BikeABQ Candidate Survey
Denis Litvinenko
House District 25
1. Do you bike in New Mexico? Describe your experience biking for transportation and/or recreation.
No, I haven’t biked in years.
2. Describe your vision of a healthy, safe, equitable transportation system for the Greater Albuquerque Region and the roles walking, biking, and public transportation play in that vision.
We must promote co-existence between personal car usage and other forms of transportation: better and more bike lanes, pedestrian walkways, etc.
3. What are the biggest barriers to getting people to choose walking, biking, and public transit instead of personal vehicles for daily trips, and what would you do to address these impediments?
Urban planning. American cities are built in such a manner, as to facilitate car transportation. There is little we can do to offset this.
4. New Mexico consistently has the deadliest streets of any state in the US, with approximately 400 people killed by vehicles each year while walking, biking, or driving, and another 12,000 people injured. What should New Mexico, and in particular the New Mexico Department of Transportation, do to improve traffic safety?
Basic internet research shows that traffic accidents happen due to reasons we have little control over: weather and driver behavior (speeding, drunk and reckless driving, drugs, etc.) NMDOT should be doing what it is already doing, but this gets into the question of bigger budgets.
5. The New Mexico DOT is currently pursuing a pair of projects related to Interstate 25, following the South I-25 Corridor Study that calls for the widening of Interstate 25 in Albuquerque from Sunport to the Big I, to 8 lanes from the current 6. Do you support urban freeway widenings, or how would you prefer NMDOT enhance transportation options in this corridor?
Yes, I do support widening the roads, if the increase in traffic requires it. Wider roads will ease congestion, leading to safer driving and less pollution.