Signaling Change

City Council approved a $59,343 contract with an Albuquerque company to study whether any of the signals along the stretch of Rodeo Road that runs from Cerrillos to Zia roads need a tuneup.

The city's Traffic Engineering Division requested the study because it's "looking to update the signal timing plan" on Rodeo Road, writes division director John Romero to the council's Public Works Committee in a Dec. 14 memo. Later, Romero tells SFR that he requested the project not necessarily because any of those signals need updating, but because officials haven't obtained traffic volume data there since 2005.

Locals around the area question the need for the spending.

"I don't see any problem with them," says Samuel Bustillos, a customer service representative at One Hour Martinizing at 2801 Rodeo Road, who makes a drive along Rodeo at least four times a week for his job at the dry cleaner.

Across the shopping center, Kelley Koehler, owner of the Massage Banya & Spa, calls Rodeo her "thoroughfare."

"No problems," she says of the signals, noting Rodeo doesn't get much traffic.

John Whitney, a resident of the 2600 block of Calle Primavera, which intersects with Yucca Road, also shrugged when asked about Rodeo's signaling.

"They've been pretty good, I think," Whitney, who is retired, says of the lights. Asked about the city's expenditure on the project, he laughs. "That might be more bothering than the lights."

To conduct the study, officials need to count vehicles during rush hours and off-peak times and develop a model for the counts, writes Romero in the memo, calling such an undertaking "labor intensive." The work includes studying the intersections with Rodeo from Cerrillos to Zia, then along Zia where it intersects with Camino Carlos Rey and Yucca Road.

Romero says officials will next decide whether to conduct a similar count on either St. Francis Drive or Airport Road.

If the data shows a signal at Rodeo and Cerrillos is out-of-step with traffic patterns, for example, Romero says officials might reprogram the signal-timing software, or a fix could call for new hardware.

Meanwhile, whether Zia is further affected by trains remains up in the air.

While some motorists say they worry that car traffic will get worse if and when trains begin to board and alight passengers at a station near the corner of Zia and St. Francis Drive, others argue that the train will effectively remove cars from the road because some areas residents choose to commute on public transit.

Planners have now completed test stops at the station following a review by the Federal Railroad Administration, which pushed the test stops back to January. The federal officials visited Santa Fe to review its "Quiet Zone" status in the wake of two incidents in which the Rail Runner fatally struck cyclists last year.

FRA rules require locomotive engineers to sound horns for at least 15 seconds before all public-grade crossings. Exemptions allow localities to establish quiet zones where locomotives agree to cease using horns, as in Santa Fe.

Now it's up to officials in Santa Fe to agree to open the stop.

Keith Wilson, a senior planner at the Metropolitan Planning Organization, tells SFR he'll be reviewing results of the test stops this week before reporting them to City Manager Bryan Snyder.

The study measured how far traffic backed up at the intersection when the railroad crossing arms were down for longer than are required today by passing trains, simulating what will happen when the stop is in use.

Merritt Brown, whose development firm owns the land where the stop is located, said he's waiting to hear from the city on its decision to open the stop and whether any improvements need to be made. Years ago, Brown says the firm committed to help pay for and construct some upgrades, such as sidewalks and lights near the station.

Regardless of whether officials decide to open the stop, says Brown, his firm will develop the land.

The firm's development plans stirred contention among neighbors, some of whom eventually persuaded state lawmakers to fund a Department of Transportation study on the traffic impact of opening the stop. The $55,000 analysis, completed in February 2014, said that immediately opening the station might not make traffic conditions worse, but it recommends another lane be added on Zia Road.

Santa Fe Reporter