Drivers coming in and out of Española can prepare themselves for at least a year of dodging orange barrels and squeezing by closed lanes.
The state Highway Department is moving ahead on new phases of a $68 million reconstruction project that will rebuild lanes and intersections, add raised medians and build frontage roads on Highway 84/285 between Pojoaque and Española. Construction on the highway’s intersection with State Roads 106 and 399 will intensify over the next month, and construction started Monday within city limits from that intersection to Santa Clara Bridge Road.
The first segment of the project, which includes rebuilding the intersection of the highway with State Roads 106 and 399, broke ground in December but had caused few traffic disruptions because construction had so far been limited mostly building frontage roads, far from the highway right-of-way, Department spokeswoman Karyn Lujan said.
“Now that they’re getting closer to the highway and that intersection, you’re going to have lane closures there,” Lujan said.
The two northbound highway lanes will be closed within two to three weeks. For the following two to three months, southbound traffic will be shifted to the shoulder and northbound traffic will be detoured onto southbound lanes. After that, southbound lanes will be closed for several months and southbound traffic will shift onto northbound lanes. Two lanes will remain open in each direction at all times, Lujan said.
That first phase is on schedule to be finished in November, Lujan said. Once completed, the intersection will have been realigned and shifted several hundred feet south, and drivers will use frontage roads to get to and from the highway and State roads 106 and 399, according to Department plans.
The next segment, from the Cottonwood RV Park in Española north to Santa Clara Bridge Road, is now underway, and will take about a year to complete.
Construction on that segment will include repaving this segment of the highway (which is also known as South Riverside Drive), installing new sidewalks and drains, rebuilding the raised median that runs between south and northbound lanes starting at the Dreamcatcher Cinema and stopping short of the Days Inn, and extending that raised median north to the intersection of Riverside Drive and Santa Clara Bridge road. Turn lanes will be added or remain at: Black Mesa Salon, Western Holiday Inn, Red Hawk Court, Española Eagles, Oasis Cafe, Zia Credit Union, Henry Gallegos Motors, Valley Superette and Dandy Burger.
One lane in each direction is currently closed between the Dreamcatcher and the Days Inn. Blue signs along the closed lanes signal where drivers can turn into roadside businesses. The closures come just as summer — and the busy tourism season — arrives for the year.
Although Star Paving’s $7.99 million contract calls for that segment to be finished within 180 days, paving will be halted during the winter, extending its finish date to June 2010, Lujan said. That project will involve closing lanes along the highway — including South Riverside Drive — between the Dreamcatcher and the bridge, except during peak hours from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Lujan said.
Slated to start construction in late June is a third segment starting at Santa Clara Pueblo’s southern boundary, just south of the Dreamcatcher, and extending to just south of Santa Fe County Road 88. Northern Mountain Constructors’ $8.52 million contract is also for 180 days, but will likely be finished in September 2010, Lujan said.
That project will create a raised median between north and southbound lanes, which means drivers will no longer be able to make U-turns from the highway. Drivers wanting to change directions will have to use planned two-way frontage roads along that section or either of two new intersections at Boneyard Road and Camino Arroyo Seco, Lujan said.
The project is being paid for by state transportation bonds under the Governor Richardson Investment Partnership program. Those bonds are then repaid with both federal and state funds, Department spokesman S.U. Mahesh said.
The two segments to the north and south of the Dreamcatcher are funded entirely with federal stimulus funds.
Two subsequent phases — one from La Puebla Road to milepost 183 at the Pojoaque Pueblo boundary and another for an interchange at that milepost — will be bid out this summer, spokesman S.U. Mahesh said.