Pavement Preservation Set for N.M. 528

N.M. 528 GETS A MONEY-SAVING FACELIFT: Crews will be on N.M. 528 between Northern and Idalia from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for the next few weekends, doing $458,000 worth of pavement preservation.

Phil Gallegos, who handles information for the New Mexico Department of Transportation, says work will continue Saturdays and Sundays until it’s complete, and estimated 20 calendar days.

This weekend crews “will have the right lane closed for (the) paving project. This project will continue with directions changing each weekend until complete.”

SO DOES COORS: Meanwhile, Coors at St. Josephs will have lane closures in both directions every night next week from Monday through Thursday as crews do a mill-and-inlay project at intersection.

That’s where they grind up the top layer of asphalt and filled in the roadway with new asphalt.

Crews will be on site from 8:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. each evening. Drivers should “expect minor delays.”

SO DOES THE ALAMEDA BIKE TRAIL: And Alameda at Second will have various lane closures between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday as crews do paving.

MORE ON THE PAJARITO VILLAGE ROUNDABOUTS: So now that eight mini-roundabouts and two speed display signs designed to calm traffic, i.e. reduce speeding and cut-through patterns, have been installed in the South Valley — on Don Felipe, Pajarito and Raymac between Coors and Isleta — the work’s all done, right?

Wrong.

The neighborhood association recently posed some questions to Bernalillo County’s Director of Operations and Maintenance, David Mitchell,who supplied some updates.

♦ Residents have noticed that “drivers appear to be learning to navigate the emplacements more quickly and that traffic was speeding up again.” Mitchell says “it’ll take a few weeks to collect the data, and the (speed display) signs on Pajarito do it all the time anyway. We will move the westbound speed display sign back further east between Isleta and Beck.”

♦ Was the “double-roundabout installation on Don Felipe … modified since it was installed at the request of a horse trailer owner? There was concern that a curb had been removed and the roundabouts opened up considerably.” Mitchell says “only some middle curbing that was delineating a center ‘island’ was removed to accommodate hay trailer and other turning complaints from Griffin to the north. … Removing the mid curbs was deemed OK because the advance signage for these roundabouts is yellow, meaning advisory, and not ticket-able. This ‘advisory-only signage’ is necessary for all the mini-roundabouts in case of large moving trucks, fire trucks, etc., that cannot make a left without running over or in front of the roundabout when traffic conditions are safe for them to do so.”

♦ Will there be more speed-calming devices installed? Mitchell says “it is not planned so far, and the speed displays would be removed if some hard (i.e. constructed) alternative came in. The system needs to stay balanced.”

♦ Can the radar sign that overlaps the Beck circles be moved? Mitchell says yes, and “this will be determined by the results of the traffic analysis.”

♦ Residents have noted “sudden acceleration syndrome” at both ends of the street — meaning drivers turn off Isleta or Coors onto what appears to be an isolated side street and floor it to the first traffic calming device. Mitchell says he found he “instinctively hit the gas after going through the first eastbound roundabout. I really liked the spacing to the current eastbound speed display for this reason.” He says the county will monitor eastbound Beck/Pajarito for awhile and, if needed, add shoulder striping and graduated raised-pavement markers — very large buttons — to slow drivers down further. “Remember, we try to do all the slowing on the approach side of the roundabouts vs. after they are halfway through to avoid the gas-it issue. We will look at speeds between Isleta and Coors to the first roundabouts respectively. I think some kind of reminder that this is now a calmed road might help the fact that calming in general doesn’t start immediately at the intersections, which is true for all calmed roads.”

♦ Residents are cheering a decline in “truck traffic on Pajarito heading for the landfill.” Mitchell says the speed monitoring does “capture wheelbase data for all three roads, and what we care about is the distribution of the truck traffic across all three roads not being disproportionate.”

♦ Residents asks if anything is “possible for noise abatement, such as jersey barriers alongside the street where it runs close to a house or above grade level?” Mitchell says it’s a remote possibility, but the neighborhood association “would have to weigh the positives and negatives. Jerseys are only 32 inches high, so probably not effective for sound, (plus they are unattractive) and graffiti magnets. It would be very expensive for any wall or jersey options if they have to be bought new. We mostly have surplus, and not many, from the state Department of Transportation (that are) pre-scuffed, chipped and marked, and typically use them for spot closures and half-buried for drainage erosion issues. We are talking way more costly than all of the roundabouts combined to line both sides of a road, with proper end-treatments at the breaks etc. Several hundred dollars per lineal foot.”

♦ And finally, the neighbors passed on their gratitude “for helping us improve the quality of life in our neighborhoods. Thank you!” Mitchell says the project has worked so well to date “already, there’s talk of applying it on Gun Club.”

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.