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SECOND AND EL PUEBLO CLEARING MORE TRAFFIC: That’s after Bernalillo County signals expert Robert Baker was able to get the signal manufacturer “to lend me a part … until I can get one ordered.”
Traffic was congested last week during morning commutes Wednesday and especially Thursday as vehicles exited eastbound Paseo del Norte and turned south onto Second. It didn’t help that a water main break on Montaño had traffic diverting from that busy river crossing Thursday.
In fact, the county call center had to explain to drivers that “it’s not just at Second Street, it is also at Jefferson and Interstate 25; all off PDN from I-25 west is bad.”
With the new component in place, the signal can now “see” that cars are waiting. David Mitchell, director of county Operations and Maintenance, says the signals at Paseo and Second “are older and run loops, and El Pueblo is a camera intersection. Both just extend green times as their detectors see more traffic.”
With the new component in place, “now if a main breaks, the relief exit at Second will start giving max(imum) time as it sees all that additional traffic.”
During this week’s commutes, around 8:30 a.m., the line on southbound Second never stacked up past the Paseo underpass.
NEW WAYS TO MONITOR BACKUPS IN WORKS: Meanwhile, making signal adjustments for river-crossing backups might not rely on phoned-in complaints for long.
Mitchell says “it is interesting about Montaño being closed and contributing to all the backups on PDN that one day. There is a possible development in mining social media that can apparently predict subway arrival times in New York City better than the subway’s own telemetry. Wouldn’t it be something if social media filtering told us faster than news, the traffic alerts, or phone calls how to adjust the signal network?
“Of course, we will do it first so there is no reliance on texting and driving. There is another technology that senses just the presence of a Bluetooth device in a car and measures from point to point. Throw in auto manufacturers including adaptive cruise control that spaces cars apart from each other automatically, and a futurist can see where it’s all going. Shifting into ‘drive’ is going to provide a lot more automatic things than a transmission.”
CORRALES RECOGNIZED FOR SAFE ROUTES TO SCHOOL: The village received accolades last week from Gov. Susana Martinez and Transportation Secretary Alvin Dominguez for its “outstanding Safe Routes to School program.”
The program focuses on safe walking and bicycling to Corrales Elementary school, which is adjacent to the busy Corrales Road, and was recognized this month by the National Center for Safe Routes to School.
According to a news release from the New Mexico Department of Transportation, which funds the program with $25,000, “Laura Montoya, Local Champion for the Corrales SRTS program, worked with the village and local advocates to develop a Walking School Bus program where community volunteers walk with groups of children to school. These adult volunteers help direct the children along safe routes that follow the drainage ditches in the community. The Walking School Bus program and other activities associated with the SRTS program raised the percentage of students regularly walking and biking to school from 5 percent to 25 percent.”
New Mexico’s SRTS program “provides funding and technical assistance to communities, school districts and K-8 grade schools throughout the state.”
For more information, check out the National Center for SRTS website at www.saferoutesinfo.org or the New Mexico SRTS program at www.nmsaferoutes.com.
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.
— This article appeared on page 1 of the West Side Journal
