Another Meeting Planned On Candelaria Roundabout
WEIGH IN ON THE RIO GRANDE ROUNDABOUT: According to rburrows17, “the second public meeting on the proposed roundabout for Rio Grande and Candelaria is scheduled from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center at 2401 12th NW.”
That’s important for folks who feel they have been left out of the process. It’s also the fifth public meeting on the $1.5 million trafficcalming construction, according to the Rio Grande Blvd. Neighborhood Association board.
The city is currently re-evaluating whether to put the roundabout in.
Opponents call the roundabout impractical and say trimming traffic to one lane in each direction approaching the intersection will create a bottleneck. Proponents say it is needed to keep pedestrians, cyclists and drivers safe.
According to the RGBNA website,
last week the board “unanimously endorsed the city’s proposed safety improvements to the intersection at Rio Grande Boulevard and Candelaria Road.”
The board lays out in a letter to city officials that “we have been aware for several years now that transportation engineers saw a roundabout as the preferred alternative for handling the high speed, red-light-running and driver-inattention safety issues that have plagued this intersection. We were extremely pleased to learn, in April of 2010, that Federal Highway Safety Funds had been awarded to the city to build a roundabout at Candelaria and Rio Grande Boulevard. It was also gratifying to see, during that same month, that the 150-plus participants in a well-advertised collaborative public planning process for an update to the Rio Grande Boulevard Corridor Plan were overwhelmingly supportive of a roundabout at this location. Many of the participants, in fact, proposed that all of the intersections on Rio Grande Boulevard between Indian School and Montaño be made roundabouts.”
The board also says that some late opposition has prompted it to publicly “come down firmly on the side of our residents’ safety concerns” in what has devolved into a fight between ‘my convenience (in having a four-lane travel route with long green lights) vs. your safety.’ ”
The letter goes on to state “we are aware that many people in our association have worked for years on this safety solution, and we wish to support them. Those of us who live here travel through the intersection daily — and not just in cars. We cross it to catch the bus, we cross it to walk on the ditches, we bicycle through it to catch the Bosque Trail. It is part of our lives, and it is dangerous and it is loud and it has an engineered solution and the solution is funded. We are deeply grateful to the city and to our elected representatives, both city and state, for (their) recognition of our problem and (their) efforts to solve it.”
Supporters and opponents can weigh in next week.
ALAMEDA/COORS GETS FACE-LIFT: The New Mexico Department of Transportation says in a news release that crews will be working overnight, 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., through Sunday on Alameda (N.M. 528) at the Coors/Corrales intersection, where sewer-line work has been underway for months. Drivers are warned to watch for “various lane closures for various paving and striping improvements.”
N.M. 313 GETS NEW TOP COAT: NMDOT also says to watch for lane closures on N.M. 313 from U.S. 550 in Bernalillo north for 4 miles from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. daily through Monday. The project involves pavement overlay, and a pilot car will help guide traffic through the work zone.
UTILITY WORK ON CORRALES: And a longerterm project will have crews on Corrales between Alameda and Meadowlark in the village from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. weeknights.
NMDOT says this project involves utility installation on the shoulders and should involve minor delays.