Backup at Second Street Hard To Fix Without Hurting Montaño

TRAPPED ON SECOND AT MONTAÑO: Amy Landau emails “I drive south on Second Street in the morning from north of Ranchitos, and the light at Montaño and Second is so short, it can take over 7 minutes and a minimum of four light changes to get through it going south to Downtown.

“Can you tell me who to contact about this problem and/or what can be done?”

The city of Albuquerque, and really not much.

Mark Motsko, who handles information for the city of Albuquerque’s Department of Municipal Development, got the scoop from Director Michael Riordan, who says Amy’s wait is a symptom of an overburdened river-crossing system.

“Both Second and Montaño are operating over capacity,” he explains. “The service levels in all directions suffer during the morning and evening rush periods. The majority of the backup is on eastbound Montaño in the morning and westbound Montaño in the evening. Second Street north and south also experience backups. Unfortunately, we cannot improve one leg of an intersection without having a negative effect (on) another leg. At this time, we believe we have balanced the available green time as best as possible given the number of vehicles utilizing the intersection.”

But there is hope in the form of work on a different river crossing. Riordan says “the study of the Paseo del Norte/Interstate 25 proposed improvements illustrated there would be a reduction of congestion on parallel river crossings such as Montaño, because more vehicles would be able to use Paseo del Norte.”

SECOND AND OSUNA NEEDS WORK, TOO: But Amy isn’t finished.

“Then at night going north on Second at Osuna the traffic is constantly backed up,” she says, “because the green light to go north is so short not more than four cars can get through on one light. Any help you can provide would be appreciated.”

This one belongs to Bernalillo County. David Mitchell, director of Operations and Maintenance, says staff “went out and diagnosed a couple broken loop detectors (sensors that tell the signal traffic is waiting) in the pavement and temporarily bypassed it (putting the signals on timers), and it’s probably long-since been repaired.”

And in fact it has.

Signs and signals guru Robert Baker says “the loops at Osuna and Second were replaced (May 8), and I cleared the temporary time-of-day programs (May 9), so everything should be back to normal.”

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 or P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103.