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Opinion editorials Handling of Pit Appeal Calls for a Time-Out |
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opinion editorialsThis editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by editorial page staff and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers
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Sunday, July 05, 2009
Taxpayers Don't Need A Magical Interchange
Call it the abracadabra effect.
A couple of years ago, the state Department of Transportation unveiled plans for a new highway interchange at the intersection of U.S. 84/285 and Santa Fe County Road 88. DOT officials explained at public meetings on the subject that this was the "one area only" on the stretch of highway slated for improvement where accident history and projected traffic volume justified an overpass with attendant frontage roads.
The goal was to allow motorists from La Puebla and Chimayó, many of them commuting daily to Santa Fe and Los Alamos, to enter and exit that part of 84/285 safely without holding up through-traffic.
DOT forwarded the plan to the federal government for approval as part of $68 million of improvements to this major artery, which serves much of north-central New Mexico.
And then —abracadabra! In just a few months, the interchange was magically moved about a mile south of that busy intersection where DOT officials had said traffic volume would double in coming years.
Now, the $7.8 million interchange will be located just inside Pojoaque Pueblo boundaries, where there is no intersection — and no surrounding development. The DOT has offered no intelligible explanation for the switch. A 2007 e-mail memo from a DOT safety official alerting higher-ups that the change "wouldn't serve the needs of the commuting public nor will it be a safe roadway" is now being dismissed as "misguided." But the Journal's scrutiny of thousands of related documents found no engineering or safety justification for the change of location, and no indication that those issues were even a consideration.
This new interchange won't serve the public. And it will likely cost taxpayers a whole lot more to build than the County Road 88 interchange would have, since land east of U.S. 285 at this location slopes steeply away from the highway and stretches away into rugged — and vacant — badlands.
What it will do, however, is allow traffic to exit the highway and travel less than half a mile north on a new frontage road to property owned by New Mexico House of Representatives Speaker Ben Lujan.
And it will no doubt bring hefty state payment to Pojoaque Pueblo coffers for right of way necessary to build it. The pueblo has balked at the $300,000 price tag that DOT put on that acreage, and reportedly is asking 10 times more, or $3 million.
Speaker Lujan swears he had nothing to do with the decision to move the intersection so that it serves his property. And Pojoaque Pueblo refuses to discuss the situation.
It merits mention that about 15 years ago, when Lujan acquired a sliver of what's now nearly 3 acres with highway frontage, he hauled a surplus portable school building from a former school on Pojoaque Pueblo onto the site without getting county permission to develop the property and graded a driveway off U.S. 285 without consulting either the county or the DOT.
Similarly, Lujan leased out a billboard on the property, whose permit had expired in 1993 and from which he has for years and years netted thousands annually in rent.
Top DOT officials made every effort last fall to figure out ways for Lujan to keep the billboard, which had been in the path of the new U.S. 285 right of way. Now they appear committed to making sure that same property is situated along a frontage road, the better for future commercial possibilities.
If there is a credible rationale for moving the interchange away from the dangerous traffic gantlet where County Road 88 meets U.S. 285, the DOT needs to present that reasoning. The way it stands now, it appears the safety and convenience of the majority of taxpayers is simply being ignored.
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