Residents question safety of N.M. 502

Geraldine Lujan has a clear view of N.M. 502.

Traffic ebbs and flows past the windows of Ponce's Service Station, which is across the highway from Pojoaque Valley High School and is Lujan's longtime workplace.

By simply gazing out the station's windows at the solar-powered speed monitor along the highway, Lujan can see the speed of each car that passes.

"Most people go 55 (miles per hour)," the Nambé resident said. "But some cars go faster."

N.M. 502 has long been considered one of Northern New Mexico's more troublesome roads. The danger became especially palpable to the community of Pojoaque on Sept. 21, 2005, when Chris Montalvo, a Pojoaque Valley High School senior, died in a single-car accident while driving to school.

Partly in reaction to the tragedy, the New Mexico Department of Transportation named a 16-mile section of N.M. 502 a "safety corridor" on Nov. 15, 2005. The corridor stretches from the highway's junction with U.S. 84/285 to the Los Alamos turnoff, widely known as the "White Rock Y."

As a result of the safety-corridor designation, speeding fines on N.M. 502 doubled. Turn lanes were also added at the entrance to the high school.

Fifteen months later, have the measures made the road safer? The answer depends on whom you ask.

The Department of Transportation doesn't have official statistics because it just began compiling road-safety numbers for the corridor.

"The biggest indicator that we have is the number of complaints to our office," said Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano. Since the safety-corridor designation, he said, "The number of complaints we've been getting from that area has been reduced dramatically."

"I think people are paying attention because the cost (of speeding tickets) is so high," Solano said. "The people who we normally catch speeding on that road are commuters that drive it every day, so it sort of becomes ingrained that you have to go slow through that area."

However, some residents say the safety-corridor designation hasn't completely eliminated the highway's problems.

Desirae Lopez, a senior at Pojoaque Valley High School and part-time employee of the post office on N.M. 502, said she hasn't felt safer driving on the road since it became a safety corridor.

"There are still speeders," she said.

Police presence on the road has seemed to increase, however.

"There's a lot of police from (Pojoaque) Pueblo that are pulling people over," said Lujan, who drives N.M. 502 daily to and from work. "I never go over 55 (mph) because of that."

"We don't get out (to N.M. 502) every day, but we try to hit it as much as possible," said Capt. Manny Gutierrez, District 1 commander of the New Mexico State Police, which helps patrol the road.

Gutierrez said the highway has moved up in his department's priorities since it became a safety corridor.

However, Solano said some of N.M. 502's dangerous characteristics are beyond the control of law enforcement.

"Most school zones are in more residential areas," Solano said. "Having (Pojoaque Valley) High School there, where people are having to make a left turn to get to school, combined with commuters who are in a hurry to get to work makes it dangerous.

"There's also a high chance of head-on collisions as you head toward Los Alamos. I think we need to look into putting concrete dividers all the way up the hill."

Contact Jon Sward at 428-7650 or jsward@sfnewmexican.com.