New Roundabouts To Pepper the Pajarito Village Neighborhood

MORE ROUNDABOUTS ON THE WAY FOR THE SOUTHWEST VALLEY: This time the traffic-calming devices are slated for the Pajarito Village Neighborhood Association area.

But David Mitchell, director of Bernalillo County’s Operations and Maintenance Department, says these aren’t your usual roundabouts.

“As part of a comprehensive neighborhood calming plan,” he explains, “eight mini-roundabout sites — including a double mini at Beck Road — are going in.”

Add them to “two earlier permanent speed display signs, for a total of three calming devices for each street that crosses the neighborhood east/west between Coors and Isleta Boulevard (Don Felipe, Pajarito and Raymac). The neighborhood at the onset did not want humps or bumps of any kind, and with the traffic volumes of several thousand vehicles per day on each, it realistically left only roundabouts as a viable option,” he says.

The traffic calming has been years in the making, starting back in 2008 with requests by the neighborhood association at public input meetings. And it has been revised, with “a full roundabout — like the one at Sunset and Osage … initially planned for Beck Road as a centerpiece,” Mitchell says, “but it would have taken too much land on both sides of the road to make it work with all the other geometric constraints, so the European-style double mini was worked out.”

Mitchell says initial reports show “the neighborhood association so far is very pleased with the first two on Don Felipe Road where the speed limit is 35 but the 85th percentile speed — the speed at which people are statistically comfortable driving it — was 58!”

STILL NEEDING A SIGN ON CIELO VISTA DEL NORTE: Back in October, kisty emailed a plaintive request for a sign for her street, just off Alameda, so the ambulances cold find her home and attend to her husband, Ed.

She explained that she routinely has “to leave his side to go out in the road and flag down the lost ambulances who were repeatedly calling me for directions. I think this has become a life-and-death matter for my Ed.”

Mitchell explained then that the area “is confusing and GPS does not help in some cases. … It should be a simple work order.”

And still, kisty says, what was in October still remains at the beginning of January and things are confusing to nonresidents because “there are two del Nortes, one on the southeast of this circular street and ours on the northwest. There are also two del Surs. Cielo Vista begins as del Sur at Cottonwood where you enter the area from Alameda. Then it should change at our house to del Norte, but the sign for Cielo Vista del Norte is actually up the road four houses on the corner. There it becomes Cielo Vista del Sur again at that point. Over by Loma Larga, the road is Cielo Vista del Norte again before finishing up at Cottonwood as ‘del Sur.’ Confused? Everyone is. TomTom and all GPS systems do not show the second set of houses on Cielo Vista del Norte, the six on our end of the circle route. So ambulances and everyone else only search for us at the far end of the circle at the other del Norte which is shown on GPS.”

Mitchell says he will follow up on the work order, which a crew completed with an arrow under two street signs showing Cielo Vista del Norte to the right for drivers approaching from Cielo Vista del Sur. He says the signs can still be improved upon, and the county is “setting a higher bar for it, and having new signage made, bigger with arrows, for re-install by (this) weekend.”

So kisty should see “a bi-directional street name sign at the top with arrows showing Cielo Vista Del Norte that way, and Cielo Vista Del Sur going the other way, where they connect at the top, so if nothing else it will help lost … drivers.”

HEADED THE WRONG WAY ON WESTSIDE: Ray Voos called to say he has been headed westbound on Westside out of the Cabezon subdivision and encountered wrong-way drivers coming from southbound Trailside who had no clue the road is a divided one.

He asks if the city can place some “Do Not Enter” signs to keep drivers on the correct side of the road.

The city is already on it.

Peter Wells, communications officer for Rio Rancho, says “the city is already in the process of ordering DO NOT ENTER and WRONG WAY signs and having them installed in this area.”

Assistant editorial page editor D’Val Westphal tackles commuter issues for the Metro area on Mondays and West Siders and Rio Ranchoans on Thursdays. Reach her at 823-3858; road@abqjournal.com; P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103; or go to ABQjournal.com/traffic to read previous columns and join in the conversation.