drive contract is expected before Council on May 19. All meetings are open to the public.

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I wrote this piece to establish the facts on the ground. Tomorrow, I return with Part II: a look at the ideas shaping how Los Alamos—and most of America—thinks about traffic deaths, and why the language we use to describe crashes determines what we’re willing to do about them.

1. Correction: An earlier version of this passage incorrectly stated that the eldest sibling had been himself involved in the 2023 crash at the White Rock Y.