Follow up: Parents raise concerns over trash on I-40 pedestrian bridge

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — On Wednesday, a pedestrian bridge over I-40 was covered in trash – from beer cans, to a cup of urine, even piles of human waste.

One mother told KOB 4 she has to cross that bridge everyday as when she walks her daughter to school.

“We use this as our route to get to school every day and it’s just really dirty and filthy,” the parent told KOB 4 Wednesday. “Most days it’s filled with trash, its filled with trash all the time, and a lot of times it’s scattered all over.”

The mom reported the mess to 311 through their app on Tuesday, then on Thursday she got a notification from the city of Albuquerque that the mess has been cleaned up.

The notification read:

“Thanks for submitting this request it has been resolved.”

But when she walked her daughter to school Friday morning, it looked exactly the same as the day before.

“It’s just disgusting, it’s embarrassing, it’s ridiculous that it has to come to this,” she said Friday afternoon. “We are reporting it, we are calling on it, we are trying to get it done and it’s just not happening.”

She says in the past when she reports hazardous material like this to 311, it gets cleaned up in a day or so but now it is going on day four.

“You can’t even pass it off as dog poop, you can’t say, ‘don’t look there, kids,’ it’s very obvious what it is,” she said.

On Friday, KOB 4 looked into the disconnect that happened between the 311 app and what the city is actually doing.

According to a city representative, the app sent the request to the wrong department because they assumed it was on private property. However, the mom clearly stated in her report to the city that the waste was the pedestrian bridge.

The city department in charge of 311 said in a statement:

“After this case was submitted to the 311 community contact center via the 311 app, it was routed to the planning department. Cases reported to 311 that are not on city property are routed to the planning department to be taken care of.”

Because this trash is on city property, the report should have been sent over to the Solid Waste Department through the 311 app. KOB 4 reached out to that department Friday to see when they will clean up the cup of urine, along with the rest of the bridge.

A rep said in a statement:

“…we are aware of the 311 report regarding the bridge over I-40 near Coors and the department will address it. The case was originally routed to the planning department according to 311. It’s likely planning “Closed” the case on its end as it was routed to us at SWMD.”

KOB 4 did ask if they had a timeframe of when everything will get cleaned up, and they said they do not know when this specific issue will be cleaned up and officially be resolved.