By Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
The City of Raton and Engineering Analytics presented to the public for the very first time the plans and details of the Sugarite Avenue reconstruction Project at City Hall Wednesday evening January 24, to a large group of citizens, mostly those who live along Sugarite Avenue.
Tyler Davis with Engineering Analytics went over the findings of a traffic study for the route detailing some of the problems they found including cracking and potholed pavement, busted, and heaving or missing sidewalks and damaged curbs and guard rail. The project will fix these issues and add a bike/walking path and median on the east bound lanes decreasing that to one lane and parking. The total cost of the “forward thinking project” as described by City Manager Scott Berry, will be $1,200,000 with NMDOT paying for 95% or 1,140,000 and the city matching the costs with $60,000.
The route is classified as a minor arterial route and over the last nine years has seen a decrease in traffic with most of the traffic going west bound into downtown. According to Karen Sterns of Engineering Analytics they looked at downsizing the road to one lane each direction with a turn lane in the middle or making the west bound lanes bidirectional but due to the larger amount of traffic handled by the west bound lanes those ideas were discarded.
Once the presentation was opened for questions and comments the residents of the area voiced their concerns for parking, speeding and the lack of enforcement for traffic laws in the area. Some residents noted that the parking on the street had subjected their vehicles to being hit. The traffic study noted 22 traffic accidents over the last five years in the area. It was noted that psycology studies showed that downsizing four lanes to two lane streets often saw a reduction in speeding and traffic accidents. As the discussion progressed residents’ objections to the project went on and finally ended with Robert Gonzales handing a petition to Berry with about 30 signatures from his neighbors voicing their objection to the project. Gonazles noted “they are going to push this down our throats like it or not.” The petition was created and signed before anyone had seen the project plans and details Wednesday night as this was the first time the presentation had been revealed to the public.
After many of the residents had left Sterns went over the detailed plans showing where the bike path would be placed with cutouts for driveway access and how the parking would be placed next to the driving lane. Sterns also noted this was a public information meeting and they wanted public input so that changes could be made if needed before going to bid on the project.
The link to the Drawings below are the detailed drawings for this project.
Link to the of the project Drawings_Sugarite_2023-01-25_Half Size
