7/23/09
Hardly two months into road work within city limits on a highway construction project from Pojoaque to Española, construction-related traffic in Española is starting to pinch businesses.
The state Highway Department broke ground in mid-May on the northernmost segment of the $68 million project, along Riverside Drive from the Cottonwood RV park to the intersection at Santa Clara Bridge Road. Construction is scheduled to continue through mid-2010 (see sidebar on page A13).
“It sure is (affecting us),” John Martinez, owner of Johnny’s Standard Auto Parts on Riverside Drive near the Santa Clara Bridge Road intersection, said. “As far as customers to come in and out of parking lot, it’s been a hassle, from what they’ve been telling me. And even for our delivery drivers it’s been a little irritating, especially when traffic’s backed up.”
Construction has caused near-daily lane closures, and work on traffic lights has exacerbated traffic on at least two occasions.
Last week, traffic stretched south toward the Dreamcatcher Cinema and north to Big Rock Casino while Department workers re-timed a traffic light at the Santa Clara Bridge Road intersection. At the intersection at state roads 106 and 399, traffic slowed down about four hours Monday morning while workers re-wired the traffic light.
Department spokeswoman Karyn Lujan said she understands construction always “makes people mad,” but pointed out new medians and other upgrades (see sidebar) will improve traffic within the city once the project is complete next summer.
Lujan said lane closures within city limits will continue through November or December, depending on winter weather. Construction will halt through the winter, and though the project will “look like it’s finished,” contractors will return to complete one last round of temperature-sensitive paving in the spring, she said.
But some business owners can’t wait that long. Dropping business due to construction dealt a death blow to the Oasis CyberCafé, which will close July 24 unless a someone buys the business before then, owner and SUN Managing Editor R. Braiden Trapp said.
Business at the café has decreased by $50 a day since construction started, Trapp said.
“The construction was like the icing on the cake, like the last nail on the coffin,” he said. “It came at a bad time. Every little bit hurts — first it was the gas prices, then it was the economy, now it’s the construction that’s not letting us bounce back.”
Next door, Monte Sol Insurance owner Robert Chavez said construction hasn’t perceptibly hurt his business yet, but he worries that eventually it will.
“So far it hasn’t kept customers from coming in, but I have heard complaints,” he said. “They’re saying it’s a delay for them, especially if they’re coming from the Santa Fe direction in the afternoon, when the traffic gets down to a crawling speed or standstill. I don’t want it to get to the point where it’s impossible to get in and (my customers) end up going to another agency up the road.”
Others’ concerns lie beyond temporary traffic problems.
Trapp pointed out if his business were to survive the road work, the raised medians Department contractors are installing would continue putting a dent on Oasis’ customer traffic.
The café is just north of a new stoplight planned at Upper San Pedro Road, which would force the café’s northbound customers to turn around and then backtrack from the next available turn-off in front of Zia Credit Union on Riverside Drive.
Motel 6 faces the same problem. A turn-off planned almost directly across from the motel would service the neighboring Sonic restaurant and Days Inn, but not the Motel 6. That could mean an inconvenience for southbound customers, who comprise 60 percent of the motel’s business, assistant manager Sanchin Bhakta said.
“Semi-trailers will have to go all the way to Dreamcatcher to turn around and access Motel 6,” he said. “It’s ironic. The stimulus project is supposed to create jobs, and that’s great. But it’s going to hurt business if they put those medians in.”
Lujan said Department planners are still meeting with business owners to try to accommodate such concerns.