Roads chief: Addition of barriers impeded by funding
All other measures outlined in 2013 highway study have been implemented to some degree, Church says
A median barrier on U.S. 550 probably would improve motorist safety, but funding for such projects is limited, says state Transportation Secretary Tom Church.
“In time, it can be done like anything else,” Church, an appointee of Gov. Susana Martinez, said in an interview this week. He stopped short of making a commitment to install a barrier.
A 2013 study for the Transportation Department proposed the placement of a concrete or cable barrier in the middle of four-lane U.S. 550 as one of several steps to reduce the number of collisions caused by vehicles crossing the highway’s 6-foot-wide paved median into oncoming traffic.
The New Mexican reported this month that, from 2013 through 2015, much-busier Interstate 40 was the only major highway in New Mexico with more motorist and passenger deaths per road mile than the state’s stretch of U.S. 550 from just north of Albuquerque to the Four Corners area.
A family of four from Aztec died in May on U.S. 550 when a truck crossed the median and hit the family’s SUV just south of Cuba. Investigators have reported a tire blowout on the truck and that its driver may have been speeding and drinking.
A Texas family of four died in a simi-
lar accident on U.S. 550 in 2014. A total of 17 motorists and passengers died on the road that year, its deadliest since being widened to four lanes in late 2001.
The Transportation Department has estimated it would cost $100 per foot for a concrete median barrier on U.S. 550, or $92.4 million for its entire length of 175 miles. The estimated cost of a cable barrier is $17 per foot, or $15.7 million.
Church said the state receives only $5 million to $10 million annually in federal funds for such safety projects for all the roads maintained by the Transportation Department.
“You can only implement what you have the funding to do,” he said.
In New Mexico, like the rest of the country, funding of roads and other infrastructure is inadequate, Church said. “We put more into our cellphones as a country,” he added.
Any placement of a median barrier on U.S. 550 would begin in areas of high crash rates, the secretary said.
“I think it would help” improve safety, Church said, “but I don’t think it’s the solution.”
The solution, he said, is for motorists to slow down and not drink and drive. The New Mexican analysis of fatal crashes on U.S. 550 from 2002 to 2015 found excessive speed for road conditions and drunken driving were major contributing causes.
“Everyone in New Mexico wants to go fast and be drunk,” Church said. “I’ll leave it at that.”
The secretary said that, since The New Mexican report on U.S. 550, he has been reviewing the condition of the road and what steps have been taken to improve safety.
Tests conducted last year show U.S. 550 has higher than acceptable pavement friction, he said. Inadequate pavement friction can lead to vehicles sliding when motorists brake or attempt to change direction, especially in wet conditions.
“Pavement is probably the biggest safety issue other than driving behavior,” Church said.
With the exception of the median barrier, the Transportation Department has implemented — to some degree — all the proposed safety measures outlined in the 2013 study of U.S. 550, the secretary said.
The study, conducted by the engineering and consulting firm CH2M, proposed better marking of median lines; lighting at some intersections; and signs alerting motorists to their speed, hazardous weather conditions, upcoming intersections, curves and changes in grade.
“What we have done is a lot,” Church said, later adding, “There’s always more that can be done.”
The study cited high rates of crossmedian crashes at or near where U.S. 550 intersects other roads. It proposed the Department of Transportation “install median barrier treatment (concrete or cable style) with limited median breaks to mitigate for cross median crash patterns at T-type intersection locations.”
But while the study proposed a median barrier, it added, “This treatment isn’t necessarily the most reasonable first course of action that could be undertaken to mitigate crashes along the corridor.”
Contact Thom Cole at 505-986-3022 or tcole@sfnewmexican.com.